Gov. Gary Herbert holds up a face mask as he announces face masks will be provided to K-12 students as masks are required for school during a COVID-19 briefing at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Thursday, July 16, 2020.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah reported new COVID-19 case counts Thursday, as it has every day the four months of the pandemic, but this time didn’t seem part of the same routine.
First, the announcement of 954 new cases drew attention because it was far beyond any previous one-day totals.
“I need to provide a lot of context to those numbers,” was how State Epidemiologist Angela Dunn explained it at Thursday’s press conference. She said the state had been reviewing antigen case results for accuracy and decided to add them to the state’s case totals.
Antigen tests can find a protein in the COVID-19 virus. PCR tests, a more commonly used (but slower) test, detects viral RNA.
A statement from the Utah Department of Health said 251 of the new cases are the result of antigen testing, another 50 cases were found in early July but had been delayed in electronic reporting, plus another 246 cases were diagnosed early this week and were added to Thursday’s total.
As of Thursday 31,845 Utahns have tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of pandemic.
After seven more deaths in the Wednesday report and another Thursday, 234 Utahns have been lost during the pandemic.
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