Utah recorded another 1,145 cases of COVID-19 Tuesday. In addition, five new cases reported in Iron County by the Southwest Utah Public Health Department.
The low number of new cases in addition to the 129 active cases in Iron County leaves the area in the moderate category, but neighboring Washington County reported 77 new cases, remaining in the high category with 1,189 active cases.
A death in Washington County was reported Tuesday as well, who was a female care center resident aged 65-84.
Three additional fatalities since Monday have been reported by the Salt Lake Tribune. These include a Cache County man aged 65 to 84, and two men from Tooele and Utah Counties aged 45-64.
For the past week, the state has averaged 1,507 new positive test results a day, reported the Utah Department of Health, and every small area in Utah has had more than 200 new cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 population over the last two weeks — a transmission rate that’s considered “very high” according to the new COVID-19 tracking system recently put forth by Gov. Gary Herbert and state health officials.
An additional 31 residents under the jurisdiction of the SWUPHD have been hospitalized, adding to the 296 Utah patients admitted on Tuesday according to a UDOH report.
On average, 306 patients have been receiving treatment in Utah hospitals each day for the past week, contributing to the record 786 Utahns hospitalized in the past two weeks, the most in any 14-day stretch since the pandemic began. In total, 5,169 patients have been hospitalized in Utah for COVID-19, up 67 from Monday.
Utah’s intensive care units were 66.8% occupied as of Tuesday, down slightly from 75% the previous day but still continuing the strain on the amount of available hospital staff across the state.
For the past week, 17.4% of all tests in Utah have come back positive — continuing a two-week streak of new daily records. The SWUPHD region has a 15.9% positive testing rate for the period of Oct.15-19, only slightly lower than that of the state.
Story By: Larissa Beatty
accent@suunews.net
