LOGAN – For the week ending Sunday, reports of new COVID-19 cases in the Bear River Health District averaged 25 a day, in contrast to the 395 positives over two days in early June, mostly from testing at the JBS meat packing plant.
There were 52 weekend positive tests in the BRHD, 24 Saturday and 28 Sunday (38 in Cache County and 14 in Box Elder County).
In the nearly four months of the pandemic, there have been 1,568 positive tests recorded in the district with 1,426 in Cache County, 138 in Box Elder and four in Rich County.
The 472 new positive COVID-19 tests reported Sunday, added to the 578 tests in Saturday’s Utah Department of Health update, indicate the recent spike in infections isn’t slowing down substantially.
State Epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn said Friday it would take reducing daily state cases down to 200 a day starting July 1 to keep hospitalizations from increasing.
Officials say the seven-day rolling average of new positive cases in the state is 519, an all-time high. A week ago it was 450. The state’s mortality rate is low, 0.79 percent, but Dr. Dunn said it is a lagging indicator because people tend to fight the disease for days before dying from it.
The weekend numbers mean the state’s new caseload is 21,100 positive tests, a daily rate increase of 2.3 percent from yesterday. Also, 18 of the last 19 days have seen 300 or more cases.
Including 5,647 tests administered Sunday, 328,449 Utahns have been tested and the rate of positives is 6.4 percent of the total tested.
There were no COVID-19 deaths since yesterday; 167 Utahns have died from the disease.
There are 11,931 of Utah’s total COVID-19 cases that are considered “recovered.”
With 31 more hospitalizations since yesterday, over the course of the pandemic 1,396 Utahns have been hospitalized with the disease. Saturday’s current statewide hospitalizations, 192, is a new one-day record during the pandemic.
Idaho’s Saturday report shows 5,319 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 91 deaths. There have been 23 positive tests in Franklin County and there are none in Bear Lake and Oneida counties.