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On the day that Utah’s governor announced that the state will be begin winding down its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the health department announced 15 more Utahns have died of the coronavirus.
Not only does that bring the state’s death toll to 4,359 since the pandemic began, 250 of those deaths have been reported this month alone, so far. That’s 5.7% of the total death toll — more than one in 20 of Utah’s COVID-19 deaths have been reported in the past 16 days.
Two of the deaths announced Friday occurred before Jan. 18, and were recently confirmed to be the result of the coronavirus.
The Utah Department of Health reported that the number of new cases in the past day fell below 1,000 — just barely. There were 999 new cases, the third time in the past four days that number has less than 1,000 and the ninth day in a row it was below 2,000.
Positive tests have been trending down since a peak of more than 13,000 cases in mid-January, as the virus’s omicron variant spread in Utah.
The number of Utahns hospitalized with COVID-19 also is trending down, after a huge spike in January. The overall number of coronavirus patients fell 17 in the past day to 459, and the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units throughout the state remained unchanged at 110.
ICUs in the state’s larger “referral” hospitals are at 81% capacity, lower than the 85% threshold that hospital administrators have said is necessary to leave room for unpredictable staffing levels, new patients and availability of specialized equipment and personnel. ICUs in those larger hospitals had surpassed 85% occupancy almost continuously since late August, but numbers dropped below that threshold Monday.
Overall, 78.7% of ICU beds across the state are filled, and 21.1% of intensive care patients are suffering from COVID-19.
According to state data, 60.8% of Utahns were fully vaccinated as of Friday. However, researchers have found that a booster is crucial to prevent serious illness — and just 26.3% of all Utahns have received a booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Find where to get vaccinated at coronavirus.utah.gov/vaccine-distribution. Find where to get tested at coronavirus.utah.gov/utah-covid-19-testing-locations.
Breakdown of updated figures
Vaccine doses administered in the past day/total doses administered • 4,686 / 4,917,008.
Number of Utahns fully vaccinated • 1,974,444 — 60.8% of Utah’s total population. That is an increase of 1,380 in the past day.
Cases reported in the past day • 999.
Vaccination status • Health officials do not immediately have or release the vaccination status of individuals who test positive, who are hospitalized or who die. They do calculate the overall risk ratios of these outcomes depending on vaccination status, which is listed below.
Tests reported in the past day • A total of 11,258 people were tested.
Deaths reported Friday • 15.
There were four deaths in Davis County — a woman 45-64, two men 65-84, and a man 85-plus.
Salt Lake County reported three deaths — a woman 45-64, a woman 65-84, and a woman 85-plus. Weber County also reported three deaths — two men 45-64, and a man 65-84.
Two Tooele County residents died — a man 45-64, and a woman 65-84. And three counties each reported a single death of a resident between the ages of 65 to 84 — a man in Box Elder County; a man in Garfield County; and a woman in Utah County.
Percentage of positive tests • Under the state’s original method, the rate was 23% in the past day. That is lower than the seven-day average of 26.3%.
The state’s new method counts all test results, including repeated tests of the same individual. Friday’s rate was 8.9%, lower than the seven-day average of 15.7%.
[Read more: Utah is changing how it measures the rate of positive COVID-19 tests. Here’s what that means.]
Risk ratios • In the past four weeks, unvaccinated Utahns were 8.8 times as likely to die of COVID-19 as vaccinated people were, according to a Utah Department of Health analysis. The unvaccinated also were 4.1 times as likely to be hospitalized, and 2.5 times as likely to test positive for the coronavirus.
Totals to date • 918,222 cases; 4,359 deaths; 32,808 hospitalizations; 9,148,537 tests administered.
