Utah
Utah student vaccine waivers rose for the first time in 3 years. Is it a trend or a one-off?
Marilyn Gertsch prepares a COVID-19 vaccine at Mount Jordan Center College in Sandy on March 11, 2021. Utah noticed a rise in class vaccine waivers for kindergartners final 12 months for the primary time in three years. Why this occurred and if it should proceed to occur is much less clear. (Annie Barker, Deseret Information)
Estimated learn time: 3-4 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah skilled a rise in class vaccine waivers for kindergartners beginning public faculty final 12 months for the primary time in three faculty years.
“We must always acknowledge that there was a marked enhance in kindergarten vaccine exemptions and a drop in acceptable vaccine protection for kindergartens in our state,” stated Wealthy Lakin, director of immunizations for the Utah Division of Well being and Human Providers.
Whereas it has gone up, Lakin stated it hasn’t risen by an “alarming” quantity.
In keeping with information obtained by KSL.com, the state common for vaccine exemptions over the past 5 faculty years was round 5.3%. Throughout the 2021-22 faculty 12 months, this rose to five.9% — a 0.6 share level enhance from the common.
“A half a p.c is actually not one thing that is alarming,” Lakin stated.
Moreover, he stated it is essential to keep in mind that many colleges — particularly ones in rural areas — have a small variety of whole kindergarten college students enrolled.
“If there’s only one or two exemptions that enhance, that would present a big share (enhance),” Lakin stated. “We’ve to be very cautious after we analyze that information.”
Even with all this into account, vaccine exemptions nonetheless rose in all 13 of Utah’s well being districts.
Why?
We’d have to attend till the 2022-23 vaccine waiver information is launched to get a greater understanding, Lakin stated.
“2021 faculty years have been irregular in a number of methods, and this time could also be mirrored within the faculty vaccine exemption information that we obtained,” he stated.
Lakin famous that with fewer college students in lecture rooms, mother and father could have been much less more likely to search vaccine exemptions, probably resulting in the uptick in exemptions that occurred when college students returned to high school.
“I feel the 2022 faculty 12 months will, hopefully, give us some higher information since we’re form of again to a traditional faculty 12 months in what we’re seeing in our exemptions,” Lakin stated. “That can most likely assist us look and see if, throughout the pandemic, it was extra of a disturbance within the exemptions than a attainable pattern.”
Each faculty in Utah is required to report its exemption information to the Utah Division of Well being and Human Providers. The info takes a while to kind by way of and arrange and the most recent information from the 2022-23 faculty 12 months most likely will not be prepared till January or February.
If vaccine exemptions proceed to climb after a extra prolonged return to normalcy, “then we all know we have got one thing, that perhaps mother and father are trying on the (vaccine) misinformation that is on the market and adhering to that greater than credible sources,” Lakin stated.
Vaccine exemptions persevering with to climb may additionally carry easy, but unwelcome, penalties.
“Then we simply have extra outbreaks of measles and mumps,” he stated. “Ten years in the past, we rarely noticed any measles or mumps outbreaks and then you definately noticed the outbreak in Disneyland, you noticed outbreaks of measles and mump instances in Utah.”
“There is a shut correlation to the quantity of individuals which might be vaccinated and the unfold of vaccine-preventable illnesses. In case you have increased exemptions, you are going to have extra instances of vaccine-preventable illnesses,” Lakin stated.
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Utah
Utah family creates 'Giving Gallery' to spread joy of art
COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS, Utah — You might have heard of little libraries in neighborhoods, but have you heard of Giving Galleries?
A family in Cottonwood Heights is using their love for art to bring joy to those around them.
On the corner of Promenade and Camino is Abigail Bradshaw.
“I’m standing next to an art gallery, my art gallery. That’s my house,” she proudly said.
Abigail is showing her tiny art gallery filled with pieces made by her family and others who want to contribute. This home used to be her great-grandmother’s.
“She was an artist, and so, I wanted to continue that legacy,” said Katie Bradshaw, Abigail’s mom. They found a box, painted it, propped it up, and filled it with tiny art. Anyone can just look at the art, pick up something they like, or put their own piece inside.
Miles Jacobsen is a friend who saw what the Bradshaws were doing and added his artwork to the box.
For people who want to make their own masterpieces, there is also a box of free art supplies in the gallery box. You can come by to pick up paint, paintbrushes, and tiny canvasses to create your own art, which you can drop off at the “giving gallery” to bring joy to someone else.
“I feel really glad that people come and get some art and put it in there,” said Abigail.
Filling the box is something Katie does with her kids.
“I hope that they can carry this with them, that they continue sharing art, no matter where they are,” she said.
