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.
For the second Monday in a row, the Utah Department of Health reported no new deaths caused by COVID-19. And, for the second Monday in a row, the number of new cases of coronavirus dipped below 200.
As is generally the case, the number of tests conducted on Sunday is also low — just over 2,400 people were tested for the first time, and fewer than 4,700 tests were done. But the rate of positive tests were higher than the seven-day averages.
Vaccine doses administered in past day/total doses administered • 3,214 / 1,307,533.
Utahns fully vaccinated • 478,918.
Cases reported in past day • 194.
Deaths reported in past day • None.
Hospitalizations reported in past day • 138. That’s down four from Sunday. Of those currently hospitalized, 57 are in intensive care units — one more than on Sunday.
Tests reported in past day • 2,403 people were tested for the first time. A total of 4,664 people were tested.
Percentage of positive tests • Under the state’s original method, the rate is 8.1%. That’s higher than the seven-day average of 6.9%.
Its new method counts all test results, including repeated tests of the same individual. Monday’s rate is now at 4.2%, higher than the seven-day average of 3.45%.
[Read more: Utah is changing how it measures the rate of positive COVID-19 tests. Here’s what that means.]
Totals to date • 384,756 cases; 2,114 deaths; 15,474 hospitalizations; 2,375,124 people tested.
Vaccination clinics have sprouted up around Utah, from hospitals to supermarket pharmacies. They also have appeared in such unusual venues as movie theaters and, in Spanish Fork, a shuttered Shopko store where Gov. Spencer Cox received his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine last week.
One of the more unusual vaccination sites is in Park City, where the Summit County Health Department has teamed up with the Utah Film Studios to put a drive-thru vaccination clinic in the studios’ shop area.
The clinic can process up to 300 doses a day, said Phil Bondurant, deputy health director for Summit County. The clinic is open three days a week — which reflects how many doses the county receives in a week, Bondurant said.
“We can ramp up based on the number of vaccines we’re given,” Bondurant said, adding that the county has struck a deal to use the studios at least through April.
People who make appointments can drive into one of three bays, get their vaccination, then spend the 15-minute observation period in the studio’s parking lot, Bondurant said.
The county approached the studio in January, said Marshall Moore, vice president of operations for Utah Film Studios. The studio was between major jobs, after the Paramount TV drama “Yellowstone” moved production to Montana after three seasons.
“It was a perfect fit for what [the county] needed,” Moore said. “The way the building was designed, they could do a drive-thru vaccine clinic. … The way it is set up was exactly how they would have set it up had they gone somewhere else and built it from scratch.”
The drive-thru clinic is in the studio’s workshop space, where sets are constructed, Moore said, so the soundstages are still in use. In the last few months, the Christian concert movie “Lamb of God” and a commercial for the outdoor apparel company Backcountry were shot there. Just before the clinic opened, the rapper Post Malone used the studio to perform motion-capture work for a virtual concert, posted on YouTube last week, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Pokémon game franchise.
