Garfield County COVID-19 community update

COMMUNITY NOTICE
February 9, 2022

As of February 4, 10.16 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been given worldwide. More than 61 percent of the world’s population has received two doses.

Garfield County continues to see a decline in overall COVID cases. Daily cases have decreased from a height of 293 cases mid-January, to 50 cases per day. There are seven current COVID outbreaks within congregate housing sites in the county. Sixteen people were hospitalized from Jan. 28 – Feb. 4. The majority of those hospitalized continue to be unvaccinated. Of the vaccinated that became hospitalized, all had major underlying health conditions and had not received a third vaccine dose.

Vaccine update for ages 6 months to 4 years
The CDC announced that a vaccine for ages six months to four years is expected within the first quarter of 2022. Once CDC receives approvals, special pediatric dose vaccine will need to be distributed to local medical providers. Garfield County Public Health will announce when vaccines have arrived, and parents are able to make appointments.

Evaluation of safety and efficacy of 5 to 11-year-old Pfizer vaccine
The CDC and other outlets have been monitoring the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine for those age 5 to 11. Read the full publication from Johns Hopkins, Bloomberg School of Public Health. Among the findings:

• Out of 8.1 million children vaccinated, there were only 11 verified cases of myocarditis, all of which were resolved. That represents approximately 0.00013 percent. The risk of myocarditis in unvaccinated people who contract COVID-19 is significantly higher, at approximately 5 percent.
• There was no data suggesting any deaths were caused by vaccination.
• Of 42,504 children whose parents enrolled them in v-safe, a voluntary text-message system that sends basic health questionnaires following vaccination, 1 percent sought medical care in the week following vaccination. The system recorded information in connection with hospitalization for only 5 children, all with conditions unrelated to the vaccine, such as appendicitis, respiratory infection, and strep.
• Pfizer’s vaccine translated to a 91 percent reduction in the likelihood of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a rare but serious complication in children.
• 95 percent of children hospitalized with MIS-C were unvaccinated.
• 39 percent of all hospitalized MIS-C patients require life support. One hundred percent of critically ill patients needing life support were unvaccinated.

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