SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s number of COVID-19 cases has increased by 514 on Wednesday, with four more deaths and 32,341 vaccinations reported, according to the Utah Department of Health.
All four deaths occurred prior to March 1 but were still being investigated by state medical examiners, the health department said.
The state now estimates there are 9,663 active cases of COVID-19 in Utah. The rolling seven-day average number of positive cases per day is now at 418, according to the health department. The positive test rate per day for that time period reported with the “people over people” method is now 6.7%. The positive test rate per day seven-day average calculated with the “test over test” method is now 3.3%.
There are now 135 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized in Utah, including 56 in intensive care, state data shows. About 63% of all intensive care unit hospital beds in Utah are now occupied, including about 65% of ICU beds in the state’s 16 referral hospitals. About 53% of non-ICU hospital beds are now occupied.
A total of 1,364,203 vaccine doses have been administered in the state, up from 1,331,862 Tuesday. A total of 899,952 Utahns have now received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 499,419 have been fully vaccinated, according to state data. A total of 1,597,120 vaccine doses have been delivered to the state so far.
The new numbers indicate a 0.1% increase in positive cases since Tuesday. Of the 2,386,988 people tested for COVID-19 in Utah so far, 16.2% have tested positive for COVID-19. The total number of tests conducted in Utah since the pandemic began is now 4,235,928, up 16,617 since Tuesday. Of those, 6,751 were tests of people who hadn’t previously been tested for COVID-19, according to state data.
The four deaths reported Wednesday were:
- Two Salt Lake County men who were between the ages of 65 and 84 and weren’t hospitalized when they died
- A Salt Lake County man who was between the ages of 45 and 64 and was hospitalized when he died
- A Weber County man who was between the ages of 45 and 64 and was not hospitalized when he died
Wednesday’s totals give Utah 385,641 total confirmed cases, with 15,525 total hospitalizations and 2,122 total deaths from the disease. An estimated 373,856 Utah COVID-19 cases are now estimated to be recovered, state data shows.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson are scheduled to provide a COVID-19 pandemic update at their weekly news conference at 11 a.m. Thursday.
Utah House Bill 294, also known as the state’s COVID-19 “endgame” bill, requires that all state and local Utah health orders related to the pandemic end on the day that 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.
The state is only meeting the benchmark in the second metric, where Utah’s seven-day average of COVID-19 ICU usage is about 10.7%, according to health department data. The 14-day case rate is 205.3 as of Wednesday, and 1,597,120 vaccine doses have been allocated to Utah, state data shows.
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