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More Utahns now in ICUs than there are staffed beds available, state reports

Another 1,637 Utahns have tested positive for COVID-19. Eleven more have died from the virus.

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There are now more people being treated in Utah hospitals’ intensive care units than there are staffed beds available, according the Utah Department of Health — as cases of COVID-19 in the state remain at a plateau after peaking in early September.

“We’re still in the thick of it,” Eddie Stenehjem, infectious diseases physician at Intermountain Healthcare, said Friday of the pandemic.

Intensive care units in all Utah hospitals are at 100.8% capacity — with 525 patients in ICUs, out of 521 staffed beds, the state Health Department reported Friday.

In larger hospitals, called “referral” hospitals, ICUs are at 102.7% capacity, with 453 patients being treated amid 441 staffed beds. That’s the second-highest capacity level of any day since the pandemic began.

The state Health Department reported that 45.3% of patients in ICU beds are hospitalized with COVID-19.

According to UDOH spokeswoman Charla Haley, the ICU capacity level can exceed 100% when health care workers are caring for more patients than usual — for example, when one nurse is treating three or four patients where usually the hospital would assign two nurses per patient.

Within Intermountain Healthcare alone, Stenehjem said, the occupancy rate of ICU beds is at 99% in the system’s larger hospitals and 98% across all the system’s hospitals.

As a result, surgeons are delaying increasingly important procedures for non-coronavirus patients — including patients with strokes and heart conditions, Stenehjem said.

”Complex vascular surgeries, heart surgeries — they need ICU beds after their surgery,” Stenehjem said in Intermountain’s COVID-19 community briefing over Facebook Live. “Because of our capacity issues, we can no longer offer those surgeries because we can’t provide ... the safe, effective care that those patients need post-operatively. We just don’t have the room to provide that.”

Stenehjem stressed that the procedures being delayed “are ‘non-emergent’ surgeries, but these aren’t elective surgeries. By no means. I mean, people that are having strokes due to a clot in their arteries or they have blockages in their heart — they need those surgeries. But we unfortunately just can’t offer them at this time because there’s no way to care for them.”

According to the state Health Department, an additional 2,524 Utahns were fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in the past day, bringing the total to 1,706,555 — 52.2% of Utah’s total population.

Eleven more Utahns died of COVID-19 in the past day, the Health Department announced. One person who died was between the ages of 25 and 44; two were between the ages of 45 and 64.

The Health Department also reported 1,637 new coronavirus cases on Friday, which brought the total number of cases recorded statewide to 520,190 since the pandemic began. The rolling seven-day average for positive tests stands at 1,424 per day.

Kids in grades K-12 accounted for 362 of the new cases announced Friday. There were 187 cases reported in children aged 5-10; 77 cases in children 11-13; and 98 cases in children 14-18.

In the past four weeks, unvaccinated Utahns were 15.8 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than vaccinated people, according to a Health Department analysis. The unvaccinated also were 12.1 times more likely to be hospitalized and 6.8 times more likely to test positive for the coronavirus.

Vaccine doses administered in past day/total doses administered • 9,282 / 3,548,335.

Utahns fully vaccinated • 1,706,555.

Cases reported in past day • 1,637.

Deaths reported in past day • 11.

Four of those who died were from Sanpete County: A woman and three men, all between the ages of 65 and 84.

UDOH also reported two men between the ages of 45 and 64 died — one from Cache County, the other from Salt Lake County.

Also among the dead: A Utah County man, 25-44; a Washington County woman, 65-84; and three men 65-84 — one from Juab County, one from Uintah County, and one from Weber County.

Hospitalizations reported in the past day • 572. That’s five more than reported on Thursday. Of those currently hospitalized, 238 are in intensive care — four more than reported on Thursday.

Percentage of positive tests • Under the state’s original method, the rate is 15.9% over the past day. That’s higher than the seven-day average of 15.4%.

The state’s new method counts all test results, including repeated tests of the same individual. Tuesday’s rate was 8.6%, higher than the seven-day average of 10.2%.

[Read more: Utah is changing how it measures the rate of positive COVID-19 tests. Here’s what that means.]

Totals to date • 520,190 cases; 2,994 deaths; 22,662 hospitalizations; 3,526,903 people tested.