Photo courtesy of the Southeast Utah Health Department
During the Southeast Utah Health Department (SEUHD) board meeting that took place virtually on Tuesday evening, Chet Ingram took some time to introduce himself and speak on his work with the health department.
Ingram started with the SEUHD in June of 2019 and on March 6, 2020, he took the position of Director of Emergency Preparedness. Ingram stated that he worked in the medical field in the operating room for 14 years before coming to the health department.
In the past year, Ingram has joined others at the health department to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, which included hosting vaccine clinics. So far, there have been around 125 clinics to vaccinate people that have gone really well, according to Ingram.
Eric Anderson started on July 15, 2020 and is the Emergency Preparedness Planner, assisting Ingram in a myriad of ways, such as overseeing the hospital coalition side of operation. Ingram stated that the coalition has grown immensely due to the response with COVID-19, which was needed.
“He has done a fabulous job as an integral part of the response,” stated SEUHD’s Brady Bradford about Ingram.
Bradford then stated that the availability has opened up a lot for vaccines. Throughout the summer, there are plans to host special event clinics that will go alongside the regular office clinics. However, Bradford said they will be picky about those, because they have not had a right rate of return for the hours dedicated to make the clinics successful. He stressed that that was not a deciding factor, but a contributing one. According to Bradford, the SEUHD will be laser-focused on what will be effective.
It was also reported that Grand County went through a five-week surge where they had case rates of over 1,000 active cases per 100,000 people. The cases have been more than cut in half and cases per day have gone down to 1-3, which is more of the anticipated range.