The state denounces less than 600 new cases and one more death.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) COVID-19 nursing test at the Utah Test site in Herriman, Friday, February 5, 2021.
Utah is “slowly beginning to see some population immunity,” also known as herd immunity, an infectious disease doctor told Intermountain Healthcare on Tuesday.
Dr. Brandon Webb noted the seven-day continuous average of about 1,000 new cases a day, roughly where the state was in October.
“A thousand a day is still too high,” Webb said. “But we are very happy to see that they are shrinking” as a result of social distancing of people, putting on masks, vaccination, and because about 180,000 Utahs have recovered from COVID-19 in the last three months.
“We are probably in a place just under 20% [immunity] at this point. … It’s not enough, but it’s helping, “Webb said.” And it’s very important to see that more and more people are immune, as combining this with social distancing [and] masking, is driving the countdown to our case “.
For the second day in a row, the number of new COVID-19 cases reported in Utah is well below 1,000. After reporting 462 cases on Monday, the Department of Health reported 591 positive tests on Tuesday.
Webb said the state is in a “race between vaccines and variants,” adding, “We can’t go fast enough. Here’s the end result.”
He said it’s “hard to know” if Utah is being affected by coronavirus variants, because little testing is done for them. Health experts are monitoring reinfection rates and vaccine failures, which provide indirect evidence of variants, and “at least right now, we don’t see strong signs that we have a dominant strain here in the state. But we are still watching very carefully. “
Webb also warned people who have obtained the first dose of coronavirus vaccine to continue taking precautions: social distance and with masks.
“We are seeing too many cases of acute COVID in people who received their first dose. … You have very little immunity during the first two weeks after receiving the first dose, “he said. The data, he added, show that” you are not completely immune until you have the full two-dose series for these vaccines. MRNA. … With the availability of these vaccines, we still need people to be vigilant even after this first dose and the second dose series. ”
Vaccines reported in total / last day vaccinations • 7,952 / 532,985.
Number of Utahns who have received two doses • 164,775.
Cases reported last day • 591.
Deaths reported last day • One: A man 85 years of age or older in Salt Lake County.
Hospitalizations reported last day • 272. It has gone down two Mondays. Of those currently hospitalized, 106 are in intensive care units, two more than Monday.
Tests reported last day • 4,015 people were tested for the first time. A total of 9,985 people were tested.
Percentage of positive tests • According to the original method of the state, the rate is 14.7%. This is above the seven-day average of 13.7%.
His new method counts all test results, including repeated tests from the same individual. Today’s rate is now 5.9%, slightly lower than the seven-day average of 6.4%.
Total so far • 362,347 cases; 1,797 dead; 14,239 hospitalizations; 2,129,525 people tested.