Spenser Heaps, Deseret News
SALT LAKE CITY A bill to lay out the “endgame” for the COVID-19 pandemic in Utah is headed to the full Utah House of Representatives.
Rep. Paul Ray’s HB294 won endorsement from the House Government Operations Committee on a 7-3 vote on Monday, despite concerns from health officials including the state’s own Utah Department of Health.
“What we’re looking towards is the endgame,” Ray, R-Clearfield, said. “How do we get out of the pandemic? How do we declare these things are over?”
Ray is running HB294 to lay out those guidelines for when the state of Utah’s COVID-19 restrictions including mask mandates, business restrictions and social distancing requirements end.
But supporters say it will streamline services for those most in need.
HB365 would start the process to join the two agencies into a Department of Health and Human Services in July 2022. The agencies would form a merger plan to present to the Legislature by December.
Bill sponsor Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, said the move is needed because there s a lot of redundancy in the way we do things here. We feel that the best way to be more efficient and effective as we deliver services to the public is to combine these two agencies together and try to break down the silos and get the communication going so people aren t going to two, three, four different places to get services, Ray told members of the House Health and Human Services Committee on Thursday.
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SALT LAKE CITY Minorities are one of the hardest-hit populations during the pandemic, and that is why a Utah group is building trust with them through an online information campaign.
There was certainly a lot to celebrate this week as health care workers across Utah started getting the first vaccinations. But there is a lingering wariness in minority communities. There s a lot of mistrust, just from past experiences, said Oreta Tupola, who works with community health workers through the Utah Public Health Association. There s so much information that s out there that you know, people are doing their own research and then there s this belief that it s a political thing it s not real.