/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/sltrib/JEPIHTRSENGMDMHBDUAZ5Q5QDI.JPG "Coronavirus, Utah: Thanksgiving Week shows no signs of a better time to come")
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People all over Utah found many reasons to thank last week, but the decline in COVID-19 cases is probably not one of them.
A week after coronavirus cases soared to record highs, the state saw what appeared to be good news during the holiday week. The total number of positive tests was low, and the weekly positive rate also decreased. It measures the percentage of people who have been tested for 7 days and found to be infected with the virus.
Please consider those numbers as false positives.
Rather than indicating that the state has begun to control the virus, the numbers reflect a week with few people taking the test. In addition, deaths and hospitalizations continued to surge to unprecedented levels.
Five new deaths were reported on Sunday, with 75 near-record deaths in the past week. A week earlier, 77 people died from the virus, and in November they were given the suspicious honor of having been the most coronavirus death in Utah since the pandemic began. Of the 853 deaths in the last nine months, 262 (31%) died in November.
The average 7-day mortality rate actually peaked at Thanksgiving, with 1.71% of people with COVID-19 dying at Thanksgiving. It is the first time since August that the mortality rate has reached 1%.
According to the state’s Sunday report, the people who recently died of COVID-19 are:
- Weber County women between the ages of 65 and 84.
- Three men from Utah County, two from 65 to 84 years old, and one man over 85 years old.
- A man in Salt Lake County over the age of 85.
Viral deaths can get worse before they get better. Utah also recorded a record of people currently hospitalized for the virus at 573 on Saturday. That tally had dropped to 564 by 9 o’clock on Sunday. Over 80% of the state’s ICU beds are occupied.
The long-fearing burden on the healthcare system, which experts have long feared, has already encouraged hospitals to provide ration care and ultimately triage patients based on who is most likely to survive. It may be forced.
“The standard ICU is full. Limited. We are now talking about the” extended access “ICU. That’s why care is different, “said Dr. Edistenehem, an infectious disease specialist at the Intermountain Medical Center in Murray. “We have to ask our providers to do something they don’t like.”
On Sunday, the state reported 1,722 new cases of coronavirus. This brings the total for the week to 16,633. This is 6,735 less than last week, when there were more than 3,000 new cases daily on all but one day.
State-wide mask obligations and rally restrictions enforced by Governor Gary Herbert on November 8 may have contributed to this decline. However, it may not be as abrupt as it appears, as few people were tested in the days before and after Thanksgiving. The state reported that 73,282 people were tested last week, compared to 100,210 people in the week of November 16-22.
The weekly positive rate was consistent at 21.4%. This is below the highest level of 24.6% since November 16th, but remains higher this year than any other month.
This article will be updated.
