Five Utah counties have been listed as high-risk for COVID-19 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The counties in question are Summit, Tooele, Grand, San Juan, and Salt Lake counties.
Dr. Angela Dunn, executive director of the Salt Lake County Health Department, says that Utah hospitals have been stable up until this week, describing the recent rise of “high-risk” cases as exhausting.
According to the state dashboard, there has been a reported 27.3% increase of the seven-day average of COVID-19 hospitalizations and a 35.3% jump in cases for the ICU.
Dunn also mentioned that there has been an increased demand for testing following the rise of COVID-19.
Erin Clouse, director of strategy and alignment for the University of Utah Medical Group, believes that even though cases are on the rise again, there’s still a lot more that haven’t been reported. She says that the current rate of positive tests mirror peaks of what we saw in early 2021.
With the FDA now recommending the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for everybody older than six months, Dunn says that the rollout for vaccines will start as soon as Tuesday.
