In addition to well over 7,000 new COVID cases today, 44 new deaths were attributed to the virus in the past 24 hours. Half of those, though, occurred late in 2021 and were only just verified to be caused by the virus.
But 21 deaths in a single day in addition to overfull hospitals is not where the state wants to be, health officials said, as they continued their pleas for citizens to get vaccinated and boosted and to wear masks.
Dr. Leisha Nolen, epidemiologist for the state, said the sales of home tests are one indicator that COVID numbers are undercounted, since people testing at home don’t always have positive results confirmed with a health agency that tracks numbers.
And, she said, despite Omicron’s appearing less fatal than earlier variants, children are getting sick and filling hospitals around the country.
“We do not want our hospitals to have kids in them," Nolen said. "I was just reading that nine states have record levels of kids with COVID in the hospital right now, we have a very young state here in Utah. So that's really concerning. Even if it's, again, a small percentage of kids that go to the hospital, if we have huge numbers of kids infected that can end up with lots of kids in the hospital. So really, we're encouraging people to protect their kids as much as possible. If you have a kid who's five or over, go get them vaccinated, make sure they're fully protected. Those teens, most of them now are eligible to get a booster so as much as you can protect your kid, get them vaccinated and put them in a mask when they go to school.”
Summit County reported 194 new cases of COVID Wednesday, slightly less than Tuesday’s record high. Amid the spike, Sundance announced it had canceled in-person festival this year, and other live entertainment events were canceled.
As cases climbed Park City schools, Park City High School Principal Roger Arbabi emailed families Wednesday and asked them to prepare for Test to Stay by signing a consent form and returning it with students to school. The email also said, “Please support us by strongly encouraging all students to wear masks during this COVID surge.”
Test to Stay is the statewide program requiring students to test negative to attend school in-person when campuses hit a threshold number of active cases. For Park City High School that threshold is 30 cases. While active cases are well above 30 on that campus, test to stay wasn’t yet triggered because state code says active cases on a campus don’t count if a student hasn’t been on campus in the past 14 days. Essentially, a couple dozen students caught COVID over holiday break but their cases don’t count toward implementing test to stay, but more students on that campus are testing positive daily this week.
School district officials declined to comment on test to stay for this report.
Other Summit County school districts reported case numbers well below the threshold that would trigger that protocol.
Wasatch County students just returned to classes Wednesday after the holiday break, so no current case numbers are available by school. But the Wasatch County Health Department said that between Dec. 15 and Jan 3, they recorded 59 cases of COVID in children under 11 years old, and 63 cases in children aged 12-18.
On the subject of mask mandates Nolen said masks work in schools, but she acknowledged that mandating them isn’t for every community.
“We know masks are protective so certainly having kids be in masks can help them and decrease the spread in school so I think it's something that different areas should consider how well it would work for their population,” Nolen said.
Nolen also had a message for tourism-driven Summit County:
“Certainly we do know a lot of Omicron is being bought in a lot of COVID is being brought into Summit County through their tourism industry. It's something to think about how to balance all this and how best to protect their population if there's additional measures they could put in place.”
Summit County Health Department has the authority to implement restrictions such as limits on gatherings or legally requiring masks in indoor spaces. After doing away with mask mandates in Summit County schools in December, Health Director Phil Bondurant said this week he may take further steps if data supports it.