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For the second consecutive day, more than 40,000 COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in Utah. And the number of those fully vaccinated now exceeds 540,000.
At the same time, the Utah Department of Health reported six more deaths from the coronavirus. All six were patients aged 65 and over, and four of the deaths occurred before March 1 and have only recently been confirmed to be related to COVID-19.
The case count in Utah has reached levels not seen since September, said Dr. Eddie Stenehjem, an infectious disease physician at Intermountain Healthcare, on Friday. “This is a good place to be in Utah today.”
Vaccine doses administered the previous day / total doses administered • 40,049 / 1,450,263.
Fully vaccinated Utahns • 541,293.
Cases reported the day before • 422.
Deaths reported the day before • Six.
Salt Lake County reported two deaths: a man and a woman, each aged 65 to 84 years.
Four other counties each reported a death: a woman aged 65-84 in Davis County, a woman aged 65-84 in Millard County, a woman over 85 in Utah County and a man over 85 in Weber County.
Tests reported the day before • 5,761 people were tested for the first time. A total of 14,258 people were tested.
Hospitalizations reported the previous day • 138. This is two from Thursday. Of those currently hospitalized, 46 are in intensive care units – four fewer than on Thursday.
Percentage of positive tests • In the original state method, the rate is 7.3%. This is slightly higher than the 6.9% 7-day average.
The new state method counts all test results, including repeated tests from the same individual. Friday’s rate was 3.0%, lower than the seven-day average of 3.4%.
[Read more: Utah is changing how it measures the rate of positive COVID-19 tests. Here’s what that means.]
Totals to date • 386,550 boxes; 2,131 deaths; 15,573 hospitalizations; 2,400,410 people tested.
“This is a time to be optimistic,” said Stenehjem. “Our cases are decreasing. They stabilized … back to the level we had at the beginning of the pandemic, around September. Our hospitalization numbers have certainly improved. “
Health experts are concerned, Stenehjem said on Friday during Intermountain’s weekly COVID-19 community briefing on Facebook Live, that spring break – and new variants of the coronavirus – could cause a “fourth wave” of cases. Even so, “at this point, an increase in cases may seem different than an increase in November and December,” said Stenehjem, because fewer older people are likely to get sick because they have been vaccinated against the virus.
Utah is a week away from April 10, the date that Utah political leaders have set to end the mask’s mandate across the state, but Stenehjem recommended that the Utahns continue to wear their masks and practice social detachment in public.
“There will be no difference in the transmission of the community between April 9 and April 10,” said Stenehjem.
Intermountain rules require visitors, patients and staff to wear masks – and those rules will remain in effect after April 10, said Stenehjem. “We will remove the masks when epidemiology tells us that it is okay to do that,” he said.
Although Governor Cox signed the bill passed by the Utah Legislature that ends the mask’s term on April 10, he still thinks masks are a good idea. In a memo this week, Cox told state officials that they will wear masks in their state offices until May 31.
Also on Friday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that it is providing Utah with more than $ 17.1 million in additional public assistance funding for the state’s response to COVID-19. The funding was made available after a statement of major disaster issued on Sunday.
So far, FEMA has provided Utah a total of $ 108.5 million in aid for the state’s COVID-19 response. Information about FEMA’s public assistance program is available at www.fema.gov/assistance/public.