More than 565,000 Utahns have been completely vaccinated against coronavirus.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Amy Christensen, left, head of specialist nursing at Intermountain Healthcare, helps unveil new works by Utah artist Heather Olsen, right, at tribute to health workers during the COVID- 19 pandemic, Monday, April 5, 2021, in Murray.
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After a typically slow Sunday, the Utah Department of Health reported 173 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday. Only 3,778 tests were administered.
This is the lowest number of new cases since 163 were recorded on March 21, another Sunday.
More than 565,000 Utahns have been completely vaccinated against coronavirus, approximately 17% of the state’s population. And there was one more death attributed to COVID-19.
Dose of vaccines administered last day / total doses administered • 2,326 / 1,498,039.
Fully vaccinated Utahns • 565,539.
Cases reported last day • 173.
Deaths reported last day • One: A woman in Utah County between the ages of 65 and 84.
Tests reported last day • 2,111 people were tested for the first time. A total of 3,778 people were tested.
Hospitalizations reported last day • 121. It has gone down eight from Sunday. Of those currently hospitalized, 47 are in intensive care units, two more than on Sunday.
Percentage of positive tests • According to the original method of the state, the rate is 8.2%. This is above the seven-day average of 7.1%.
The new state method counts all test results, including repeated tests by the same individual. Monday’s rate was 4.65%, higher than the seven-day average of 3.5%.
[Read more: Utah is changing how it measures the rate of positive COVID-19 tests. Here’s what that means.]
Total so far • 387,514 cases; 2,133 dead; 15,625 hospitalizations; 2,413,193 people were tested.
On Monday, a Utah artist unveiled her “thanks” to health workers who have struggled with COVID-19, a big painting she donated to Intermountain Healthcare.
Heather Olsen, a Riverton artist, said her painting, titled “Together We Can Do This,” was the result of meeting doctors and nurses and admiring their sacrifices to save lives during the pandemic.
“You really are heroes,” Olsen told health workers during a Monday inauguration at the Murray Intermountain Transformation Center. “Every day you change your life and you make a difference. You are making the world a better place. “
The painting, a collage of 11 doctors and nurses in action, “is what I can do to say, ‘Thank you,'” Olsen said. “It has been huge for me, almost healing in a way. [It] it made me feel comfortable for these people to be out there and do everything they can. “
Prints of the painting will be distributed to hospitals and intermountain facilities. And health workers will have the opportunity to get personal impressions.
Olsen, inspired by her sister, who is a nurse, began painting pictures of health workers about a year ago, when the pandemic began. The first showed a nurse, wrapped in personal protective equipment, putting on her gloves. (This painting was part of a collection of works inspired by the Utah artist coronavirus, curated by The Salt Lake Tribune in April 2020).
[Read more: How 21 Utah artists created images inspired by the coronavirus]
Although he gave a generic figure to the figure in this painting and others in later paintings, Olsen said, “I brought in several nurses who said, ‘You made me.’
Elizabeth Hyde, a nurse in Intermountain’s intensive care unit, received one of these paintings from Olsen, who delivered it to her home at a time when Hyde said she was “exhausted, physically and emotionally.”
“When she showed up at my door,” Hyde said, “it gave me that impetus and confidence that I’m a good nurse, that I can do that and I can benefit the community with what I do every day.”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Intermountain Healthcare presents a new work by Utah artist Heather Olsen to pay tribute to front-line health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, during a discovery on Monday, April 5, 2021 and Murray.