While hospitalizations due to the coronavirus continue to mount in Utah, medical researchers at universities nationwide continue to search for medications to effectively treat the symptoms of COVID-19 (Photo courtesy of JohnsHopkins)

A Utah Department of Health (UDOH) Tuesday report listed 12 new COVID deaths in the state, including the first coronavirus fatality in northern Utah in 11 days. A Box Elder County woman, between 65-84, was hospitalized at the time of her death.

The UDOH said eight of the 12 fatalities occurred before April 19, 2021.

Utah’s coronavirus fatalities over the course of the pandemic now total 2,271.

New positive cases of coronavirus grew by 257 Tuesday and there were also 10 new cases in northern Utah. In 14 months of the pandemic there have been 402,988 cases in Utah. At the same time there have been 21,742 positive cases in Cache, Box Elder and Rich counties.

In other Utah COVID news, the special session of the legislature Wednesday will consider a bill which would keep the state’s public schools and universities from requiring face masks this fall. If the bill — HB1007 — becomes law, students could still choose to wear masks.

The state’s effort to inoculate as many Utahns as possible continued Tuesday as nearly 9,000 more Utahns became fully vaccinated since Monday and 18,126 doses were administered statewide. That means total doses in the arms of Utahns during the pandemic has reached almost 2.43 million.

More than 40 percent of all adults in northern Utah had been immunized (52,064) people). A total of 128,380 doses have been administered in the Bear River Health District.

Since the start of the pandemic among the total positive cases in Cache, Box Elder and Rich counties,  21,359 of the 21,742 total cases have been declared “recovered”. Most of the cases were found in Cache County (16,156) followed by Box Elder County (5,434) and Rich County (151). To date in the Bear River Health District there have been 905 COVID-19 hospitalizations and 101 coronavirus deaths.

Utah’s current COVID-19 hospitalizations on Tuesday dwindled to 138 people, five fewer than Monday. There are 53 people in intensive care units which is two more than on Monday. A total of 16,564 people have been hospitalized during the pandemic.

In Idaho 2,073 residents have lost their lives to the virus and there are 190,472 confirmed coronavirus cases. In the three southeast Idaho counties case counts include 1,191 positive cases in Franklin County, 38 in Bear Lake County and 362 in Oneida County.



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