Hilltoppers,
The spread of COVID in Mesa County has exploded over the past two weeks, providing multiple challenges to Hilltop as an organization, you as individuals, and for the entire community. To put it into perspective, since March when Mesa County received its first positive case, we have had a total of 2,914 positive cases, 50% have been in the past two weeks! In addition, the past two weeks account for 62% of our hospitalizations and 75% of our county’s deaths! The numbers we feared at the beginning of the pandemic are now occurring.
This level of community spread is dramatically affecting our workforce. Our Hilltop screening team review 10-20 cases of potential exposures nightly. Due to these high risk exposures, Hilltop currently has more than 50 employees out and required to quarantine, and this number continues to rise. Clearly, this puts significant strain on co-workers trying to provide the best services we can to our clients.
The top four known categories for exposure are: contact with family members, congregate care settings, place of employment, and individuals attending private gatherings. I feel good that at Hilltop we are greatly reducing the chance of transmission in our congregate care facilities and your place of employment. We need to remain vigilant of our mask usage, distancing from others, and cleaning.
We also need to step up our vigilance outside of work. Protect yourself, your family, and your co-workers. As schools are heading back to remote learning and businesses are being restricted, let us all do our part in keeping our community open by decreasing the spread of COVID.
Together, we got this.
Mike
