The health-care worker’s roommate, an employee at the Wyoming Behavioral Institute — home to one of the largest clusters of cases in Wyoming — had tested positive for the virus last Friday. So, because of evident exposure, the unidentified health-care worker then sought a covid-19 test on that same day.

AD

But despite a self-quarantine recommendation, the worker decided to go to a party on Friday night, Freel said. On Saturday, the worker went to another party.

AD

And finally, on Monday, Freel said the health-care worker got the test results back: positive for coronavirus.

Public health officials were left scrambling to locate all the partygoers to get them in isolation as quickly as possible, Freel said. He did not say how many attendees were exposed, or if they have been tested yet, but rebuked the worker and all of the party attendees for putting the community at risk.

“We’ve been preaching this for the last how many weeks now, that you have got to take this seriously,” Freel said at the Wednesday news conference. “And for people who say it’s not a serious thing, ask the people who just attended that party and tell me how serious it is now.”

The situation is an example of the difficulties some Wyoming officials are having enforcing social distancing guidelines in a state with the lowest amount of confirmed coronavirus cases in the nation — just under 300 as of early Friday. Wyoming, the country’s least populated state, became the last to report a coronavirus death, with its first on Monday and its second on Wednesday. Like in several other states, a group of protesters showed up at the state capitol building Wednesday to demand that Gov. Mark Gordon (R) release a plan to reopen the economy, believing the covid-19 curve had been sufficiently flattened, as the Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported.

AD

AD

But Gordon said this week that it was too soon to lift restrictions. Since Wyoming was late to the outbreak compared to other states, he said, it will probably be late to its peak, too.

“If we ease up and fail to adhere to the guidance currently in place, if we think that this will turn off like a switch, we may not be ready to relax any restrictions,” he said. “If anyone thinks that simply easing restrictions currently in place will lead to an immediate return to normal, they need to think again."

The spread of the novel coronavirus in Wyoming has been slow, making the state vulnerable to vacationers trying to escape the virus. Rich people with private jets have been flying into Jackson Hole, located in the valley of two majestic mountain ranges near the Idaho border, to hide away as the virus takes its course, the New York Times recently reported. Law enforcement in Johnson and Park counties told the Tribune Eagle that they had been noticing an unusual amount of out-of-state traffic that typically doesn’t show itself this time of year.

AD

AD

“There’s definitely nonresident traffic that we’ve not had before, not this time of year,” Johnson County Sheriff Rod Odenbach told the paper, which called the crowd “coronavirus refugees.” “You’re used to seeing those people, but not in April. The snow’s not even off the mountain yet.”

In Natrona County, Mark Dowell, the county’s health officer, said Wednesday that the low number of statewide and county cases is likely deceiving, warning that it may be “easy to think it’s not that big a deal when it hasn’t destroyed your community.” But signs of community transmission are growing, as officials monitor at least three large clusters of coronavirus cases statewide.

“We have not flattened any curve at all,” Dowell said.

AD

One cluster is linked to the Wyoming Behavioral Institute — where the health-care worker’s roommate was employed. Of the 37 cases in Natrona County, at least 22 are linked to the psychiatric hospital, a caseload that now includes staff, patients and residents not affiliated with the hospital, the Star-Tribune reported.

AD

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention visited the hospital this week as part of its efforts to help Wyoming keep its caseload down low, the paper reported, citing a news release from Mike Phillips, the hospital’s CEO.

Phillips said the CDC reviewed and approved the steps the hospital has taken to stop the spread of the virus. New patients are quarantined for 72 hours, and all are screened for symptoms twice a day, along with anyone entering the building. The hospital stopped allowing visitors in mid-March.

AD

Dowell applauded the hospital’s efforts on Wednesday during his briefing, saying they were doing a good job “containing a problem that is not their fault but is very tricky.”

Freel said he hoped people who still weren’t taking the pandemic seriously in the area would look at the WBI outbreak and see what happened when just one person decided to ignore social distancing guidelines.