LOGAN – Wednesday afternoon, as Governor Gary Herbert spoke to Utahns about the recent spike in COVID-19 cases — and issued an executive order for face mask wearing in all state facilities — the Bear River Health District welcomed a report of only 15 confirmed positive tests in the last 24 hours.
Among Wednesday’s new count, 11 of the cases originated in Cache County with four in Box Elder County and none in Rich County.
That followed Tuesday’s report of 16 cases and the 23 cases on Monday.
Governor Herbert calls himself “a local government guy” and he said he is not inclined to issue a statewide mask wearing mandate, preferring to leave that to local jurisdictions.
“Wear a mask at all times in any indoor settings and gatherings,” he said. “And wear a mask outdoors when social distancing is not possible. Hey, when in doubt, wear it.”
The Governor also announced that in light of the spiking of COVID-19 cases recently in the state he will not consider any applications seeking a relaxation of any of the state’s color code guidance for at least the next two weeks.
“We’ll take a look at the numbers and the data and see how we do in stemming the tide of increase and turning it around, and make some decisions,” Herbert added. “Yellow designation right now really allows for quite a wide open economy. There’s not many things you cannot do in yellow.
“I’m concerned with the fact that we ourselves are not doing all we can do. As we mentioned in the beginning, if we have a plan the success of the plan is really borne by us as we follow the guidelines.”
There have been 54 combined cases in the Bear River District the first three days of this week; there hasn’t been a three-day total that low for over a month in northern Utah.
The total district caseload has grown to 1,446 with 1,328 in Cache County, 115 in Box Elder County and three in Rich County.
The 484 new positive tests reported statewide in Wednesday’s update means the new states new caseload total of 18,784 marks a daily rate increase of 2.6 percent from yesterday. This marks 14 of the last 15 days with with 300 or more cases.
Including 2,462 tests administered yesterday, 304,738 Utahns have been tested and the rate of positives is 6.2 percent of the total tested.
There have been no COVID-19 deaths since yesterday and now 163 Utahns have been taken by the disease.
There are 10,334 of Utah’s total COVID-19 cases that are considered “recovered.”
With 30 more hospitalizations since yesterday, 167 positive COVID-19 cases are now in the hospital. Over the course of the pandemic, 1,256 Utahns have been hospitalized with the disease.
Idaho’s Tuesday report shows 4,402 confirmed COVID-19 cases and still 89 deaths. The Franklin County caseload grew by three cases to 20 positives while there are none in Bear Lake and Oneida counties.