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Utah hospitals, which are now ready, expect to see more sick people catching the coronavirus over Labor Day weekend, said one of Utah’s top doctors.
“We’re prepared for that,” Dr. Brandon Webb, an infectious disease physician at Intermountain Healthcare, said Wednesday during a COVID-19 community briefing on Facebook Live. “We hope that in the coming weeks we will probably increase the number of new cases and new cases will lead to new hospitalizations.”
Another 1,539 Utahns tested positive for COVID-19, the Utah Department of Health reported Wednesday, and eight more people in the state have died from the virus.
Grade K-12 children accounted for 362 of the recently reported cases, nearly a quarter of the total. There were 138 cases in children aged 5 to 10 years; 99 cases in children aged 11 to 13; and 125 cases in children aged 14 to 18 years.
The average of seven days of positive testing stands at 1,362 per day.
On Wednesday, 483 were hospitalized, with 175 people in intensive care units.
Intermountain’s reference hospitals, the centers through which the most critical cases flow from other hospitals, have a higher or higher capacity, Webb said. He said hospitals need to “charge up” (transfer patients from busier hospitals to less busy hospitals) and “use creative means” to continue providing care.
“We’re seeing fatigue, especially on the faces of nurses and other health care providers who are at the forefront,” Webb said. In addition, more health workers “have to disconnect from work because they are home caregivers, and their children or other dependents get sick and need to get tested and go to the doctor themselves. That takes away from our workforce. ”
Historically, Webb said, a holiday weekend – and the meetings and events that accompany it – leads to an increase in the community’s COVID-19 case count.
Webb said it is difficult to determine which cases could have been contracted during the Labor Day holiday weekend and what could be attributed to the start of school or other events. “It will be difficult when multiple events occur simultaneously in the community,” Webb said.
Another big event will be Saturday: the rivalry football game between the University of Utah and Brigham Young University. More than 63,000 people are expected to fill Provo’s LaVell Edwards Stadium, in addition to an unknown number of people likely to gather in bars and sports houses to watch the match.
“Transmission happens from person to person,” Webb said. “Spending time very close, especially in indoor environments, but even in outdoor environments and stadiums where there are numerous groups of people and where physical distancing is not possible, increases the chances of us having broadcast events. It just does.” .
People can reduce the chances of transmitting the virus, Webb said, by taking precautions such as wearing masks. “Even in an outdoor stadium setting, where you’re sitting around others, wearing masks will be effective,” he said.
“I love college football,” Webb said, and “the way to safely enjoy these things we all love is … to do the two things we need to do to decrease variants, that is, increase our immunity through vaccination and decrease transmission by avoiding these exposures “.
Of the eight Utahns whose deaths were added to the state account, two were under the age of 45 and one was a young child or adult, a girl or woman between the ages of 15 and 24 in Iron County.
In the past four weeks, unvaccinated Utahs were 5.2 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than vaccinated people, according to a UDOH analysis. Unvaccinated people were also 5.2 times more likely to be hospitalized and 4.5 times more likely to test positive for coronavirus.
Dose of vaccines administered last day / total doses administered • UDOH did not report vaccine data on Wednesday because “it is currently undergoing a quality analysis.” The health department hopes to resume vaccine information on Thursday.
Fully vaccinated Utahns • UDOH did not report vaccination figures on Wednesday.
Cases reported last day • 1,539.
Deaths reported last day • Eight.
Three counties reported two deaths each: a man between the ages of 25 and 44 and a woman over the age of 85 in Salt Lake County; a woman aged 15 to 24 and a man aged 65 to 84 in Iron County; and two men aged 65 to 84 in Washington County.
A 65- to 84-year-old Utah County man and an 85-year-old Davis County woman also died.
Tests reported last day • 10,349 people were tested for the first time. A total of 18,148 people were tested.
Hospitalizations reported last day • 483. This is one more than Friday. Of those currently hospitalized, 175 are in intensive care, unchanged since Tuesday.
Percentage of positive tests • According to the original state method, the rate is 14.9% for the last day. This is above the seven-day average of 12.4%.
The new state method counts all test results, including repeated tests by the same individual. The rate for the last day was 8.5%, lower than the seven-day average of 9.3%.
[Read more: Utah is changing how it measures the rate of positive COVID-19 tests. Here’s what that means.]
Total so far • 475,625 cases; 2,693 dead; 20,699 hospitalizations; 3,228,020 people tested.