SALT LAKE CITY – All adults in Utah are eligible to schedule an appointment for the COVID-19 vaccine beginning March 24, Governor Spencer Cox announced Thursday.
The extension of eligibility will take place earlier than expected. Cox had previously planned to be eligible for all adults in Utah on April 1. The expansion comes after a request from local health districts to the state to make everyone eligible earlier than previously planned.
“We know we need to do better,” Cox said of vaccine distribution at a news conference Thursday. “We need more vaccine to make that happen.”
Those aged 16 to 18 in Utah qualify for the Pfizer vaccine, the only vaccine to receive federal approval for that age group so far, Cox added.
Cox stressed that there won’t be enough doses of the vaccine on March 24 to keep up with demand. People will be eligible to schedule an appointment for the vaccine next week, but their appointments could be several more weeks, he added.
The expansion comes at the request of local health departments to broaden eligibility earlier than previously planned, the governor said.
The state has implemented a vaccination roadmap for disadvantaged populations such as multicultural communities and the homeless. That process includes sending mobile vaccination units to multicultural and rural communities that would otherwise not have enough access to the vaccine.
When those mobile units are sent to those areas, it will be easier for vaccine administrators to simply offer doses to as many people as possible, rather than worry about their age or health status or some other admission factor, Cox said. The expansion for everyone next week will make it easier for those situations, so health districts and community partners have asked the governor to make the change, he said.
Health officials have said that 70-90% of any given population must be vaccinated for herd immunity to take place. Cox said Utah won’t be able to achieve herd immunity if the majority of the state is vaccinated, but pockets remain in those disadvantaged populations where only 30-40% of people have received the vaccine.
The state administered 140,000 doses of vaccine in the past week, and 87% of Utahns age 70 and older received at least one dose, Cox said Thursday. A large number of people under the age of 50 with underlying health conditions have also been dosed, he added.
Utah expects a major increase in vaccine allocation by the end of March and into April as Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are all ready to ramp up production of their respective vaccines, Cox said.
“We are very happy with where things are now,” added the governor.
Utah government Spencer Cox released a COVID-19 pandemic update Thursday morning at a PBS Utah press conference. Watch the rerun of the event below.
New COVID-19 cases
According to the Utah Department of Health, the number of COVID-19 cases in Utah is up 560, with five more deaths and 25,312 vaccinations. The health department estimates that there are now 11,281 active cases of the disease in Utah.
The moving seven-day average number of positive cases per day is now 484, according to the health department. The positive test rate per day for that period reported with the “people over people” method is now 8.4%. The positive test percentage per seven-day daily mean, calculated with the “test over test” method, is now 4.2%.
There are now 189 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized in Utah, including 63 in intensive care units, state data shows. About 72% of all intensive care beds are now occupied in Utah, including about 75% of the intensive care beds in the state’s 16 referral hospitals. According to state data, about 54% of non-intensive care hospital beds are now occupied.
A total of 1,080,039 vaccine doses have been administered in the state, up from 1,054,727 Wednesday. A total of 714,049 Utahns have now received at least one dose of vaccine, while 394,004 have been fully vaccinated, state data show. A total of 1,258,310 vaccine doses have now been shipped to the state.
The new numbers indicate an increase of 0.1% in positive cases since Wednesday. Of the 2,314,764 people tested for COVID-19 so far in Utah, 16.4% tested positive for COVID-19. The number of tests conducted since the start of the pandemic now stands at 4,066,552, up from 16,975 since Wednesday. Of those, 7,526 were tests from people who had not previously been tested for COVID-19.
The five deaths reported Thursday were:
- Two women from Salt Lake County who were between the ages of 65 and 84 and were hospitalized when they died
- Two women in Utah County who were over 85, one hospitalized when she died and the other not hospitalized
- A Wasatch County man between the ages of 45 and 64 who was hospitalized when he died.
One death previously on the total Utah COVID-19 deaths list has been removed from the list after further investigation, health officials said.
Totals on Thursday give Utah 380,340 total confirmed cases, with 15,223 total hospitalizations and 2,041 total deaths from the disease. According to the health department, a total of 367,018 Utah COVID-19 cases are now considered recovered.
Carbon and Summit counties have shifted to the moderate transmission level below Utah’s transmission index system, according to Cox. Duchesne and San Juan counties have now moved to the low transmission level.
Five counties remain at the high transmission level: Beaver, Emery, Garfield, Kane and Uintah. Six are at the low transmission level: Daggett, Duchesne, Piute, Rich, San Juan, and Wayne. All other counties in the state are rated for the moderate transmission level.
This story is being updated.
