The state is reporting less than 600 new cases and one more death.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Nurses test for COVID-19 at the Test Utah site in Herriman, on Friday, February 5, 2021.
Utah “is starting to see some population immunity little by little” – also known as herd immunity, an infectious disease doctor at Intermountain Healthcare said Tuesday.
Dr. Brandon Webb pointed to the seven-day moving average of about 1,000 new cases per day, roughly where the state was in October.
“A thousand a day is still too high,” said Webb. “But we’re very happy to see these decline” as a result of people distancing themselves from people, wearing masks, getting vaccinated – and because about 180,000 Utahns have recovered from COVID-19 in the past three months.
“We are probably somewhere just below 20% [immunity] on this point. … It’s not enough, but it helps, ”said Webb. “And it is very important to see more and more of the population as immune, because you link that to social detachment [and] masking, it drives our cause off. “
For the second day in a row, the number of new cases of COVID-19 reported in Utah is well below 1,000. After reporting 462 cases on Monday, the Department of Health reported 591 positive tests on Tuesday.
Webb said the state is in a “race between vaccines and variants,” adding, “We can’t go fast enough. That’s the bottom line.”
He said it is “difficult to know” whether coronavirus variants affect Utah because so little is tested for it. Health experts are monitoring re-infections and vaccine failure, providing indirect evidence of variants, and “at least at the moment we are not seeing strong signs that we have a dominant species here in the state. But we continue to look very carefully. “
Webb also warned people who received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine to continue to take precautions – social distance and wear masks.
“We are seeing too many cases of acute COVID in people who have received their first dose. … You have very little immunity for the first two weeks after you get the first dose, ”he said. The data, he added, shows that “you are not fully immune until you have had the full two-dose series for those MRNA vaccines. … With the availability of these vaccines, we still need people to be vigilant even after that first dose and during the second dose series. “
Vaccinations reported in the past day / total vaccinations • 7,952 / 532,985.
Number of Utahns that have received two doses • 164,775.
Cases reported in the past day • 591
Deaths reported in the past day • One – a man aged 85 or older in Salt Lake County.
Hospital admissions reported in the past day • 272. That is two less than Monday. Of those currently hospitalized, 106 are in intensive care units – two more than on Monday.
Tests reported in the past day • 4,015 people were tested for the first time. A total of 9,985 people were tested.
Percentage of positive tests • According to the state’s original method, the rate is 14.7%. That is higher than the seven-day average of 13.7%.
The new method counts all test results, including repeated tests from the same person. The current rate is now at 5.9%, slightly lower than the seven-day average of 6.4%.
Totals so far • 362,347 cases; 1,797 dead; 14,239 hospital admissions; 2,129,525 people tested.