FILE PHOTO – COVID-19 vaccine. Photo by Braňo on Unsplash
Since Monday the Utah Department of Health (UDOH) reported 38 more COVID-19 deaths. The deaths reported today represent deaths that were investigated by the Office of the Medical Examiner (OME) to determine if they were caused by COVID-19. Two of them are men from northern Utah, both between 65-84 years of age, one from Cache County and the other from Box Elder County.
Also, epidemiologists at UDOH and local health departments have been reviewing past death certificate data to ensure all COVID-19 deaths have been reported. This review has potentially identified 90 additional deaths that will be reported by March 28, 2022. many of which occurred more than a month ago.
Utah’s COVID death toll over 24 months of the pandemic is now 4,610, 238 of them from the Bear River Health District.
Tuesday UDOH reported 109 new positive cases of coronavirus — the 11th straight day under 200 cases — which puts the state’s overall total at 926,894 cases since the start of the pandemic.
The Tuesday COVID report also indicates 126 Utahns are hospitalized with coronavirus which is four fewer than Monday’s report. Also, 19 of those patients are in intensive care, three fewer than Monday. Since the start of the pandemic total COVID hospitalizations now number 33,872.
The total northern Utah case count has reached more than 51,000 and there have been more than 2,000 COVID hospitalizations in Cache, Box Elder and Rich counties the past 24 months.
UDOH reported that in the last 28 days, people who are unvaccinated are at 3.5 times greater risk of dying from COVID-19, 2.2 times greater risk of being hospitalized due to COVID-19, and 1.9 times greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19 than vaccinated people.
The number of Utahns fully vaccinated is over 1.99 million which is almost 62 percent of the state’s total population. Almost five million doses have been administered and that includes 1,799 doses since Monday.
There were 2,507 Utahns tested since Monday which means over 4.99 million people have been tested and nearly 9.37 million total tests have been administered the last 24 months.
Utah’s new rolling seven-day average for positive tests is 134 a day, the seven-day rolling average for percent positivity of “people over people” is 4.7 percent while the rolling seven-day average for percent positivity of “tests over tests” is 2.7 percent.