Coronavirus cases spiked in Utah on Friday, with 656 new infections, the Utah Department of Health reported.
But the rise may be tied to reporting delays due to Monday’s Labor Day holiday and Tuesday’s wind storm in northern Utah, health officials said.
“Today’s caseload growth is the largest daily net increase we have reported since late July. We are looking closely at the numbers, and want to reiterate, as we have throughout this response, that one day of data does not necessarily indicate a trend,” state epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn said in a news release.
“… Many testing locations were closed Monday for Labor Day and Tuesday due to the wind storm. It’s possible people who would have been tested Monday and Tuesday waited until later in the week to be tested, resulting in an increase in the number of positive cases identified today.”
For the past seven days, Utah has averaged 403 new positive test results per day, the health department said, noting that is below the previous Friday’s 409-case average. Gov. Gary Herbert had said he wanted the state average to get below 400 new cases per day by Sept. 1, a goal Utah met in mid-August but surpassed again last week.
Utah’s death toll from the coronavirus stood at 431 on Friday, with one fatality reported since Thursday — a Salt Lake County man, older than 85, who was not hospitalized when he died.
Hospitalizations were up slightly on Friday, with 123 Utah patients concurrently admitted, UDOH reported. On average, 119 patients have been receiving treatment in Utah hospitals each day for the past week — well below the peak average of 211 patients hospitalized each day at the end of July
In total, 3,288 patients have been hospitalized in Utah for COVID-19, up 15 from Thursday.
Statewide, Utah’s rate of positive tests has been above 5% since May 25, according to UDOH data.
There were 4,041 new test results reported on Friday, about on par with the weeklong average of 4,013 new tests per day. Testing demand has been declining for the past week and remains far below mid-July, when the state was reporting more than 7,000 new test results per day, on average.
Since public schools began opening on Aug. 13, there have been 34 outbreaks in schools, affecting 156 patients, with five new outbreaks and eight new cases reported in the past day.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 201 patients infected in 45 school outbreaks, with a median age of 17. Nine of those patients have been hospitalized; none have died.
Of 56,675 Utahns who have tested positive for COVID-19, 48,021 are considered “recovered” — that is, they have survived for at least three weeks after being diagnosed.