Utah reports less than 200 new cases of COVID-19 and one more death

More than 565,000 Utahns have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.

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After a typically slow Sunday, the Utah Department of Health reported 173 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday. Only 3,778 tests were administered.

That is the smallest number of new cases since there were 163 on March 21 – another Sunday.

More than 565,000 Utahns have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus – about 17% of the state’s population. And there was one more death attributed to COVID-19.

Vaccine doses administered the previous day / total doses administered • 2,326 / 1,498,039.

Fully vaccinated Utahns • 565,539.

Cases reported the previous day • 173

Deaths reported the day before • One: A woman in Utah County between the ages of 65 and 84.

Tests reported the day before • 2,111 people were tested for the first time. A total of 3,778 people were tested.

Hospitalizations reported the previous day • 121. This is a drop of eight starting on Sunday. Of those currently hospitalized, 47 are in intensive care units – two more than on Sunday.

Percentage of positive tests • In the original state method, the rate is 8.2%. This is greater than the 7.1% 7-day average.

The new state method counts all test results, including repeated tests from the same individual. Monday’s rate was 4.65%, higher than the seven-day average of 3.5%.

[Read more: Utah is changing how it measures the rate of positive COVID-19 tests. Here’s what that means.]

Totals to date • 387,514 cases; 2,133 deaths; 15,625 hospitalizations; 2,413,193 people tested.

On Monday, an artist from Utah revealed her “thanks” to the frontline health professionals who fought COVID-19 – a great painting she donated to Intermountain Healthcare.

Heather Olsen, an artist in Riverton, said her painting, entitled “Together We Can Do It”, was the result of meeting doctors and nurses and admiring their sacrifices to save lives during the pandemic.

“You really are heroes,” Olsen told health professionals at an opening Monday at the Intermountain Transformation Center in Murray. “Every day you are changing lives and making a difference. You are making the world a better place. “

The painting, a collage of 11 doctors and nurses in action, “is what I can do to say, ‘Thank you,'” said Olsen. “It has been huge for me, almost healing in a way. [It] it made me feel comforted that these people are out there and doing everything they can. “

Prints of the painting will be distributed to hospitals and Intermountain facilities. And healthcare professionals will have the opportunity to get personal impressions.

Olsen – inspired by her sister, who is a nurse – started painting images of health professionals about a year ago, when the pandemic started. Her first showed a nurse, wrapped in personal protective equipment, putting on her gloves. (This painting was part of a collection of works inspired by the coronavirus by Utah artists, curated by The Salt Lake Tribune in April 2020.)

[Read more: How 21 Utah artists created images inspired by the coronavirus]

Although she gave the figure in that painting, and others in subsequent paintings, a generic face, Olsen said, “Several nurses came to me and said, ‘You made me.'”

Elizabeth Hyde, a nurse at Intermountain’s intensive care unit, received one of these paintings from Olsen – who delivered it to her home when Hyde said she was “exhausted, physically and emotionally”.

“When she showed up at my door,” said Hyde, “it gave me that boost and the assurance that I am a good nurse and I can do this, and I can benefit the community with what I do every day.”