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Utah health officials reported 254 new cases of COVID-19 and two more deaths on Monday, as the state’s hospitalization numbers continued to rise.
A week ago, there were 150 people hospitalized with the coronavirus, according to the Utah Department of Health. That number has risen to 220 in seven days, an increase of almost a third.
The number of Utahns in intensive care units because of COVID-19 is also up, albeit by less. That number has risen from 65 to 72 in a week, an increase of about 10%.
According to UDOH, there has also been one more “breakthrough case” death — the person was fully vaccinated at least 14 days before he or she contracted COVID-19. That brings the total number of breakthrough case deaths in Utah to five, or one in every 279,368 people who are fully vaccinated. (UDOH does not specify the dates of breakthrough case deaths.)
There have been 812 cases of the Delta variant confirmed in Utah, making it the second most frequent variant in the state, trailing only the Alpha variant, with 3,074. Only a fraction of the COVID-19 cases in Utah — just over 5,000 of more than 414,000 cases, about 1.2% — have been identified as having been caused by a specific variant.
Vaccine doses administered in past day/total doses administered • 2,722 / 2,846,668.
Utahns fully vaccinated • 1,396,838.
Cases reported in past day • 254.
Deaths reported in past day • Two: an Emery County woman between the ages of 65 and 84, and a Salt Lake County man 85-plus.
Tests reported in past day • 2,121 people were tested for the first time. A total of 6,936 people were tested.
Hospitalizations reported in the past day • 220. That’s five more than on Sunday. Of those currently hospitalized, 72 are in intensive care units, four more than on Sunday.
Percentage of positive tests • Under the state’s original method, the rate is 12%. That’s higher than the seven-day average of 9.6%.
The state’s new method counts all test results, including repeated tests of the same individual. Monday’s rate was 3.7%, higher than the seven-day average of 6.4%.
[Read more: Utah is changing how it measures the rate of positive COVID-19 tests. Here’s what that means.]
Totals to date • 414,204 cases; 2,365 deaths; 17,453 hospitalizations; 2,786,992 people tested.
