FILE IMAGE – coronavirus. Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash
BRIGHAM CITY – Utah will not follow other states who have offered unvaccinated residents incentives to get their flu shots. At least not now.
Gov. Spencer Cox did not endorse the idea during his Thursday COVID press conference but he didn’t close the door on possible giveaways of money or other prizes for those who do become vaccinated. He said he is watching to see how much success other states have with their vaccine awards programs.
A Friday coronavirus update from the Utah Department of Health listed three new COVID-19 deaths in the state since Thursday. One of them, a man older than 85 from Box Elder County, was not hospitalized at the time of death.
There have been 2,297 COVID deaths in Utah over the course of the pandemic and 103 in Cache, Box Elder and Rich counties.
Exactly 44.8 percent of all adults in northern Utah had been immunized as of Friday (58,278 people). A total of 133,981 doses have been administered in the Bear River Health District.
Positive cases of coronavirus grew by 272 in Utah Friday which is more than the state’s current seven-day average for positive tests (241 a day). There were 10 new cases in the Bear River Health District which leaves the total number of positive cases in the district at 21,886.
Since Thursday 13,478 vaccine doses were administered statewide and total doses in the arms of Utahns during the pandemic has reached almost 2.57 million.
The number of Utahns now fully vaccinated is 1,196,015 which is 37 percent of the state’s population.
The rolling seven-day average for positive tests is 241 a day. The rolling seven-day average for percent positivity of “people over people” is still 6.7 percent and the rolling seven-day average for percent positivity of “tests over tests” remains at 3.9 percent.
There are now 147 Utahns hospitalized with the coronavirus, the same as Thursday. Also, for the second straight day, 53 people in intensive care units. Total hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic are 16,772.
Idaho is reporting 2,090 coronavirus deaths and there are 192,012 confirmed COVID-19 cases. In the three southeast Idaho counties case counts include 1,199 positive cases in Franklin County, 391 in Bear Lake County and 363 in Oneida County.