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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Department of Health Sunday is reporting 473 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and one death from the disease statewide.
That brings Utah up to 41,175 total confirmed cases and 311 deaths since the pandemic began.
In an email, health department spokesman Tom Hudachko said the deceased Utahn was a Davis County woman between ages 65 and 84 who was a resident at a long-term care facility. There have been 144 deaths among care facility residents since the pandemic began, accounting for more than 46% of Utah's total.
The department is reporting the results of 3,456 new tests over Saturday's numbers. Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox expressed concern Saturday that testing demand has decreased recently, though he said other metrics are holding strong.
"We always see lower testing numbers following a holiday weekend," he wrote. " ... Testing sites are simply reporting less demand. It is not yet clear if this is just a result of fewer cases (good!), public fatigue (not good), or something else."
He also said Utah's frontline health care workers are "clearly fatigued" and called on Utahns to continue taking preventative measures to help them, like wearing masks and physical distancing.
While I am excited to see our case counts continue to fall, I worry that our test numbers are down this week. We always see lower numbers following a holiday weekend. And while yesterday was good, I expected today to be higher. Testing sites are simply reporting less demand. 1/ https://t.co/9MVP6HT1py
— Spencer Cox (@SpencerJCox) August 1, 2020
Utah's seven-day positive test percentage is at 10%; the overall positive rate is about 7.7%. That overall positive test percentage had approached as low as 4% before Memorial Day.
The health department says 203 Utahns are currently hospitalized battling COVID-19, and that just over half of the state's non-ICU beds are currently occupied. It estimates that 29,389 Utahns have recovered after contracting the disease.
METHODOLOGY:
Test results now include data from PCR tests and antigen tests. Positive COVID-19 test results are reported to the health department immediately after they are confirmed, but negative test results may not be reported for 24 to 72 hours.
The total number of cases reported by the Utah Department of Health each day includes all cases of COVID-19 since Utah's outbreak began, including those who are currently infected, those who have recovered from the disease, and those who have died.
Recovered cases are defined as anyone who was diagnosed with COVID-19 three or more weeks ago and has not died.
Deaths reported by the state typically occurred two to seven days prior to when they are reported, according to the health department. Some deaths may be from even further back, especially if the person is from Utah but has died in another state.
The health department reports both confirmed and probable COVID-19 case deaths per the case definition outlined by the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. The death counts are subject to change as case investigations are completed.
Data included in this story primarily reflects the state of Utah as a whole. For more localized data, visit your local health district's website.
Information is from the Utah Department of Health and coronavirus.utah.gov/case-counts. For more information on how the Utah Department of Health compiles and reports COVID-19 data, visit coronavirus.utah.gov/case-counts and scroll down to the "Data Notes" section at the bottom of the page.
