Box Elder, Carbon, Duchesne, Iron, Juab, Millard, San Juan, Sanpete, Sevier, Tooele, Uintah, and Washington counties have been moved to high transmission index.
The news was not good when the Utah Department of Health (UDOH) reported COVID numbers Thursday, including 668 coronavirus cases the last 24 hours and that several counties are now back into the high transmission level.
“Today, we have 12 counties listed as ‘high’ transmission in the COVID transmission index,” UDOH announced. “This is the first time since early March this many counties have had ‘high’ transmission.”
The Bear River Health District has experienced fairly low case counts recently, including 19 Thursday, and among the district’s three northern Utah counties only Box Elder is included in high transmission.
The state announced Wednesday it had reached 70 percent immunity but in 11 of the 12 counties in high transmission, fewer than 60 percent of the adult population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The Thursday report indicates 4,722 Utahns were tested since Wednesday. There were two COVID deaths statewide and there have been 2,389 deaths since the start of the pandemic. There have been 418,321 positive coronavirus cases since the outbreak.
The Bear River Health District (BRHD) reported a total of 22,460 cases in northern Utah with 22,130 of them classified as “recovered.” To date 969 have been hospitalized in the district during the pandemic and there have been 112 coronavirus deaths in northern Utah.
As of Thursday 53.3 percent of all the district’s residents are fully vaccinated (69,235 people). That includes 55.7 percent in Cache County, 47.8 percent in Box Elder County and 47.9 percent in Rich County. A total of 146,908 doses have been administered in northern Utah.
The rolling seven-day average for new cases has been spiking and Thursday that number increased by 18 to 379 per day.
Other metrics continue to increase including the rolling seven-day average for percent positivity of “people over people” which is up the last 24 hours from 11.8 to 11.9 percent while the rolling seven-day average for percent positivity of “tests over tests,” jumped to 8.0 percent from 7.9 percent.
Statewide COVID hospitalizations dropped from 260 to 230 since Wednesday.
The latest news from Idaho shows 2,162 coronavirus deaths with 195,552 confirmed COVID-19 cases. In the three southeast Idaho counties case counts include 1,233 positive cases in Franklin County, 399 in Bear Lake County and 365 in Oneida County.