SALT LAKE CITY – While Utah Governor Spencer Cox announced an eligibility for the vaccine earlier than expected on Thursday, he remained confidently optimistic that a return to normality is coming in the summer.
Gesturing to his mask, Cox vehemently declared that his days are numbered.
“I’m telling you, I’m not going to wear this (mask) on July 4th. I’m going to participate in a parade somewhere,” Cox said at a news conference on Thursday morning. “If I am wrong, I will come here and admit that I am wrong, and we will do something different.”
Utah Department of Health epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn remained more pragmatic. She said that normality until summer is “certainly possible”, but it will require an effort by everyone in the state to continue wearing masks, distancing themselves socially, limiting meetings and practicing all other public health measures that state officials have been preaching in the last year .
At a press conference in which Cox, always an enthusiastic optimist, fell in love with the current situation of COVID-19 in Utah, the governor announced that state residents aged 16 and over who have certain comorbidities are now eligible to receive the COVID- 19, several days earlier than expected. That population represents about 240,000 Utahns, said the governor.
Previously, the eligibility date for Utahns with comorbidities was March 1, but Cox said these people are eligible immediately. The full list of comorbidities that make a person eligible for the vaccine is available at coronavirus.utah.gov/vaccine-distribution/#eligibility.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved the Pfizer vaccine only for 16- and 17-year-olds, Cox said. If people in this age group want to be vaccinated, they need to schedule an appointment at a vaccination center that provides the Pfizer vaccine, he added. the governor. Not all vaccine clinics have the Pfizer vaccine, and a list of clinics that have it will be provided at coronavirus.utah.gov/vaccine.
Cox said he is focused on getting gunshots as quickly as possible, especially for the most vulnerable populations, rather than looking at the state’s population as a whole.
“We are committed to accelerating eligibility when possible,” said Cox.
The governor also announced on Thursday that people who want the vaccine no longer need to wait to make an appointment in their municipality. If you find an available time in another county, you can now make an appointment there. However, you should make an appointment for the second dose of the vaccine in the same municipality where you scheduled the first dose, Cox said.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox provided an update on the COVID-19 pandemic at a news conference on Thursday. Utah Department of Health epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn was also a keynote speaker at the news conference. Watch the replay here.
Doing vaccination field
At one point during Utah’s COVID-19 fight, intensive care units were perhaps hours away from being completely overwhelmed, Cox said. State leaders almost reached a point where they needed to set up a screening ICU in Mountain America Expo Center in Sandy to deal with the huge number of patients suffering from the disease, he said.
But that did not happen. Now, instead of a screening ICU, the exhibition center is being used to administer vaccines.
“We are underestimating the positivity of what is happening out there,” said Cox.
About 70% of Utahns aged 70 and over have already been vaccinated, according to Cox. Some Utah counties have vaccinated about 80% of the population in their areas, he added.
In addition, about 29% of the 65-69 age group now have at least one dose, Cox said. Eligibility for this population was opened last Thursday and vaccination for these people is expected to continue for several weeks.
Still, an analysis by the Wall Street Journal indicates that Utah vaccinated only 11.4% of its general population with at least one dose – the lowest of any state.
Cox said he hates the way the newspaper calculated this statistic because it does not take into account the large population of children in Utah who are not eligible for vaccines. Census data show that about 29% of Utah’s population is under 18, the highest percentage in the country.
“We cannot change that formula,” said Cox. “All we can do is put vaccines in the hands that reach us, and that is what we are doing.”
The disproportionate number of children in Utah also affects how many vaccines the federal government allocates to Utah, Cox said. Bad weather last week prevented a shipment of 36,000 Modern vaccines from reaching Utah, which also delayed the state somewhat, added the governor. But those doses have already reached the state and Utah is recovering the ground, he said.
Cox said he preferred to have a large percentage of people aged 70 or more vaccinated than a smaller percentage of the general Utah population, because most deaths from COVID-19 were Utahns over 70.
“This is where Utah is again succeeding in incredible ways,” said Cox. “This is where our focus is.”
