Health officials urge student athletes to get vaccinated as Utah reports 1,050 new cases of COVID-19

SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah Department of Health reported 1,050 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday – the third time in the past month, more than 1,000 new cases were reported in a single day.

The department also reported eight deaths on Wednesday. All but one were people under 65, including a man from Weber County who was under 25.

As of Wednesday, 388 COVID-19 patients were currently hospitalized and 8,379 additional vaccines were administered, the health department reported.

Health officials reported 1,211 cases on Friday and 1,113 cases on July 29. Prior to July 29, Utah had not reported more than 1,000 cases in a single day since February.

Experts say the rise in the number of cases is mainly due to the spread of the highly contagious delta variant of the virus among people who have not been vaccinated. As the start of the school year quickly approaches, some health officials expect things to get worse when students return to class.

Getting the vaccine is especially important for student-athletes, Rhett Farrer, certified athletic trainer from Intermountain Healthcare, said on Wednesday. This could ensure that athletes do not contract COVID-19, which could prevent them from playing their sport.

“Protect yourself, protect your season,” he said at an Intermountain press conference on Wednesday. “Your best effort is to get the vaccine.”

COVID-19 vaccines are often more effective in young people, added Dr Tamara Sheffield, Intermountain’s medical director of community health and prevention.

“The younger you are, the better you respond to the vaccine,” Sheffield said.

About 43.8% of Utah teens aged 12 to 18 have received at least a first dose of the vaccine, and about a third of them are fully immunized, according to Sheffield. Moderna will soon seek approval from federal regulators to distribute her vaccine to this age group, so hopefully there will be two options in the near future, she said.

Vaccination in younger people is especially important because children can develop a “long COVID,” Sheffield said. People with long-standing COVID can show symptoms of the disease long after being infected for the first time. Symptoms may persist for more than a year after the initial infection.

Long-term fatigue, coughing and chest pain have all been documented in children with long-term COVID, Sheffield said. This could take athletes away from the field, she stressed.

Not only can the long COVID physically affect children, but it can also affect children’s concentration and memory, she said. It could also affect their performance in the classroom, but it can be avoided, she added.

“The way to stop this is to get everyone vaccinated,” Sheffield said.

Utah’s seven-day moving average for positive cases in the state is now 907. The positive test rate per day for that period calculated using the “person-to-person” method is now 15.2%. The rate of positive tests per day for this period calculated with the “test on test” method is now 10.7%.

Of the 388 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized in Utah, 166 are in intensive care, according to state data. About 83% of all hospital beds in the state’s intensive care units are now occupied, including about 84% of the beds in the state’s 16 referral hospitals. According to state data, about 61% of the state’s non-ICU hospital beds are now occupied.

A total of 3,050,326 doses of vaccine have been administered in Utah. There are now 1,689,715 Utahns who received a first dose, representing about 52.7% of the state’s total population. A total of 1,491,534 Utahns, or about 46.5% of the population, are now fully immunized. For vaccine-eligible Utahns aged 12 and older, 65.2% have received at least one dose and 57.5% are fully immunized.

The Delta variant made a difference in Utah, Sheffield said. The amount of virus in a person’s body when they catch the delta variant can be up to 1,000 times the viral load with other variants, she said.

“What we were hoping for in terms of drivetrain has been changed with the delta variant,” she said. “It changes the masking policy, it changes the isolation policy, and it changes the quarantine policy.”

Of the 2,945,514 people tested for COVID-19 in Utah so far, 14.8% have tested positive for the disease. The total number of tests done since the start of the pandemic in Utah is now 5,359,045, up 12,293 since Tuesday. Of those, 6,999 were tests of people who had never been tested for COVID-19.

The eight deaths reported on Wednesday include:

• A woman from Cache County who was between 25 and 44 and was not hospitalized when she died
• Two women from Salt Lake County, 45-64, one hospitalized and one out-of-hospital
• Utah County man, 25-44, hospitalized
• Weber County man, 15-24, hospitalized
• Weber County man, 25-44, hospitalized
• Weber County man, over 85, resident in long-term care facility
• Weber County man, 65-84, resident in long-term care facility

Wednesday’s totals give Utah 436,487 total confirmed cases, with 18,825 total hospitalizations and 2,479 total deaths from the disease.