Utah health officials report 920 new COVID-19 cases, 12 deaths Tuesday

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah health officials reported 920 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, as well as 12 new deaths.

School-age children represented 148 of the new cases — 64 of those were ages 5-10, 43 were 11-13, and 41 were 14-17.

Also on Tuesday, the Salt Lake County Council voted to extend the county's public health emergency declaration related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is the fifteenth time the council has extended the order, according to the county's records. Council member Dea Theodore was the only member to vote against extending the declaration.

The Salt Lake City Council also extended its mask mandate for K-12 schools in the city through March 25, 2022. Council members voted to extend the mandate at their regular meeting on Tuesday evening.

The rolling, seven-day average for new cases is 1,107 per day, and the average positive rate of those tested is 14%, the Utah Department of Health said. Hospitals were treating 498 patients with the coronavirus, 200 of whom were in intensive care units. Referral ICUs that can treat the most serious patients were 99.3% full, and overall ICU use stood at 97.1%.

Now, 614,270 cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in the state, as well as 3,673 deaths due to the resulting disease, COVID-19. Utah's death rate for people who have tested positive for the disease is about 0.6%, and the COVID-19 death rate out of Utah's total population is about 0.11%, according to health department data.

While hospital officials have noted that Utah has seen a surge this winter similar to last year, the state was actually faring worse one year ago, more than a week ahead of Christmas. On Dec. 14, 2020 — just before the vaccine rollout began — Utah's rolling, seven-day average stood at 2,598 new cases per day, data shows. At that time, 572 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 and the state had confirmed a total of 235,872 cases.

In the last 28 days, unvaccinated residents have seen 14.6 times greater risk of dying from COVID-19, 9.3 times greater risk of hospitalization, and 3.6 times greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19 than vaccinated people, the state health department said.

Since Feb. 1, unvaccinated residents have experienced 6.7 times greater risk of dying from the coronavirus, 5.6 times greater risk of hospitalization, and 2.5 times greater risk of testing positive for the disease than vaccinated people, according to the data.

Of the cases reported Tuesday, 329 were "breakthrough," meaning they occurred in patients who were fully vaccinated (having received more than one dose of both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, and one dose of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine) more than two weeks before testing positive with the disease. Four of the deaths reported on Tuesday were also breakthroughs. Now 54,241 breakthrough cases and 326 breakthrough deaths have been confirmed in Utah since vaccines became available to the public early this year.

Five of the deaths reported Tuesday occurred before mid-November. The remainder of deaths include:

• A Washington County man between the ages of 65 and 84, who was hospitalized when he died.
• A Davis County woman, 65-84, long-term care facility resident.
• A Utah County woman, 45-64, hospitalized.
• A Washington County man, 45-64, hospitalized.
• A Salt Lake County man, 45-64, hospitalized.
• A Utah County man, 45-64, not hospitalized.
• A Salt Lake County woman, 45-64, long-term care facility resident.
• A Weber County woman, older than 85, long-term care facility resident.
• A Salt Lake County woman, older than 85, long-term care facility resident.
• A Salt Lake County woman, 65-84, long-term care facility resident.
• A Washington County man, 25-44, hospitalized.
• A woman of unknown residence, older than 85, not hospitalized.

Contributing: Carter Williams, Jacob Klopfenstein

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