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With 391 new coronavirus cases reported on Friday, Utah’s rate of new diagnoses continued to decline, and for more than two weeks has stayed under the governor’s target of less than 400 cases per day.
For the past seven days, Utah has averaged 354 new positive test results, the Utah Department of Health reported on Friday. Gov. Gary Herbert had said he wanted the state to get below 400 new cases per day by Sept. 1 — and with just four days to go, new cases would need to rise sharply to miss that target.
Utah’s death toll from the coronavirus stood at 407 on Friday, with four fatalities reported since Thursday:
A Box Elder County man, age 65 to 84, who died in a hospital.
A Box Elder County woman, age 45 to 64, who died in a hospital.
A Wasatch County woman, age 65 to 84, Wasatch County resident, who lived in a long-term care facility.
A Salt Lake County man, age 45 to 64, who died in a hospital.
Hospitalizations were down slightly on Friday, with 118 Utah patients concurrently admitted, UDOH reported. On average, 126 patients have been receiving treatment in Utah hospitals each day for the past week, continuing a decline from the peak average of 211 patients hospitalized each day at the end of July.
In total, 3,041 patients have been hospitalized in Utah for COVID-19, up 26 from Thursday.
The rate of tests with positive results was at 8.8% on Friday, up slightly from Thursday’s 8.7%. State epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn has said a 3% positivity rate would indicate the virus is under control.
Statewide, Utah’s rate of positive tests have been above 5% since May 25, according to UDOH data.
There were 4,984 new test results reported Friday, above the weeklong average of 4,050 new tests per day. Testing demand has dropped since late July, state officials and hospital administrators have said; in mid-July, the state was reporting more than 7,000 new test results per day, on average.
Since Utah’s public schools began opening on Aug. 13, there have been outbreaks in six schools, affecting 46 patients, with no new outbreaks reported in the past day. Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 91 patients infected in 17 school outbreaks, with an average age of 17. Five of those patients have been hospitalized; none has died.
Of 50,948 Utahns who have tested positive for COVID-19, 42,959 are considered “recovered” — that is, they have survived for at least three weeks after being diagnosed.
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