Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — Aside from social distancing, anything related to "the curve" has probably been at the top phrase of new phrases added to our everyday lexicon this year. We’ve all memorized the basics; flattening the curve means fewer cases at once and spikes aren’t desired.
Now that Utah has experienced its first real spike in COVID-19 cases, or what Utah Department of Health epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn said last week could be the beginning of the state’s "acceleration phase," when can we anticipate deceleration or a drop in cases?
It’s really too early to know when that will occur. That’s because cases are continuing to pile up at the highest rates state health officials have seen since the pandemic began. Prior to May 28, the state health department had only reported 200 cases in one day once in nearly three full months of counting. The state health department reported incident plateau nearly every day between the tail end of April up until Memorial Day, with a few blips of declines mixed in.
It’s been a different story after the holiday on May 25. Utah had at least 200 new cases every day since May 28 and hit a new one-day record of 546 cases last weekend. This is visible on the state health department’s curve of COVID-19 cases, where the state reported about two weeks of continued incident growth.
As Dunn pointed out, the state’s graph takes a three-day average of previous days. The graph grew upward because the health department was seeing new cases at a record pace.
"We had a couple of days at the beginning of June that were very high, in the 400s and 500s," Dunn explained.
Even as new cases continue to pile up in Utah — 4,731 of the state’s 13,252 total cases, or 36%, have been reported between May 28 and Thursday — the state health department has reported five-straight days of a plateau. There’s also a slight drop in the state’s curve from where it was a few days ago.
That’s because even though case numbers remain high each day, they aren’t as high as they were last week, Dunn continued.
"So what we’re seeing right now is a higher plateau," she said. "We’ve been pretty consistent in the high 200s until today in terms of our case count. So for the past few days, we’ve seen a little bit of stabilization. As you can see on the graph, it can vary day to day, so we’re really going to be watching that trend over the next two weeks and hopefully continue to see a decline."
That means Utah will continue to be in a plateau if there are 200-300 cases every day. So what numbers would indicate deceleration or a decline in cases?
"It’s all about the growth rate, so the day-to-day rate of increase … what we want to see is a decline in growth rate every single day," Dunn said. "We haven't had a chance to experience that yet in Utah, but we are working hard to get that done here in Utah."
That’s something that, at this point, can only be done through social distancing and other precautions aimed to slow the spread of COVID-19 until a viable treatment or vaccine is widely available, health officials have said since the beginning of the pandemic. Dunn urged Utahns again Thursday to practice social distancing and wear face coverings in situations where that isn’t possible, as well as continuing to practice good hand hygiene and stay home if you have any symptoms.
In addition to updating case numbers, health officials announced more small tweaks to public health guidelines. It comes before Kane County will be the first portion of Utah to move to the "green" status. Changes include an emphasis on individuals in green phase areas to take action to limit the spread of COVID-19. That said, being at least 6 feet from others and wearing face masks when that isn’t possible is still recommended in the green phase.
Gov. Gary Herbert pointed out that one positive figure from the numbers is the state’s mortality rate hasn’t shot up even as new cases have. With 131 deaths reported as of Thursday, the state’s mortality rate from COVID-19 is currently just under 1% while the U.S. mortality rate and global mortality rates are both about 5.6%, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
"The end result that we’re concerned about is people dying and our hospitalization rate is about 8% who get it — 92% of who get it, won’t have to go to the hospital," Herbert said. "So we’ve got some good things going there. I don’t want to dwell on the negative, but we are concerned about the infection rate going up and we hope that doesn’t translate to more deaths."
