But manager Jim Morrison canât say why, exactly.
âOf course our business is down,â he told the News&Guide. âItâs just too difficult to say how much is purely affidavit driven, COVID driven, or snow driven. Itâs pretty evident that people are willing to risk traveling in COVID environments, even at a high risk level.â
Why hotels in the Roaring Fork Valley are seeing so much less traffic than those in resort towns like Jackson Hole is a central question in an ongoing debate in Pitkin County. Health officials there have reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic in two ways that health officials in Teton County have not: by requiring visitors to fill out a form confirming theyâve tested negative before arriving in Aspen and shutting down indoor dining when cases peaked in early January.
Water quality, transportation, and diversity, equity and inclusion will be three of the top priorities of the Teton County Board of County Commissioners in 2022.
Amid the hustle and bustle of a Tuesday morning vaccination clinic in late December, Tom Ferris, a 25-year veteran of Jackson Hole Mountain Resortâs ski patrol, became one of the first few thousand people in Teton County to get a vaccine against COVID-19.
âI know I speak for all of us: We feel fortunate to be on the list,â the 61-year-old said shortly after getting his first jab. âIâm just hopeful that it becomes available for everybody soon.â
This week and next, ski patrollers and Teton County Search and Rescue volunteers who accepted their first vaccine dose are getting their booster shot. Thatâs intended to augment the immune response the first dose created, bringing inoculations up to full efficacy.
Health officials were not surprised to learn the new, fast-spreading coronavirus variant first discovered in the United Kingdom had been detected in Teton County.
Teton County residents who are 80 or older will soon be able to get in a queue to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, though shots for that population wonât be administered for some time.
Rachael Wheeler, public health response coordinator for the Teton County Health Department, told the Jackson Hole Daily that the county has the go-ahead to move into the next phase of vaccination. Once the department moves through two higher-tier, employment-based priority subgroups â first responders not vaccinated in the first round, and then funeral home workers â it will move on to older folks, starting with those age 80 and up, and, once that group receives its first dose of the vaccine, to those 70 and older.