SALT LAKE CITY – Utahns aged 65 and over will be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine next month, Governor Spencer Cox announced on Thursday.
On March 1, eligibility for the vaccine will be expanded to Utahns aged 65 and over. Utahns who have certain comorbidities – but not all comorbidities – will also be eligible for the vaccine beginning March 1, Cox said.
Weekly vaccine distribution in Utah could quadruple by March, if two other pharmaceutical companies can distribute their vaccines by then, Cox said. The state’s allocation is about 50,000 this week, a significant increase from 33,000 last week, according to Cox.
He stressed that this week is an important milestone on the Utah virus website: the total number of vaccine doses administered has exceeded the number of people who tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. There have already been 362,701 injections between the first and second doses of the vaccine, compared to 351,273 total cases of COVID-19 since the Utah pandemic began early last year.
“We are trying to be more viral than the virus, and this is happening,” said Cox.
All information on expanding eligibility is available at coronavirus.utah.gov/vaccine-distribution.
Cox emphasized that Thursday is just an announcement about expanding eligibility – these people will still not be able to make an appointment to receive the vaccine and should not contact the local health department, he added.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox, along with Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson and Utah Department of Health state epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn, provided an update on the COVID-19 pandemic at a news conference Thursday morning -market. Watch the replay of the event below.
Expansion of vaccine eligibility
Currently, all Utahns aged 70 and over are eligible to receive the vaccine. Some 84,000 people in that category have been vaccinated so far, which represents about 35% of that age group, Cox said.
The governor said he expects to take another two or three weeks to vaccinate the remaining people aged 70 and over who want the vaccine, which corresponds to a total of about 240,000 people.
The federal government recently increased Utah’s weekly vaccine allocation to about 40,000, and increased it again by about 5% this week, Cox said. In addition, the state government recovered thousands of doses from federal government partner pharmacies that were charged vaccinating employees and residents in long-term care facilities. Pharmacies had too much vaccine, so the state recovered some doses and redistributed them for use.
The federal government is also shipping additional equipment with each round of the Pfizer vaccine, so that vaccine administrators can extract a sixth dose from each vial of the vaccine, Cox said.
All of these changes meant that about 50,000 doses of the vaccine were delivered to Utah this week. Small increases in allocation are expected each week, Cox said.
“Each week, our numbers increase significantly, and this is the great job of our local health departments,” said Cox.
With new production promises from Pfizer and Moderna, which are currently manufacturing the vaccine, as well as vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, which have not yet been approved by federal regulators, Utah’s vaccine distribution could expand massively later this semester. said Cox.
That means Utah could potentially receive 150,000 to 200,000 doses in March or April, Cox said.
“(That) just changes the ball game for all of us,” he said.
Cox estimated that expanded eligibility will total an additional 400,000 people with access to the vaccine. If Utah’s allocation is increased to 150,000 or 200,000 by the first week of March, it would take several weeks to pass through that population, at which point the vaccine’s eligibility would be open to more populations, starting with the most at-risk and vulnerable people in the state, added the governor.
In addition, some Smith’s and Walmart pharmacies will start offering vaccination appointments from February 11, according to Lt. Governor Diedre Henderson. State leaders hope that if people already make an appointment with the local health department to get the vaccine, they will hold that appointment instead of making a new one at Smith’s or Walmart, Henderson said.
As the state prepares for a rapid expansion in vaccine distribution, a call for volunteers is expected in the coming weeks, Henderson said. People will be needed to assist with vaccine administration, as well as traffic management at vaccination centers and other tasks, she said.
There will likely be some difficulties with scheduling appointments for vaccines as the state expands the distribution, so Utahns are asked to be patient, Cox and Henderson said.
“We will do something incredible here, but it will not be easy,” said Henderson. “Please keep an eye out because we are going to need you.”
New COVID-19 cases
The number of COVID-19 cases in Utah increased by 1,273 on Thursday, with an additional 14 deaths reported, according to the Utah Department of Health. Three of those deaths occurred before January 14, but were still being investigated by the Utah medical examiner’s office.
