Estimated read time: 5-6 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 Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information.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 — Utah's number of COVID-19 cases increased by 483 on Thursday, with 10 more deaths and 42,688 vaccinations reported, according to the Utah Department of Health.
Four of the deaths occurred before March 18 but were still being investigated by state medical examiners, the health department said.
The health department estimates there are now 8,886 active cases of COVID-19 in Utah. The rolling seven-day average number of positive cases per day is now at 399, according to the health department. The positive test rate per day for that time period calculated with the "people over people" method is now 7.1%. The positive test rate per day for that time period calculated with the "test over test" method is now 3.4%.
There are 138 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized in Utah, including 53 in intensive care, state data shows. About 69% of all intensive care unit hospital beds in Utah are now occupied, including about 73% in the state's 16 referral hospitals, state data shows. About 54% of non-ICU hospital beds are now filled.
A total of 1,603,855 vaccine doses have been administered in the state, up from 1,561,167 Wednesday. A total of 1,042,595 Utahns have now received at least one dose, while 621,247 are now fully vaccinated. A total of 1,866,070 vaccine doses have been shipped to the state so far.
About 85% of Utahns age 70 and over have now received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the health department. About 83% of Utahns 65 and over now have at least one dose. A total of 193,641 vaccine doses were administered over the past week, which is the largest weekly increase in vaccinations so far, the health department said.
While the spread of COVID-19 is mostly continuing to trend downward across Utah, Wednesday's 616 new cases reported was the first time the state saw over 600 cases in a single day since the middle of March, state officials said on Thursday.
"We will continue watching our trends. We hope that is just a blip, but we need people to remember that COVID will continue to spread until we can get more people vaccinated. We just need to keep the spread as slow as possible," the state's COVID-19 response team tweeted.
We will continue watching our trends. We hope that is just a blip, but we need people to remember that COVID will continue to spread until we can get more people vaccinated. We just need to keep the spread as slow as possible.
— State of Utah COVID-19 Response (@UtahCoronavirus) April 8, 2021
Thursday's new numbers indicate a 0.1% increase in positive cases since Wednesday. Of the 2,431,305 people tested for COVID-19 in Utah so far, 16% have tested positive for the disease. The number of total tests conducted since the pandemic began is now at 4,339,948, up 16,029 since Wednesday. Of those, 6,848 were tests of people who hadn't previously been tested for the disease, health department data shows.
The 10 deaths reported Thursday were:
- A Davis County woman who was between the ages of 65 and 84 and was hospitalized when she died
- A Salt Lake County man who was over the age of 85 and was hospitalized when he died
- A Salt Lake County woman who was over the age of 85 and was a resident of a long-term care facility
- A Sanpete County woman who was over the age of 85 and was hospitalized when she died
- A Sevier County man who was between the ages of 65 and 84 and was not hospitalized when he died
- A Utah County woman who was over the age of 85 and was a resident of a long-term care facility
- A Utah County man who was over the age of 85 and was a resident of a long-term care facility
- A Washington County man who was between the ages of 65 and 84 and was hospitalized when he died
- A Washington County woman who was over the age of 85 and was not hospitalized when she died
- A Washington County woman who was between the ages of 65 and 84 and was hospitalized when she died
Thursday's totals give Utah 388,909 total confirmed cases, with 15,698 total hospitalizations and 2,149 total deaths from the disease. An estimated 377,874 Utah COVID-19 cases are now considered recovered, according to the health department.
Due to scheduling conflicts, no COVID-19 news conference was held Thursday, according to the health department. Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, who typically host the weekly news conference, are both meeting with U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland all day Thursday, according to their offices.
Utah's pandemic "endgame" bill, formally known as HB294, requires all state and local health orders related to COVID-19 to end on the day that Utah reaches the threshold in three key metrics: the state's 14-day case rate is less than 191 per 100,000 people, the seven-day average of COVID-19 intensive care unit usage is under 15%, and 1,633,000 prime doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been allocated to Utah.
As of Thursday, Utah's 14-day case rate is 176.7 per 100,000 people, and the COVID-19 ICU usage average is about 9.5% over the last week, state data shows.
The state is still under the benchmark for the third metric: 992,325 prime doses have been allocated to Utah as of this week, according to health officials. It's expected to reach the 1,633,000 threshold in the second or third week of May, health officials say. The first dose of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, as well as the sole dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, are considered prime doses.
Since the COVID-19 vaccine prime dose allocation is updated just once a week, the number of people who have received one vaccine dose frequently outpaces the prime dose allocation, because it's updated each day on the state's coronavirus website. So even though the state reported Thursday that 1,042,595 Utahns have received at least one dose of the vaccine, the prime dose allocation remains at 992,325 for this week.
The prime dose allocation increased by 71,810 this week, but the federal government's allocation to Utah is still inconsistent, and next week's allocation is expected to be much lower, state officials said. People are asked to be patient when scheduling vaccination appointments next week.
All of Utah's counties are currently rated at the moderate or low transmission levels under Utah's COVID-19 transmission index system. Daggett, Emery, Garfield, Juab, Piute, Rich, San Juan, Sanpete and Wayne counties are at the low transmission level, and all 20 other counties in the state are now at the moderate transmission level, according to the health department.
Methodology
See more details about KSL.com's COVID-19 data and methodology by clicking this link.
More information about Utah's health guidance levels is available at coronavirus.utah.gov/utah-health-guidance-levels.
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.
