Utah reports 1,786 COVID cases, 15 additional deaths

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Department of Health on Wednesday said 15 more Utahns have died due to COVID-19 and 1,786 residents have tested positive for the virus.

Of those cases, 405 (22.68%) were in school-aged children.

• 176 cases in children ages 5-10
• 105 cases in children ages 11-13
• 124 cases in children ages 14-18

Currently, 471 Utahns are hospitalized due to the virus and the ICUs at Utah’s 16 referral center hospitals, where the majority of COVID-19 patients are treated, are 95.9% full — well above the state’s “functionally full” threshold of 85%.

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The rolling seven-day average for positive tests was 1,341 — down from 1,359 on Monday and 1,456 last Monday.

An additional 35,576 vaccine doses have been administered since Monday — numbers were not reported Tuesday due to a database error — and UDOH said approximately 29,100 of those doses were third doses that have been administered but not yet reported on the data dashboard.

UDOH said over 1.68 million Utahns are now fully vaccinated and over 1.89 million have received at least one dose of a vaccine.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has also fully approved Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

“The vaccine has been proven to be safe and highly effective since it first became available under emergency use last December. Full FDA approval is the final step in a rigorous approval process to confirm the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness,” UDOH officials said. “The FDA’s announcement should provide confidence to anyone who may have hesitated to get the vaccine while it was under emergency use. We strongly encourage you to get vaccinated and help end the pandemic. We also strongly encourage healthcare providers who haven’t offered COVID-19 vaccines at their practice before now, to take the necessary steps to enroll as vaccine providers as soon as possible.”

Vaccinated vs. unvaccinated risk ratios

UDOH has added data on risk ratios among the vaccinated and the unvaccinated for testing positive, becoming hospitalized and dying from COVID-19 to the public data dashboard.

That data can be found by clicking on the “Risk Factors” tab at coronavirus.utah.gov.

Since Feb. 1, people who are unvaccinated are at 4.0 times greater risk of dying from COVID-19, 4.9 times greater risk of being hospitalized due to COVID-19, and 4.2 times greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19 than vaccinated people.

Of the 1,639,732 Utahns who are 14 days past their fully vaccinated date, 17,288 (1.07511%) have tested positive for COVID-19, 902 have been hospitalized (0.05501%) and 120 have died (0.00732%).

Utah has reported 506,790 positive COVID-19 cases, 22,101 hospitalizations and 2,920 deaths in total since the pandemic started.

“The UDOH determines vaccine status for cases using two methods — by linking all known cases to vaccination records reported into the Utah Statewide Immunization Information System (USIIIS) and through self-report by asking all cases if they have been fully vaccinated,” UDOH officials said. “Breakthrough cases may be overrepresented in the data due to this self-reporting.”

Testing

UDOH reports 3,444,170 people have been tested — 11,017 more than Tuesday. Of those, 506,790 Utahns have tested positive for COVID-19 — an increase of 1,786 new cases.

The rolling seven-day average for positive tests was 1,341 — down from 1,359 on Monday and 1,456 last Monday.

On June 1, Utah’s rolling seven-day average was 200 cases.

The rolling seven-day average for percent positivity of “people over people” rose to 14% while the rolling seven-day average for percent positivity of “tests over tests” rose to 10%.

Vaccinations

The state had administered 3,465,962 vaccine doses in total as of Wednesday, which is an increase of 35,576 over Monday’s numbers.

Updated vaccination numbers were not provided Tuesday due to a database error, UDOH officials said, and just over 29,000 of those new doses were third doses that had not been reported.

As of Wednesday, over 1.89 million Utahns had received at least one dose of a vaccine and over 1.68 million Utahns had been fully vaccinated.

Over 4.04 million vaccines have been delivered to Utah.

Hospitalizations

Currently, 471 people are hospitalized with confirmed cases of COVID-19 — Utah’s highest total since mid-January — and 178 of those people are in intensive care units.

Utah’s ICUs were 94.8% full and the ICU beds in Utah’s referral centers were 95.9% full Wednesday — well above the state’s utilization threshold or “functionally full” mark of 85%.

“At about 69% overall ICU utilization, ICUs in Utah’s major hospitals with the ability to provide best care for COVID-19 patients begin to reach staffing capacity,” UDOH officials said. “Seventy-two percent use among all hospitals and 77% in referral center hospitals creates major strains on the health care system. When 85% capacity is reached, Utah will be functionally out of staffed ICU beds, indicating an overwhelmed hospital system.”

Deaths

As of Wednesday, the virus had killed 2,920 of the state’s residents. The following deaths were reported Wednesday: