Nearly one in 4 coronavirus tests are positive and we haven’t seen the full impact of Thanksgiving, says Utah epidemiologist



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Social gatherings were leading to another outbreak of coronavirus cases in Utah, Gov. Gary Herbert admitted – but he said he was not considering any further restrictions on meetings, even as hospitalizations and deaths from the viruses continued to increase at record levels.

Instead, he implored Utahns to continue wearing masks and social distancing, even admitting that such calls had not been heard until now.

“The next 45 to 60 days will be critical,” he said. “We are on the rise now and we cannot let our guard down.”

The rate of new coronavirus cases in Utah had declined over the Thanksgiving holiday, but rose sharply again this week. With the 3,945 new coronavirus cases reported on Thursday, the state has an average of 2,627 new positive test results per day over the past week, the Utah Department of Health reported.

“Unfortunately, as we are starting to see now and we are not surprised, the numbers of cases are starting to rise,” Herbert said at a press conference Thursday.

He attributed the drop in cases around Thanksgiving to a two-week emergency order banning gatherings with people outside his own home.

“It worked,” he says. “I think people have actually become more aware, and I think their behavior is more deliberative and careful.”

But days before Thanksgiving, Herbert removed all limits on informal gatherings, even the 10-person limits that had been in place since mid-October in counties with high transmission levels. In Thursday’s press conference, Herbert compared the measures to “Gestapo tactics”.

“With Thanksgiving is coming, I didn’t think it was appropriate for us to say that we are going to ask the police to look through your windows and see what you are doing in your house,he said.

Yet, he noted, in the absence of order, social gathering practices in Utah “don’t work well.” While he said national research has shown Utah ranks in the middle of the 50 states for compliance masking, the state ranks 46th or 47th for social distancing.

And there appears to be an immediate fallout from the apparent surge in contacts after the emergency order was dismantled last week. The percentage of test results that came back positive has risen sharply in recent days, to 24.2% last week, again approaching the record after a two-week drop. State officials said the higher the percentage of positive results, the more likely it was that large numbers of infected people would not be tested and could spread the virus unknowingly.

“Transmission is still definitely widespread statewide,” state epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn said at the press conference. “We probably don’t understand the full impact of Thanksgiving on Utah yet.”

The impact of vacations on hospitalizations is even more distant, with the increase in hospital admissions typically being seven to ten days behind the increase in diagnoses.

But hospitalizations were already rising sharply on Thursday, with 597 patients from Utah admitted simultaneously, UDOH reported – well above the previous record of 575 patients.

A total of 8,548 patients have been hospitalized in Utah for COVID-19, including 1,170 in the past two weeks.

The state has contracted with four long-term care facilities, at a cost of $ 700,000 per month, to treat some of the hospital’s patients, Herbert said.

It’s a ‘pressure relief valve,’ he said, ‘… although it might not be as good as what they might find in a hospital.

Dunn said Utah also adopted new recommendations to align with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s quarantine guidelines – people exposed to COVID-19 can now quarantine for 10 days, instead of 14 , and those who remain asymptomatic can test out of quarantine on the seventh day.

Thursday marked the end of the virus’ deadliest 30 days since the start of the pandemic in Utah, with nearly 300 dead last month. The death toll from the coronavirus in Utah was 917 on Thursday, with 11 deaths reported since Wednesday:

  • A man from Carbon County, aged 65 to 84.

  • Five men from Salt Lake County, one over 85 and four between 65 and 84.

  • Two men from Utah County, one aged 45 to 64 and another aged 65 to 84.

  • A man from Weber County, over 85.

  • A woman from Weber County, aged 45 to 64.

  • A woman from Washington County, aged 65 to 84.

There were 13,185 new test results reported on Thursday, above the weeklong average of about 12,300 new tests per day.

Tell us about Utah’s COVID-19 victims

The Salt Lake Tribune only knows the identity of a fraction of the Utahns who died from the coronavirus. The others are known only to their relatives.

We are asking families and friends to help us identify each Utahn who has died from the virus. Please email names and photos to [email protected].

Infection rates were by far the worst in Wasatch County, where one in 54 residents had tested positive for the virus in the past two weeks – the highest rate of any Utah county at any time since the start of the pandemic. Wasatch County was followed by Sanpete, Utah, Washington, Cache and Morgan counties, where at least 1 in 75 people had tested positive for the virus in the past two weeks – meaning their cases are considered “Active”.

Of the 98 “small areas” studied by health officials in Utah, only northern Orem had a higher infection rate than Wasatch County. The northern districts of Orem have had the highest case rates in the state since mid-October; as of Thursday, at least 1 in 50 residents have been diagnosed with an active case.

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