4,597 new cases is second highest increase of pandemic; 29 deaths reported Thursday
SALT LAKE CITY — COVID-19 is once again threatening the care that hospitals can provide throughout Utah, as the rampant disease has stretched capacities beyond their limits.
Another 4,597 new cases — the state’s second-highest total — were reported in Utah on Thursday, along with 29 new deaths resulting from the disease.
With more than 56 people admitted to hospitals with COVID-19 this week, it is clear that a post-holiday surge has begun.
“We’re definitely seeing more cases detected across the state,” said Dr. Eddie Stenehjem, an infectious disease specialist with Intermountain Healthcare. He said Utah’s current 32.71% test positivity level is “one of the highest in the nation.”
That means that “community transmission is sky high” and “we’re probably undertesting,” Stenehjem said Thursday during Intermountain’s weekly COVID-19 update on social media.
He confirmed a COVID-19 surge is in full swing, with increases in statewide transmission every day this week. Stenehjem said it will inevitably lead to even more hospitalizations in the coming week, and subsequently, more deaths.
“This is the Christmas and New Year’s surge,” he said. “It is exactly as we had expected.”
Since March, there have been 297,317 known COVID-19 cases in Utah and nearly 1.8 million people have been tested for SARS-CoV-2, including 15,564 people tested in Utah since Wednesday, according to the Utah Department of Health.
The health department said 537 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 throughout Utah.
The rolling seven-day average number of positive tests per day is at 2,952, with a percent positivity hovering at 32.71%, the highest it has been in the pandemic.
State officials and health care workers had hoped levels would have dropped lower prior to the latest surge in cases. And while numbers were trending downward and hospitalizations did drop below the 85% full capacity threshold for several days, it didn’t stay that way for long.
“We anticipate January will be pretty rough when it comes to hospitalizations,” Stenehjem said. It could become unmanageable throughout Utah if people don’t revert back to the public health guidelines set by the state health department.
“Mask use is 100% required and social distancing and hand hygiene are very, very important in reducing transmission,” Stenehjem said.
With Utah vaccinating more and more people, the doctor said, “the numbers will come down faster.”
The first COVID-19 vaccinations were given in Utah on Dec. 15, with some of the second doses already administered. The health department reports that 68,030 vaccinations have been administered as of Thursday afternoon.
The agency reports that 967 people, mostly front-line health care workers, have received the second dose of vaccine. Full immunity isn’t achieved until a couple weeks after a second dose, according to vaccine manufacturers.
Intermountain is participating in a multistate testing day on Friday, to demonstrate the ability to rapidly result tens of thousands of COVID-19 tests from a single lab in a short time-frame, according to Corteva Labs, which has teamed up with various other organizations across the country to pull off the effort. In addition to testing up to 10,000 people for COVID-19 in Utah, the demonstration project will essentially test the nonprofit’s system to see if testing can be done on a massive platform.
The testing will be free and is scheduled at four Wasatch Front locations. Participants must register online, prior to being tested.
Widespread testing has been a goal of former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and the Utah Health Department since early 2020, but the resources have not been available.
Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Diedre Henderson, who were inaugurated Monday, are expected to address the public and the media during his first COVID-19 update as state leader on Friday at 11:30 a.m. State epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn is also expected to provide updated numbers from the health department.
This story will be updated.
from Deseret News https://ift.tt/3bkiKqi
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