Next week, the state will launch a plan to vaccinate more members of traditionally underserved populations, such as Hispanics, Latinos and Pacific Islanders, who were disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Cox said. The plan has already been implemented in practice, but will be released to the public next week, he said.
Data from the health department show that minority groups are being vaccinated at a much lower rate than white Utahns. Whites are being vaccinated at a rate of nearly 14,000 vaccinations per 100,000 people and account for more than 60% of the total vaccines administered in the state so far.
Hispanics and Latinos were vaccinated at a rate of just 4,720 per 100,000 people, and the rate for native Hawaiians and Pacific islanders is just under 3,600 per 100,000 people.
For about a third of vaccines administered, the race of the person receiving the dose is unknown, according to the health department website, so the data is possibly not a fully accurate representation of which ethnicities are being vaccinated. Still, the state has plans to work with community partners to bring the vaccine to these underserved communities, Cox said.
State leaders will work with churches and other community partners to achieve this and to reduce vaccine hesitation in these communities, Cox said. Health officials will be working to spread the word that vaccines are safe and effective for people who still have reservations.
Cox said that instead of focusing on how many people are not being vaccinated, the state has shifted to an “abundance mentality” in preparation for the much larger quantities of vaccine doses that must be allocated to the state in the coming weeks and months.
“In a few weeks we will have more vaccine than we know what to do with it,” joked the governor. “We know what to do with it. … From April and May, our biggest concern will be the hesitation of the vaccine, how to convince people to get this vaccine, because we have a lot of it. And this is really where our focus needs be. “
New COVID-19 cases
Thursday, the number of COVID-19 cases in Utah increased by 832, with an additional 11 deaths and an additional 18,563 vaccinations reported, according to the Utah Department of Health. There are approximately 18,561 active cases of COVID-19 in Utah.
Four of the deaths occurred last month, but are still being investigated by the state’s medical examiner, the health department said. The state also reported an additional 18,563 vaccinations by Thursday.
The average number of positive cases per day for seven days is now 723, 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 12.4%. The positive test rate per day, averaged over seven days calculated using the “test over test” method is now 5.7%.
There are 221 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized in Utah, including 87 in intensive care, state data show. About 74% of all beds in intensive care units in Utah are occupied on Thursday, including about 77% of the ICU beds in the state’s 16 referral hospitals. About 53% of non-ICU hospital beds are occupied in Utah, state data show.
660,444 vaccines have already been administered in the state, compared to 641,881 on Wednesday. Of these, 229,526 are second doses of the vaccine, state data show.
Thursday’s new figures indicate an increase of 0.2% in positive cases since Wednesday. Of the 2,189,176 people tested for COVID-19 in Utah so far, 16.9% tested positive for the disease. The total number of tests performed increased to 3,765,520 on Thursday, an increase from 21,176 on Wednesday. Of these, 8,582 were tests from people who had not taken the previous test for COVID-19.
The 11 deaths reported on Thursday were:
- A woman from Davis County who was between 65 and 84 years old and was hospitalized when she died
- A Davis County woman who was over 85 years old and a resident of a long-term care institution
- A man from Salt Lake County who was between 65 and 84 years old and was hospitalized when he died
- A man from Salt Lake County who was between 25 and 44 years old and was not hospitalized when he died
- A woman from Tooele County who was between 45 and 64 years old and was not hospitalized when she died
- A woman from Tooele County who was over 85 and was hospitalized when she died
- A woman from Utah County who was over 85 years old and a resident of a long-term care facility
- A woman from Utah County who was 65 to 84 years old and a resident of a long-term care facility
- A man from Utah County who was over 85 years old and a resident of a long-term institution
- A woman from Weber County who was between 65 and 84 years old and was hospitalized when she died
- A man from Weber County who was between 45 and 64 years old and was not hospitalized when he died
Thursday’s totals give Utah 369,433 confirmed cases, with 14,597 hospitalizations and 1,890 deaths from the disease. It is now estimated that a total of 348,982 Utah COVID-19 cases have been recovered.
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