Editor’s note: The Salt Lake Tribune is providing free access to critical stories about the coronavirus. Sign up for our Top Stories newsletter, sent to your inbox every weekday morning. To support journalism like this, please donate or become a subscriber.
Utah broke another single-day record in COVID-19 cases, with 4,588 positive tests Friday — and reported another 17 Utahns have died from the virus.
For the past week, the state has averaged 3,331 new positive test results a day, the Utah Department of Health reported. For the past week, 23.6% of people tested have received a positive test result.
Today’s fatalities bring the state’s death toll to 773. The 17 people who died were identified as:
• A Davis County man older than 85.
• Six Salt Lake County residents: Four men — one between 45 and 64, two between 65 and 84, and one older than 85 — and two women, one between 25 and 44, the other between 65 and 84.
• A San Juan County man older than 85.
• Six Utah County residents: Five men — two between 45 and 64, two between 65 and 84, one older than 85 — and a woman, between 65 and 84.
• Two Washington County residents: A man older than 85 and a woman between 45 and 64.
• A Weber County man older than 85.
The number of hospitalized patients was high but held steady Friday, with 533 people concurrently admitted, UDOH reported.
There have been 1,428 Utahns reported hospitalized for COVID-19 in the past two weeks. In total, 7,350 patients have been hospitalized statewide for COVID-19, up 135 from Thursday.
Utah’s intensive care units were 89.3% occupied as of Friday — a figure that hospital officials say means the ICUs are effectively full.
Friday’s case count is the state’s largest one-day tally since the pandemic began. UDOH recorded more than 5,000 cases last Saturday, but the actual number of cases that day was around 4,000, because of a technical glitch in the department’s data recording the day before.
Six of the state’s local health districts hit single-day records: Wasatch County, with 1,808; San Juan County, with 970; Davis County, with 500; Tooele County, with 105; the Southeast Utah Health District (which covers Carbon, Emery and Grand counties), with 1,097; and the Weber-Morgan Health District, with 382.
Salt Lake County recorded 1,585 new cases Friday, and Utah County tallied 1,105 for the previous 24 hours — which were not one-day records, but only because of last week’s data glitch.
The seven-day average positivity rate, at 23.6%, has declined a bit over the last five days — the average rate was 24.6% on Monday. The fall in the average rate coincides with a rise in the number of tests. UDOH reported the state had processed 18,378 tests in the 24-hour period ending Friday — another one-day record.
The Ogden School District announced Friday afternoon that Roy High School again would close, starting Monday through Dec. 4, switching to online instruction during those two weeks. The school has 18 active cases of COVID-19 among students and staff, six of them reported to the district Friday. Olympus High in Granite District also closed, marking the third outbreak there.
