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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Department of Health announced 629 new COVID-19 cases and three deaths on Sunday.
The new cases lift Utah's total confirmed case number to 29,484, with 1,824 total hospitalizations and 215 total deaths. On Saturday, the total was 28,855 total cases with 632 new infections and five reported deaths, down from Friday's record-breaking 867 new cases.
There are currently 209 individuals hospitalized with COVID-19 in Utah, up from 203 hospitalizations Saturday, per the Utah Department of Health.
The total active COVID-19 case estimate is now 11,967, up from 11,745 the day before. A total of 17,303 cases are considered recovered by the Utah Department of Health because more three weeks have passed since thier diagnosis date and these individuals have not died.
Sunday's announcement brings Utah's seven-day rolling average of new COVID-19 cases up to 664 from 614 one day earlier. As the seven-day rolling average is indicative of broader trends in coronavirus infection and less susceptible to daily fluctuations, health officials say it is one of the most important metrics. Should the rolling average reach 800, hospital officials warned that they will reach the limit of their capacity. Gov. Gary Herbert's current goal is to get the rolling-day average to 500 or less by Aug. 1.
One of Sunday's reported coronavirus casualties was a woman from Salt Lake County between the ages of 45 and 64, who was not hospitalized at her time of death. Another was a man from Utah County between the ages of 25 and 44, who was hospitalized at his time of death.The third casualty was a woman from Garfield County who was between the ages of 65 and 84 and was hospitalized at her time of death.
Utah's ICU beds are now at 70.3% capacity, and non-ICU bed capacity is at 50.2% capacity. COVID-19 patients in the ICU tend to have longer hospital stays and can make it difficult for healthcare workers to process non-COVID ICU patients, which is why each type of bed is an important indicator for hospital capacity in the coming weeks. Of Utah's ventilators, 14.9% are currently in use.
The total number of tests conducted in Utah is 413,058, with 7,706 new daily tests added in Sunday's count. The rolling seven-day average of positive tests is 10.1%. The positivity rate for COVID-19 tests within a state is indicative of testing capacity and whether infection prevalence is manageable enough to revise reopening guidelines.
Sunday's new cases come the same day as Florida's COVID-19 cases surpassed New York and California's worst days with a record-breaking 15,299 positive tests within the Sunshine State.
