SALT LAKE CITY – All Utah adults will be eligible to schedule an appointment for the COVID-19 vaccine starting March 24, Governor Spencer Cox announced on Thursday.
The eligibility expansion will happen earlier than expected. Cox had previously planned to open eligibility for all Utah adults on April 1. The expansion comes after a request from local health districts for the state to open eligibility for everyone sooner than previously planned.
“We know we need to do better,” Cox said of the vaccine’s distribution during a news conference on Thursday. “We need more vaccine to make this happen.”
Utahns aged 16 to 18 will be eligible to receive the Pfizer vaccine, which is the only vaccine that has received federal approval for this age group so far, Cox added.
Cox stressed that until March 24 there will not be enough doses of the vaccine to meet demand. People will be able to make an appointment for the vaccine next week, but they still have several weeks to go, he added.
The expansion comes at the request of local health departments to expand eligibility earlier than previously planned, the governor said.
The state has implemented a vaccination roadmap for underprivileged populations, such as multicultural communities and homeless people. This process includes sending mobile vaccination units to multicultural and rural communities that would otherwise not have sufficient access to the vaccine.
When these mobile units are shipped to these areas, it is easier for vaccine administrators to simply offer doses to as many people as possible, rather than worrying about their age or health or other eligibility factor, said Cox. Expanding to everyone next week will make things easier for these situations, so health districts and community partners asked the governor to make the change, he said.
Health officials said 70-90% of a given population needs to be vaccinated for collective immunity. Cox said Utah will not be able to obtain collective immunity if most of the state is vaccinated, but the pockets remain in underprivileged populations, where only 30-40% of people received the vaccine.
The state administered 140,000 doses of vaccine last week, and 87% of Utahns aged 70 and older received at least one dose, Cox said on Thursday. A large number of people under 50 with underlying health problems also received a dose, he added.
Utah expects a huge increase in its vaccine allocation in late March and April, as Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are ready to increase production of their respective vaccines, said Cox.
“We are very happy with the state of affairs now,” added the governor.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox provided an update on the pandemic COVID-19 at a PBS Utah news conference on Thursday morning. Watch the replay of the event below.
New COVID-19 cases
The number of COVID-19 cases in Utah increased by 560 on Thursday, with five more deaths and 25,312 vaccinations reported, according to the Utah Department of Health. The health department estimates that there are now 11,281 active cases of the disease in Utah.
The average number of positive cases per day for seven days is now 484, according to the health department. The rate of positive test per day for that period of time reported with the “people over people” method is now 8.4%. The positive test rate per day, averaged over seven days, calculated using the “test on test” method is now 4.2%.
There are now 189 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized in Utah, including 63 in intensive care, state data show. About 72% of all intensive care unit beds are now occupied in Utah, including about 75% of the ICU beds in the state’s 16 referral hospitals. About 54% of non-ICU hospital beds are already occupied, according to state data.
1,080,039 vaccines have already been administered in the state, compared to 1,054,727 on Wednesday. A total of 714,049 Utahns have already received at least one dose of vaccine, while 394,004 are fully vaccinated, state data show. A total of 1,258,310 doses of vaccines have already been sent to the state.
The new figures indicate an increase of 0.1% in positive cases since Wednesday. Of the 2,314,764 people tested for COVID-19 in Utah so far, 16.4% tested positive for COVID-19. The total number of tests carried out since the pandemic began is now 4,066,552, an increase from 16,975 since Wednesday. Of these, 7,526 were tests from people who had not taken the previous test for COVID-19.
The five deaths reported on Thursday were:
- Two women from Salt Lake County between the ages of 65 and 84 and were hospitalized when they died
- Two Utah County women over 85, one hospitalized when she died and the other out of hospital
- A Wasatch County man who was between 45 and 64 years old and was hospitalized when he died.
A death that was previously included in Utah’s total COVID-19 death list has been removed from the list after further investigation, health officials said.
Thursday’s total gives Utah 380,340 confirmed cases, with 15,223 hospitalizations and 2,041 deaths from the disease. A total of 367,018 Utah COVID-19 cases are now considered recovered, according to the health department.
Carbon and Summit counties have shifted to the moderate transmission level under the Utah transmission index system, according to Cox. Duchesne and San Juan counties have now shifted to the low transmission level.
Five counties remain at the high transmission level: Beaver, Emery, Garfield, Kane and Uintah. Six are at the low transmission level: Daggett, Duchesne, Piute, Rich, San Juan and Wayne. All other counties in the state are classified at the moderate level of transmission.
This story will be updated.
