Vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine wait to be filled into syringes during a vaccination clinic at Vail Health Hospital in March. There are more “breakthrough” cases of COVID-19 among the vaccinated due to the delta variant of the virus. Health officials say getting the vaccine to more unvaccinated people can help tamp down the outbreak.
Chris Dillmann/cdillmann@vaildaily.com
Here’s some unfortunate news: You can be vaccinated against COVID-19 and still contract the virus. Thanks, delta variant.
. Hospitalizations and deaths are also lower than they were a year ago.
Confirmed cases in Eagle County were nearly flat in late May and early June, but have slowed ticked up in July
Stronger together: How Eagle County s health care workers rose to the challenge of COVID-19 theunion.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theunion.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post
Eagle’s County’s first confirmed COVID-19 case arrived exactly 12 months ago on March 6, just one day after Colorado’s first case was discovered in neighboring Summit County.
But it’s clear that the virus was here and spreading much earlier than that, based on extensive interviews with health care workers and officials from Vail Health and Colorado Mountain Medical.
“We had COVID in this community in February. We had COVID all over the United States in February. We just didn’t have the ability to identify it,” said Chris Lindley, the chief population health officer for Vail Health who has spearheaded the hospital’s COVID-19 response since the start. “The testing was not in place until March to identify a case at all in the country, let alone in this valley. And so once we started looking for COVID in early March, we found it right away.”