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The numbers related to the coronavirus on Sunday in Utah were not as egregious as those of the previous days.
What could be the only positive side of what was a disastrous week in the fight against COVID-19.
The state’s recent surge in COVID-19 cases continued on Sunday, with 472 new cases (2.3% more than Saturday) and 31 new hospitalizations, according to the Utah Department of Health. There were no new deaths in the latest published figures, keeping the total at 167 for now.
There have now been 21,100 total positive cases in the state and 1,396 hospitalizations since the coronavirus hit. There are currently 192 people hospitalized due to COVID-19. UDOH also noted that with 5,647 new tests performed, the state has conducted 328,449 tests in total. The positive rate is 6.4% overall.
Many troubling trends emerged in Utah in the past week.
For starters, the seven-day average of new positive cases is now at a record high of 519. A week ago, that number was at 450.
Meanwhile, according to the state, the seven-day moving average of the percentage of tests that tested positive has exceeded 10% for the first time.
Utah now has 9,000 active cases of coronavirus, which is a new record. A week ago, the state was at 7,885 active cases.
The state of the hive is hardly alone in this regard.
The United States has also seen sudden increases in Florida, Texas and Arizona as those states took aggressive steps to reopen their economies. But there are others.
The recent surge in Salt Lake County was enough to prompt County Mayor Jenny Wilson and Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall to urge Governor Gary Hebert to enact a mandate to wear masks, a move he made Thursday. , which requires Salt Lake County citizens to wear a mask when entering and leaving restaurants, shopping, or attending community events (a similar order was issued for Summit County).
As a result, Salt Lake County added more than 1,500 cases and 100 hospitalizations last week.
Still, it’s not just relatively high-density Salt Lake County that is struggling with the coronavirus right now in Utah.
For the first time, the infection rate among Hispanics has exceeded 2,000 per 100,000 residents. In comparison, it is 295 per 100,000 for whites.
The numbers are actually disproportionately bad for people of color in the state across the board, as the case rate per 100,000 people is 1,637 for Hawaiians / Pacific Islanders; 872 for black / African American; 787 for American Indians / Alaska Natives; and 395 for Asians.
Still, the numbers have been particularly bleak among Utah Hispanics. While they represent 14.2% of Utah’s population, they now represent 43.2% of their COVID-19 cases. In comparison, whites represent 78% of the population, but 34.5% of coronavirus cases.
For those who care about the death rate for some good news, it’s true that Utah’s death rate of 0.79% is really low, and has been lowered by the influx of new cases. However, as state epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn has pointed out, mortality is a lagging indicator. People tend to fight the disease for days, if not weeks, before succumbing to it.
Without a “large-scale behavioral change by all Utahns to reverse this trend,” he warned, death counts and hospitalizations would only increase.
Given that, the “current hospitalizations” figure will be a key number to keep in mind. The current figure of 192 is over 166 at the beginning of the week.
