New health orders

Alexis Barker
NLJ News Editor
 
Because of the increase of COVID-19 cases statewide and region wide, Gov. Mark Gordon released new COVID-19 guidelines for the first time in months. The new guidelines will go into affect Nov. 24. 
The guidelines further restrict the number of people who can attend a gathering. These stricter limitations restrict gatherings to 25 people, without social distancing guidelines in place. 
If social distancing guidelines are followed, indoor events can have up to 25% of the maximum occupancy with a maximum of 100 people. Outdoor events on the other hand are allowed to have up to 50% of occupation capacity with a maximum of 250 people in attendance. 
Unlike other governors across the country, Gordon has not yet implemented a statewide mask mandate, leaving it up to county officials. 
At this time, Weston County has no mask mandate and there have been no public conversations with local government officials about implementing one. In fact, the Weston County commissioners have continued to support a county wide variance that would remove all COVID-19 regulations, although the state has not approved any of the submitted variances. 
As of Monday, Nov. 23, Weston County has had 309 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 63 probable
cases, according to the Wyoming Department of Health. Currently, 149 of those cases are active and 202 have recovered. 
Per capita, Weston County is seeing one of the highest COVID-19 rates in the state with 4,461 cases per 100,000. A total of 2,884 tests have been performed on county residents with 5.58% of those tests resulting in a positive case, according to the department’s website. 
Statewide, 361,668 tests have been performed with 6.8% of those tests coming back positive. Wyoming is currently reporting 24,309 laboratory-confirmed cases, 3,860 probable cases and 176 deaths related to the disease.