Park City and Covid-19

Like other major ski resorts in the United States, Park City has seen records number of visitors coming from all over the country and the planet, in the early months of 2020, until the ski area operations came to a screeching halt on the morning of March 15.

That happy mixture of skiers did a great job at spreading the virus into our community. In fact that Covid-19 began as a “jet-setter” malediction, mostly carried by wealthy individuals who did business or had contact in Asia or Europe and had enough financial wherewithal to come visit and ski with us.

Summit County where Park City is located, just issued a “Stay At Home Order” to all its residents requiring all of us to stay at home and cease non-essential travel and operations until at least May 1. This Order goes into effect today, and applies to non-essential businesses, services, and visitors in addition to residents.

This decision was not made lightly but is in the best interest of public health in Summit County,” Summit County Health Director, Dr. Rich Bullough, said. “When you look at the data, Summit County is a hot-spot for C-19 statewide, nationally and globally.

At this time, Summit County has 20-times the number of cases per capita as Salt Lake County. Our cases per capita rival those of the worst areas of New York City and many parts of Italy.”

That might sound a little bit of a stretch but since most of the 100 coronavirus cases in the County happen in the greater Park City area with a population of 28,000 people, it’s worth paying attention to it!