Dr. Rachel LaCount grasped a metal hoop at a playground and spun in circles with her 7-year-old son, turning the distant mesas of …
Dr. Rachel LaCount grasped a metal hoop at a playground and spun in circles with her 7-year-old son, turning the distant mesas of the Colorado National Monument into a red-tinged blur. LaCount has lived in Grand Junction, Colo., a city of 64,000, nearly her whole life. As a hospital pathologist, she knows better than most that her hometown has become one of the nation’s top breeding grounds for the delta variant of COVID-19. „The delta variant’s super scary,“ LaCount said. That highly transmissible variant, first detected in India, is now the dominant COVID-19 strain in the United States. Colorado is among the top states with the highest proportion of the delta variant, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mesa County has the most delta variant cases of any county in Colorado, state health officials report, making the area a hot spot within a hot spot. A CDC team and the state’s epidemiologist traveled to Grand Junction to investigate how and why cases of the variant were moving so quickly in Mesa County. At her hospital, LaCount has put in orders for more rapid COVID tests as the caseload has grown. She’s seen the intensive care unit start filling up with COVID patients, so that hospital officials are placing two in a room against normal practices. Despite these alarming signs, it appears many in Mesa County have let down their guard. The rate of eligible residents fully vaccinated has stalled at about 42%. LaCount has noticed that few people wear masks anymore at the grocery store. Thousands of people recently flocked to Mack,20 miles from Grand Junction, to attend the Country Jam music festival, which could accelerate the variant’s spread to the concertgoers‘ hometowns. „We’re making national news for our COVID variant and the CDC is here investigating, but we have a huge festival where people aren’t masking,“ said LaCount. „Are we going to get herd immunity over here just because everyone’s going to get it? I mean, that’s probably going to happen at some point, but at what cost?“ LaCount’s worries aren’t necessarily for herself or her spouse — they are both vaccinated — but for their son, who can’t be vaccinated because he is under 12. She is uneasy about sending him to school in the fall for fear of exposure to the variant. She is reluctant to take him to birthday parties this summer knowing there’s a good likelihood he’ll be teased for wearing a mask. A few yards away from LaCount and her son on the playground, a man fished in a still pond with his 10-month-old daughter in a backpack. Garrett Whiting, who works in construction, said he believes COVID is still being „blown out of proportion,“ especially by the news media. „They got everybody scared really, really fast,“ said Whiting, slowly reeling in a sparkly blue lure from the water. „There’s no reason to stop living your life just because you’re scared of something.“ Whiting tested positive for COVID about three months earlier. He said he doesn’t plan to get vaccinated, nor does his wife. As for the baby on his back, he said he’s not sure whether they’ll have her vaccinated when regulators approve the shot for young children.
