FILE PHOTO – Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine or mRNA-1273 is a COVID-19 vaccine developed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, and Moderna. Photo by Mufid Majnun
During a statewide media event Friday Dr. Brandon Webb, an infectious diseases physician for Intermountain Healthcare, encouraged Utahns to continue to wear masks, and to get vaccinated for both COVID-19 and for the flu.
“We, with confidence, strongly endorse vaccination as the single most effective method and most sustainable method for preventing both severe disease and the emergence of variants — for protecting those around us, and for transitioning into a normal that’s closer to the normal that we’d all like to get to,” Webb said.
The Utah Department of Health (UDOH) Friday revealed nine new COVID-19 deaths since Thursday so there have been 2,869 deaths in Utah with 134 of them in Cache, Box Elder and Rich counties.
There are 1,672 new positive cases included in the Friday report. Also, 98 positive cases were were found in Utah’s three northern counties. Friday Utah surpassed 500,000 positive COVID-19 cases (500,698) since the start of the pandemic.
Statewide there are 587 people hospitalized with COVID-19, 25 than was reported Thursday. There are 226 patients in intensive care, three more than Thursday.
The number of Utahns fully vaccinated is 1.67 million. There were 5,159 people vaccinated statewide since Thursday and over 3.4 million vaccines have been administered since the start of the pandemic. As of Friday 82,100 in the Bear River Health District are fully vaccinated.
With 10,009 Utahns tested since Thursday there are 3.4 million people who have been tested and over 6.1 million total tests have been administered the last 19 months.
The northern Utah total case count grew to 27,097 in Cache, Box Elder and Rich counties and 25,501 are considered to be “recovered”. Within the district 1,213 people have been hospitalized since the pandemic began.
Utah’s new rolling seven-day average for positive tests is down to 1,390 a day. The new seven-day rolling average for percent positivity of “people over people” is 13.6 percent while the rolling seven-day average for percent positivity of “tests over tests” is 9.9 percent.
Idaho’s Friday COVID update indicates 2,719 coronavirus deaths and the new total of confirmed COVID-19 cases is 248,094 statewide. New case counts in the three southeast Idaho counties include 1,432 total positives in Franklin County, 571 in Bear Lake County and 443 in Oneida County.