2 Million Utahns Have Now Been Tested For COVID-19; No New Deaths Reported
Jan 28, 2021, 11:14 AM | Updated: 7:50 pm
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – The Utah Department of Health has reported 1,761 residents have tested positive for COVID-19.
More than 2 million Utahns have now been tested for the virus.
On Thursday, Gov. Spencer Cox held his weekly COVID-19 update, where he expressed an optimistic outlook after news that Utah would would be receiving 5,500 more doses than expected next week.
That will bump the state’s number to 40,000 vaccines per week. Nearly 224,000 Utahns have already received the first dose.
The Utah National Guard will be helping distribute those vaccines.
Currently, the vaccines available to the public are ones made by Moderna and Pfizer. The FDA could soon issue an emergency use authorization for vaccines made by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, which would drastically increase the number of vaccines to distribute, Cox said.
Next week, Utah officials will announce the next age group that will be eligible to receive the vaccine. So far, those 70 and older, those at high risk, K-12 teachers, and health care workers have been eligible to get immunized.
Cox also noted that the state completed an audit of the vaccines in Utah to see if any of them were being discarded improperly.
He said 95 doses had been wasted mostly due to broken syringes or improperly reconstituted doses.
Testing
UDOH reports 2,000,023 Utahns have been tested so far. That’s an increase of 10,917 people tested since yesterday.
Of those, a total of 342,445 have tested positive for COVID-19, which is an increase of 1,761 cases from Wednesday’s report.
The rolling 7-day average for positive tests is 1,710 per day, and the rolling 7-day average for percent of positive laboratory tests is 18.26%.
Utah Department of Health
Hospitalizations
Currently, 444 people are hospitalized with confirmed cases of COVID-19, and 157 of those people are in intensive care units. Another 92 people are hospitalized with suspected cases of COVID-19.
Utah’s ICUs are 84.2% full, and the ICU beds in the state’s referral centers are 89.1% full.
Referral Centers are the 16 hospitals in Utah with the capability to provide the best care for patients with COVID-19. Because most patients are transferred to these facilities, their utilization is the best reflection of the true hospital capacity in Utah when looking at ICU beds.
Utah Department of Health
Deaths
To date, 1,620 Utahns have died as a direct result of COVID-19. No new deaths were reported Thursday, but state health officials said this was due to a data transmission error.
“Deaths that would have been reported today will be added to tomorrow’s case count report,” officials said.
Utah Department of Health
Vaccinations
Utah has administered 267,027 vaccines so far. A total of 223,938 residents have received the first dose, and 43,089 have been fully immunized with both doses.
Utah Department of Health
For more information, visit coronavirus.utah.gov.
