Hospital official: Utah's current surge of COVID-19 no worse than last year, but lasting longer

SALT LAKE CITY — The ongoing surge at Utah's hospitals due to COVID-19 is no worse than the one we saw last winter, according to one health care official, but it is lasting longer.

And with fewer resources, hospital officials fear greater burnout if they continue working at this pace.

"We don't have those extra people anymore, and the people that are here have been doing those extra shift for almost two years," said Dr. Kencee Graves, associate chief medical officer of inpatient care at University of Utah Health, pointing to overflow intensive care unit capacity and extra staff members in place during the first year of the pandemic.

"It feels as stressful here (this year). It's just that we're all tired of doing it. And I worry about our ability to continue to stress our health care workers," she added during a news conference on Thursday.

While last year's winter surge at hospitals lasted about nine weeks, she said, the hospital is now grappling with its twelfth week. Meanwhile, intensive care units across the state that can treat the most serious patients were 96.1% full on Thursday, and overall ICU use was at 91.9%. Hospitals are treating 549 people with the coronavirus — an increase of 41 since one week ago.

Erin Clouse, strategic engagement manager at U. Health, said she expected the state to mark an increase in hospitalizations just two weeks after Thanksgiving. But on a positive note, Utah is beginning to see a decline in new cases.

It's too soon to attempt to predict what the rest of the year and holiday season might bring, Clouse said. But she hopes that if we do see a "bump" from Christmas and New Year, that it is not significant.

She urged residents to take precautions.

"The more we congregate in groups and outside of our family, the more opportunity we're going to give this virus to jump," Clouse said.

New Utah data

Utah health officials reported 1,397 new COVID-19 cases and 10 additional deaths on Thursday. Two of those deaths occurred prior to Nov. 9, the Utah Department of Heath noted.

The rolling, seven-day average for new cases is 1,332 per day, and 15.3% of people getting tested end up with positive results, according to the health department.

School-age children represented 255 of the new cases reported on Thursday — 126 cases were ages 5-10, 55 were 11-13, and 74 were 14-17.

Health care workers administered 18,066 vaccine doses since the previous day's report, bringing total doses of COVID-19 vaccine given in Utah to 4,291,969. Now, 61.5% of people eligible for the vaccine in Utah — anyone age 5 and older — have been fully vaccinated.

Nearly a year since vaccines first became available in the state, there have been 52,611 breakthrough cases, meaning people who are fully vaccinated but still contract the virus, as well as 317 breakthrough deaths. Breakthrough cases count for less than 9% of all coronavirus infections and deaths in Utah.

On Thursday, the state reported another 404 breakthrough cases — about 29% of the new cases reported — and four breakthrough deaths.

Since the pandemic began, Utah has confirmed 609,351 cases (18.5% of the population has knowingly become infected) and 3,632 deaths caused by the coronavirus, or less than .1% of the total population. The death rate of confirmed cases stands at about 0.6% in Utah. The average age of people who have died is 71.3 and 46.7% had at least one preexisting condition that put them at a higher risk of COVID-19 complications, according to data from the state health department.

The latest deaths include:

• Two Salt Lake County men between the ages of 65 and 84, one of whom was hospitalized when he died and one was not.
• An Iron County woman, 65-84, hospitalized
• Two Salt Lake County women, 45-64, one of whom was not hospitalized and one who was not
• A Weber County woman, 45-64, hospitalized
• A Salt Lake County woman, 45-64, hospitalized
• A Wasatch County man, 65-84, not hospitalized
• An Emery County man, 65-84, hospitalized
• A Washington County woman, 65-84, hospitalized
• A Salt Lake County man, 24-44, hospitalized

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