Spreading joy to everyone who walks by, and letting the cycle continue.
“I want them to feel happy and glad that they got some, so they could return some back here,” added Abigail.
Utah
Amid traffic, Utah walked to Leafs’ arena pregame
TORONTO — The Utah Hockey Club said players were forced to walk to their game against the Maple Leafs after their bus got stuck in Toronto traffic Sunday night.
The team posted a video on social media of team members walking to Scotiabank Arena, with player Maveric Lamoureux saying the bus was “not moving at all.”
Several city streets had been closed during the day for an annual Santa Claus parade.
The Maple Leafs earned their fourth consecutive win by defeating Utah 3-2.
The viral incident prompted Ontario Premier Doug Ford to call the congestion “embarrassing” and “unacceptable,” highlighting his government’s plan to address the city’s gridlock through bike lane legislation.
It wasn’t the first time a Toronto visitor had to ditch their vehicle to make it to an event on time.
In June, former One Direction band member Niall Horan had to walk through traffic to get to his concert at Scotiabank Arena.
Utah
Utah Highway Patrol responds to your suggestions on making Utah roads safer
SALT LAKE CITY — FOX 13 News is Driven to Change and that includes bringing you reports on important topics like road rage, construction, and wrong-way drivers. During our coverage, we continually ask for any questions or concerns you may have along Utah’s roadways.
The feedback has gotten an enormous response, so FOX 13 sat down with Lieutenant Cameron Roden on Good Day Utah to help address input we have been getting, from the perspective of Utah Highway Patrol.
Speeding in Utah, there’s so much of it, and then you can sometimes say that that leads to tailgating, which may lead to road rage incidents. What are you seeing out there in terms of speed and what can we do to lessen the effects of that?
Lt. Cameron Roden: Speed is our number one thing that we see. That’s our number one traffic stop that we make, and we know that it leads to the majority of crashes in the state of Utah. So we definitely put an emphasis on speed and it does lead to other things. Not just crashes. It leads to road rage and other things .So, as far as what changes can we make, we need to start with ourselves, and really say, ‘Hey, do I have a problem?’ You know, we just need to start with ourselves and not think that it’s something else’s problem. If we slow our speeds ourselves, and then it’ll start to to catch on and people will do that speed limit. So, but the legislature has definitely taken some steps to help us address, especially the the speeds that are those excessive speeds where we have that one zero five law now that addresses those speeds and increases fines and and hopefully discourages people from those extreme speeds.
Some of our viewers talked about maybe capping some of the speed limits for truck drivers. Is that something that’s even feasible?
You know, that would be something that would have to go through that, that legislative process to see whether we that would be something that would help. But ultimately, if we we start with ourselves, hopefully that will make that change and reduce crashes and fatalities.
There are things being done to try and intervene and stop wrong-way drivers before they happen. But some of our viewers propose things like spikes. What are your thoughts on implementing something like that?
We’ve had over the last several years, a rash of wrong-way drivers, and it’ll come in onesie twos, and then we’ll go for a period of time without that. And so, but this spike over the last couple of years has caused us to to create a task force to look at wrongly driving what things can be done. And so getting all these stakeholders together between UDOT and Highway Safety, looking at what technologies and things that could be implemented, and and things like, wrong way detection cameras. Those are some things that are being actually used in the state of Utah right now to help us spot those and and advance signage, getting people to realize they’re going the wrong way and turn around. The the spike strips have actually been talked about in our task force a little bit. And if something like that would even be, it is that technology available right now. And as what we could actually implement in the state of Utah, there’s nothing that really fits the bill right now because of our environment. We have our snow plows. We have snow and things like that. Something like that really wouldn’t be practical right now.
Probably the most talked about topic that we’ve received was distracted driving, texting while driving. You went out, I saw on the UHP social media page, that you guys just driving and you look to your right and left and you can find someone texting. What kind of enforcement do we have against distracted driving specifically on your phone?
This is something that we like you said, we see it every day. We go out to crashes,and and we may suspect that a driver may be distracted. And so, it’s something that’s definitely under-reported. It’s it’s a bigger problem than than the numbers really show.And so not only do we address it during our normal patrols.Our officers are seeing it, and addressing it while they’re out there.But we’ll also do targeted patrols where the highway safety office actually gives out additional funds for that targeted enforcement, where we’ll get an unmarked vehicle. We go out driving down the roads where we try to spot these vehicles and and get them stopped because those are those are a big danger on our roadways where our attention and our focus needs to be on driving.
If you have ideas or suggestions for how to make Utah’s roadways safer click here to be taken to our Driven to Change form. There you can share your ideas or suggestions.
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Share your ideas on how to make Utah’s roads safer
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