SALT LAKE CITY – It’s now been nearly a year since the COVID-19 pandemic officially arrived in Utah, turning it upside down, just like the rest of the world.
The coronavirus has since been blamed as the leading cause of death for 1,797 Utahns – 717 of those deaths were residents of Salt Lake County, according to data from the Utah Department of Health pulled Tuesday night. The city indicates that at least 137 residents were responsible for the provincial total.
More than 135,000 residents of the province have contracted this in the past year, and it has also resulted in more than 6,300 hospitalizations so far. Doctors at the University of Utah Health said it would become the state’s third leading cause of death in 2020 after heart disease and cancer.
As the anniversary approaches, members of Salt Lake City City Council unanimously passed a resolution on Tuesday that makes the first Monday in March “COVID-19 Victims and Survivors Memorial Day.” That means that in a few weeks, on March 1, the city’s first day of remembrance will take place.
Utah’s COVID-19 story began in March 2020. Then-Gov. Gary Herbert issued a state of emergency for the coronavirus on March 6, and the state’s first case was confirmed hours later.
Five days after Utah’s first case, Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the corona virus prior to a game in Oklahoma City. Although the positive test caused shock waves through the sports world, it also reverberated throughout the Bijenkorf state. Within a week of that positive test, many businesses across the state had shut down and schools had switched to virtual learning models.
Even as the number of new COVID-19 cases is slowly declining and the number of Utahns vaccinated is steadily increasing, the effects of the coronavirus are still clearly visible in everyday life. Example: The Salt Lake City City Council met to approve the resolution via video conference because city meetings are still not held in person.
Salt Lake City councilor Dan Dugan read the language of the resolution at Tuesday’s city council meeting. The resolution recognizes the coronavirus’s overall impact on the community – from “catastrophic consequences for human life, our community and our economy”.
Aside from the number of people who died or suffered long-term consequences from the coronavirus, the resolution recognized the challenges it faced teachers and students when they switched to virtual “distance learning.” The Salt Lake City school district only started resuming some personal learning a few weeks ago.
It also recognizes the role that key workers have played in sacrificing their own health and safety to “provide essential services to help and protect our communities and save lives.”
The resolution also didn’t shy away from acknowledging how COVID-19 has negatively impacted minority communities and people with lower incomes.
“COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on low-income and communities of color, exacerbating the inequalities that already exist in our systems that we as a nation need to address,” the resolution states.
City councilor Amy Fowler said the motion has been submitted to the council by the Smart City Policy Group. She added that the Utah capital is now joining more than 60 others in the country who recognize the first Monday in March as a commemoration day of COVID-19. Other cities that have taken similar measures include Nashville, Tennessee and Santa Fe, New Mexico.