Utah COVID-19 case rates drop to lowest levels since April; state counts 10 new deaths

David DeMille, St. George Spectrum & Daily News
·2 min read
A patient takes a saliva test for COVID-19 in this Spectrum file photo. Intermountain Healthcare's community COVID-19 testing sites have seen thousands of Utahns test themselves for the coronavirus over the past three years.
A patient takes a saliva test for COVID-19 in this Spectrum file photo. Intermountain Healthcare's community COVID-19 testing sites have seen thousands of Utahns test themselves for the coronavirus over the past three years.

Utah's rate of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 dropped to its lowest level since April over the past week, with 1,881 new cases counted in the seven-day period that ended Sunday.

Utah ranked 44th among states where coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per-person basis, according to a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data.

The downward trend matched the results found nationwide, with the U.S. reporting a 19.4% decrease in new cases during that same seven-day period. Utah, which accounts for 0.96% of the U.S. population, had 0.58% of the country's new cases.

The Southwest Utah health district, which includes Washington, Iron, Kane, Garfield and Beaver counties, had a daily rate of 5.4 new cases per 100,000 residents, the area's lowest rate since mid-April. Since the pandemic started, the region has counted nearly 70,000 cases, with more than 3,400 hospitalizations and 678 deaths attributed to the virus.

Statewide, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in San Juan County with 78 cases per 100,000 per week; Salt Lake County with 70; and Davis County with 61. The Centers for Disease Control says high levels of community transmission begin at 100 cases per 100,000 per week.

Adding the most new cases overall were Salt Lake County, with 813 cases; Utah County, with 268 cases; and Davis County, with 217.

Statewide, 10 people were reported dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Sunday, the same number of deaths that were reported the previous week.

A total of 1,038,416 people in Utah have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 5,021 people have died from the disease, Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the United States 96,397,885 people had tested positive and 1,059,605 people had died.

Utah's COVID-19 hospital admissions rising

USA TODAY analyzed federal hospital data as of Sunday, Oct. 2.

Likely patients admitted in the state:

  • Last week: 170

  • The week before that: 160

  • Four weeks ago: 223

Likely COVID-19 patients admitted in the nation:

  • Last week: 51,355

  • The week before that: 53,692

  • Four weeks ago: 61,434

Hospitals in 17 states reported more COVID-19 patients than a week earlier, while hospitals in 25 states had more COVID-19 patients in intensive-care beds. Hospitals in 17 states admitted more COVID-19 patients in the latest week than a week prior, the USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Health and Human Services data shows.

David DeMille writes about southwestern Utah for The Spectrum & Daily News, a USA TODAY Network newsroom based in St. George. Follow him at @SpectrumDeMille or contact him at ddemille@thespectrum.com. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on St. George Spectrum & Daily News: Utah COVID-19 case rates drop to lowest levels since April