The health department now estimates that there are 33,948 active cases of the disease in Utah. The average number of positive cases per day over seven days is now 1,264, according to the health department. The positive test rate per day for that period is now 16.5%.
Health department epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn pointed out on Thursday that seven-day averages have dropped since last week, as well as in recent weeks. It is promising to see those numbers drop, she added.
“We still have work to do, but we are in the right direction,” said Dunn.
Utahns are encouraged to continue wearing masks and distancing themselves socially, as variants of the COVID-19 virus are present in the state, she said.
There are 365 patients with COVID-19 currently hospitalized in Utah, including 125 in intensive care, state data show. About 76% of beds in the Utah intensive care unit are occupied on Thursday, including about 78% of the ICU beds in the state’s 16 referral hospitals. About 57% of hospital beds outside the ICU are also occupied, data from the health department show.
362,701 vaccines have already been administered in the state, compared to 345,179 on Wednesday. Of these, 84,154 are second doses of the vaccine, according to data from the health department.
The new figures indicate an increase of 0.4% in positive cases since Wednesday. Of the 2,054,230 people tested for COVID-19 in Utah so far, 17.1% tested positive for the disease. The total number of tests performed increased by 13,702 as of Thursday, and 9,419 of them were tests from people who had not been tested for COVID-19, according to the health department.
The 14 deaths reported on Thursday are:
- A Box Elder County man who was between 65 and 84 years old and was hospitalized when he died
- A Box Elder County man who was between 65 and 84 years old and a resident of a long-term care institution
- A man from Davis County who was between 65 and 84 years old and was hospitalized when he died
- Two men from Salt Lake County who were between 45 and 64 years old and were hospitalized when they died
- A man from Salt Lake County who was 65 to 84 years old and was hospitalized when he died
- A man from Salt Lake County who was between 65 and 84 years old and was not hospitalized when he died
- A Utah county man who was 65 to 84 years old and was hospitalized when he died
- A man from Washington County who was between 65 and 84 years old and was hospitalized when he died
- A woman from Salt Lake County who was between 65 and 84 years old and a resident of a long-term care institution
- Salt Lake County woman over 85 years old and residing in a long-term care facility
- A woman from Weber County who was between 45 and 64 years old and a resident of a long-term care institution
- A woman from Weber County who was between 65 and 84 years old and a resident of a long-term institution
- A woman from Weber County who was over 85 years old and a resident of a long-term care institution
Thursday’s total gives Utah 351,273 confirmed cases, with 13,697 hospitalizations and 1,711 deaths from the disease. A total of 315,614 Utah COVID-19 cases are now estimated to be recovered, according to the health department.
Methodology:
The test results now include data from PCR tests and antigen tests. Positive results from the COVID-19 test are reported to the health department immediately after they are confirmed, but negative test results can take 24 to 72 hours.
The total number of cases reported by the Utah Department of Health each day includes all cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the Utah outbreak, including those who are infected, those who have recovered from the disease and those who have died.
Recovered cases are defined as anyone who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 three or more weeks ago and has not died.
Referral hospitals are Utah’s 16 hospitals capable of providing the best COVID-19 healthcare.
Deaths reported by the state typically occurred two to seven days before they were reported, according to the health department. Some deaths can be even older, especially if the person is from Utah, but died in another state.
The health department reports deaths from confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases according to the case definition outlined by the State Council and Territorial Epidemiologists. Death counts are subject to change as case investigations are completed.
For deaths reported as deaths from COVID-19, the person would not have died if they did not have COVID-19, according to the health department.
The data included in this story mainly reflects the state of Utah as a whole. For more localized data, visit your local health district’s website.
More information about Utah’s health guidance levels is available at coronavirus.utah.gov/utah-health-guidance-levels.
The information is from the Utah Department of Health and coronavirus.utah.gov/case-counts. For more information on how the Utah Department of Health compiles and reports COVID-19 data, visit coronavirus.utah.gov/case-counts and scroll down to the “Data Notes” section at the bottom of the page.
Jacob Klopfenstein