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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah surpassed 1 million COVID-19 cases on Thursday as the state continues to see a spike of the disease.
"It's a huge milestone. Two and a half years ago when we started doing this, I didn't think we'd be sitting here this far along with over a million cases," said Dr. Eddie Stenehjem, infectious disease physician at Intermountain Healthcare.
He noted that the confirmed cases are a "dramatic undercount" due to the number of at-home tests that don't get reported to the state.
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services reported 6,870 new COVID-19 cases and 15 additional deaths over the past week. The daily average for new cases over the past week was about 981.
Now Utah has confirmed 1,004,426 cases and 4,884 deaths due to the disease since the start of the pandemic.
The predominant viral variant now circulating in Utah is BA.5, which Stenehjem noted falls into the omicron family. "But it is pretty different than the previous omicron variants that we saw." The variant is "immune-evasive," meaning it does not provide strong protection even for those who had previous infectious and/or vaccinations.
But previous infections and vaccinations do prevent serious illness for those who contract the BA.5 variant, according to the doctor.
And the variant appears to cause less severe disease, in general, compared to previous variants such as delta, as evidenced by stable hospitalization numbers. On Thursday, 242 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 across Utah, and that number has continued to fall over the past week, data shows.
"These appear to drive more upper-respiratory infection," Stenehjem said, noting that some previous variants caused lower respiratory issues that can lead to pneumonia and other complications.
"Very significant transmission" is happening across Utah, he said, despite what the confirmed case count shows. That confirmed count is "dramatically undercounted," he noted, "and so we really have to look at alternative measures, or complementary measures, to really address transmission in the state of Utah."
The test positivity rate has increased, Stenehjem said, as have those going into emergency rooms and getting tested for the disease. According to state health department data, 5.58% of emergency room visits over the past week tested positive for COVID-19, a 0.44% decrease over the previous week.
Health officials say 64.7% of wastewater testing sites are showing increasing or elevated levels of the virus. That is also a decrease over the previous week when all sites showed increases.
"When we look at hospitalization, when we look at severe disease requiring ICU, when we look at deaths, we have a little better of a picture," Stenehjem said.
Deaths also haven't increased significantly, he added.
People should continue weighing their personal risk should they contract COVID-19 when deciding whether to take additional precautions.
"There isn't one answer that fits every person and so, at this point, we really have to look to ourselves and say what is my risk of getting COVID, what is the risk of me transmitting to high-risk individuals, and what is that impact going to be on my life?" Stenehjem said.
Those at high risk should continue to be careful regardless of their vaccination status, he added. That includes wearing a well-fitting mask when around others.
Stenehjem urged parents to think about getting their children vaccinated — especially now that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are both available to children over 6 months old — ahead of the new school year.
