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Show C-1 HAVE A COOL PHOTO? Share it to #parkcitypics or @parkrecord on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, and we’ll run the week’s best in print NATIONAL ABILITY CENTER CARVES INTO WINTER DESPITE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC LETTERS, A-8 COLUMNS, A-8 ‘INCREASED’ RUDENESS IS A PROBLEM OF PERCEPTION A PARKITE MASTERS THE ART OF PERSEVERANCE Park Record. The PA R K C I T Y, U TA H W W W. PA R K R E C O R D . C O M Wed/Thurs/Fri, December 16-18, 2020 Serving Summit County since 1880 Deer Valley hits capacity for holidays | Vol 140 | No. 91 $1.00 District loosens quarantine policy for close contacts Competitive drive New ‘streamlined’ protocol is aimed at keeping students in class, but it’s less strict than state and federal guidelines ALEXANDER CRAMER The Park Record plan for the long-debated Wohali development, a proposed gated second-home community on the city’s west side. It paves the way for 125 homes and 303 nightly rental units — including a lodge — built around 27 holes of golf nestled behind a ledge west of the core of the city. While it may be out of sight for most city residents, it certainly hasn’t been out of mind. The Park City School District this month loosened its quarantine protocols, its superintendent said, implementing a policy that is less strict than federal and state guidelines in a bid to keep more students in school. The change affects “close contacts” of students who contract the coronavirus. If a student tests positive for COVID-19, the student who sits at the desk next to them during class wouldn’t necessarily have to quarantine if both students wore masks for the entire time, Superintendent Jill Gildea indicated. Previously, the district required any close contact of a student who tested positive to quarantine for 14 days. The district continues to quarantine students when the school administrators investigating a case determine that the situation warrants it, like if the two students worked closely on a project or ate lunch together. They also take a student’s health situation into account, Gildea said. She said the new policy would keep more students in classrooms, one of the district’s central goals during the pandemic. “Access to the classroom/learning environment is a really important factor in student success,” Gildea wrote in an email to The Park Record. She also said “... (The quarantine protocol) moves less from blanket or widespread removal in the isolate/ mitigate strategy to a more targeted or streamlined approach to preventive quarantine.” In October, the number of quarantined students reached 451 on one day, some 15 per active case, according to district data. Gildea estimated that the new protocols would result in two to four students quarantining per positive case of COVID-19. It is unclear when the policy change occurred, and Gildea declined a request for more information. On Dec. 11, Gildea wrote in an email to The Park Record that the district was no longer automatically quarantining students who were in close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, as long as both people were wearing masks for the entire encounter. The district continues to investigate each case and notifies the parents of students who were in “close contact” with someone who tests positive for the novel coronavirus. The policy is a departure from the guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Utah Department of Health. The CDC defines a close contact as someone who was within 6 feet of a person with COVID-19 for 15 minutes. The federal agency recommends against differentiating between close contacts based on whether they’re wearing face coverings. State guidelines hew closely to federal ones, and Gildea said she anticipated state guidelines would soon change. She added that very few students who quarantine end up testing positive for COVID-19. A state health spokesperson did not have data about what percentage of quarantined students test positive for the disease. After a recent change in state guidelines, asymptomatic students who are quarantining may now receive a test on the seventh day after they were exposed to COVID-19 and return to Please see Wohali, A-2 Please see Policy, A-6 PARK RECORD FILE PHOTO Deer Valley Resort has further reduced the cap on skiers on any given day this season as a key measure designed to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The resort says it has sold out of advance lift tickets for the days around New Year’s and will not sell tickets on those days as well. Single-day ticket sales halted for key period as skier threshold hit JAY HAMBURGER The Park Record Deer Valley Resort no longer is selling lift tickets in advance for the days around New Year’s and will not sell the tickets on those days as well, a result of high demand at a time when restrictions designed to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus has reduced capacity even further from a typical year. Deer Valley daily lift tickets are sold out from Dec. 28 until Jan. 2. The resort said all the available daily lift tickets were purchased as of the end of the workday on Dec. 10. The Dec. 28-Jan. 2 stretch is normally one of the busiest periods of the ski season across the industry as people arrive in the days after Christmas and spend New Year’s on the slopes. Many will have a three-day weekend with Jan. 1 being a Friday in 2021, meaning a ski trip could be more convenient to schedule in late December and early January than if the holiday fell midweek. Deer Valley said the dates commonly sold out in previous years. The resort has long capped the number of skiers allowed on the slopes on any given day, a restriction on capacity that reduces crowds on the ski runs, in the lift lines and in the restaurants. The cap is further reduced during the 2020-2021 ski season as one of the key steps Deer Valley took as part of a package of measures influenced by the coronavirus. Deer Valley declines to disclose the capacity limit. The Please see Deer Valley, A-2 TANZI PROPST/PARK RECORD South Summit junior Ricky Perez takes the ball in for a layup during the Wildcats’ game against Park City on Saturday evening in Kamas. The Miners came out on top, scoring a 68-46 win in the rivalry matchup. For more photos from the game, see page B-10. Gated community clears major hurdle in Coalville Wohali development earns key City Council approval for long-disputed project ALEXANDER CRAMER The Park Record The Coalville City Council on Monday voted unanimously to approve a key preliminary Mask-less party reported in city Main Street attraction Case logged as worries continue about effect of COVID on ski season JAY HAMBURGER The Park Record The Park City Police Department on Sunday night received a complaint about a party at a house involving people who were reportedly not wearing masks and were not social distancing, a case that was logged amid the continuing spread of the novel coronavirus and at a crucial time for the community’s tourism industry. The police received the report at 11:30 p.m. on Deer Valley Loop, a street off Deer Valley Drive along the entryway to Snow Park. The police were told there were 40 people 2 sections • 20 pages Classifieds ..............................B-7 Editorial..................................A-9 Restaurant Guide....................B-5 Weather ..................................B-2 at the house. The person who contacted the Police Department indicated they had an understanding that a gathering like the one on Deer Valley Loop was prohibited under rules designed to curb the spread of the sickness. The person who contacted the police had already spoken to the people at the house and the issue had been resolved before the police arrived, according to Phil Kirk, a police captain. “That’s clearly noncompliance with the restrictions,” Kirk said about the details of the report. The Police Department earlier on Sunday also received another complaint about people without masks. The case was logged at 1:48 p.m. on Park Avenue in the vicinity of the Park City Library. Someone told the Police Department of bus riders not wearing masks. The police “need to be checking the buses because people are not wearing masks, it is illegal and she wants something done,” public police logs said. Summit County health officials enacted a sweeping health order that requires masks in numerous settings. The Police Department since the spring has received a series of complaints involving people not wearing masks or not practicing social distancing. The cases have been logged in various locations and settings, but they have appeared to taper off recently as more people opted to wear masks amid increasing coronavirus cases in the state and nationally. Leaders on the local and state levels in that period have urged people to wear masks and practice social distancing. Kirk said the Police Department Please see Party, A-2 TANZI PROPST/PARK RECORD Pedestrians on Saturday pass one of the nine snow globes the Historic Park City Alliance placed on Main Street for the holidays. The snow globes are part of the effort to attract visitors to the shopping, dining and entertainment strip. CORONAVIRUS TRACKER Summit County Utah Known cases: 2,643 Hospitalizations: 93 Deaths: 5 Known cases: 237,787 Hospitalizations: 9,585 Deaths: 1,077 Data as of Dec. 15, Source: Utah Department of Health |