Greetings from our home offices! As promised here is our bi-monthly update, or more frequently if the news warrants. As we start 2021, not much has changed since our last meeting in December.
Today is the 1st anniversary of the first to be identified U.S. case of COVID-19. What a year it has been. As most of you know from watching and reading the news, the vaccine rollout has made some serious headway but also hit some other headwinds. At current pace, we will be well in to 2022 before everyone is vaccinated. Perhaps more important to our mission at HARC is when can we expect to reach herd immunity from a combination of vaccination and viral spread? A month ago, it looked like June/July was a reasonable time for this to occur. As of today, all bets are off. We think by April we will know a lot more as the new administration tries to catch up and get ahead of the virus.
News about the new variants are troubling, but early studies show the vaccines seems just as effective with these new variants. But the rate of spread form these new variants means a lot more people may get COVID before we are done.
Due to shifts in personal schedules, we have received three resignations from Dr. Peter Podore, Paul Finkel and Howard Carver. However, we have added three new members to our Community Advisory Committee. They are listed below.
Elizabeth Lawrence, Summit County Commissioner
David Twillmann, Director of Copper Resort Ski Clinic Emergency, SASMC Emergency Department Medicine Nurse and Wilderness expert specializing in high altitude.
Brent Hart, Retired international agriculture businessman and outdoor enthusiast.
We have not adjusted our HARC Healthy Summit timeline yet. We think we are on the right track. Patience and perseverance will get us to the point where we think we can manage the future two or three months ahead. And adjusting the timeline with every new news story would exhaust us all, so stay tuned for more news as the story develops. We remain confident that 2021 will see major progress for HARC Healthy Summit. Our next meeting is March 9th from 4 – 5 PM via zoom. Thank you for your time and consideration.