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Another 7,819 Utahns tested positive for COVID-19 in the last week, pushing the tally of confirmed cases to 997,556 since the pandemic began.
The state is likely to pass the 1 million mark of confirmed cases sometime in the next week. Case numbers remain unreliable, however, since the state closed most of its free testing sites and at-home testing is more ubiquitous.
Even given those limitations, Salt Lake, Summit, Tooele, Grand, Piute and San Juan counties are all considered to fall into the “high transmission” category. And wastewater monitoring — which relies on detecting the coronavirus in sewage samples — shows levels are increasing in about 30% of the state, although that is down from last week when nearly two-thirds of sites were registering increases.
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday reported 22 new COVID deaths since the last report a week ago, making the recent weeks the deadliest since the state emerged from the initial omicron surge in mid-March.
COVID-19 hospitalization rates
The number of COVID patients being newly admitted to Utah hospitals increased over the last week, from 37.4 to just over 39 per day.
The average number of people in the hospital on any given day over the past week also jumped up to 213.6. As of Thursday, that number stood at 252. A total of 36,485 people have been hospitalized in Utah since the pandemic began.
The number of COVID-19 patients in ICU beds as of Thursday dropped to 36, down from 52 a week earlier.
The state reported 13,928 more Utahns received a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine since July 6, the last time it released data. Of those, 1,403 are now fully vaccinated, meaning they have had two doses of an mRNA series vaccine, like Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech, or one dose of the Janssen vaccine. Another 3,492 received a booster dose in the past week.
About 62.6% of Utahns — a total of 2,024,468 — are fully vaccinated, and 29.6% have received a booster shot, the data shows.
Breakdown of updated figures
Vaccine doses administered in the past week/total doses administered • 13,928 / 5,280,894.
Number of Utahns fully vaccinated • 2,034,468 — 62.6% of Utah’s total population. Another 951,596 Utahns are boosted, or 29.6% of the population.
Cases reported in the past week • 7,819.
Average cases per day reported in the past week • 1,117
Deaths reported in the past week • 22.
Hospitalizations reported this week • 299 Utahns were hospitalized in the past week. As of Thursday, a total of 255 remained in the hospital, 13 fewer than the prior week. There were 36 in intensive care, a significant drop from the 52 reported last week.
Percentage of positive tests • Counting all test results, including repeated tests of the same individual, 26.7% of the tests conducted came back positive, compared to 28% at this point last week.
When repeated tests on the same individual are not counted, 35.7% of the tests administered yielded positive results, almost unchanged from last week’s 35.5% figure.
Totals to date • 997,556 cases; 4,869 deaths; 36,485 hospitalizations.
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