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0000017b-652b-d50a-a3ff-f7efb02e0000KPCW's COVID-19 news coverage for Summit County and Wasatch County, Utah. 0000017b-652b-d50a-a3ff-f7efb02f0000You can also visit the Utah Department of Health, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization websites for additional information.

Summit County back to high level of transmisison for COVID-19

Utah Department of Health

Summit County has moved to a high level of transmission for COVID-19, and doctors say the numbers don't look as good as they did earlier in the week.

Just one week ago, Summit County moved to a moderate level of transmission, but by Friday it joined 25 other Utah counties at the high level. The three remaining counties, Rich, Daggett and Piute, have a low level of transmission.

Utah hospitals continue to be significantly impacted by the COVID surge. The Utah Department of Health says the 16 hospitals in the state best equipped to treat COVID patients were more than 100% full as of Thursday.

As of Friday, Intermountain Healthcare hospitals were at 98% capacity. According to Dr. Eddie Stenehjem, an  Infectious Disease Physician, the current trend is not one doctors wanted to see.

"At the beginning of this week, we were hoping to see a continued decline in cases," said Stenehjem. "But the data from yesterday and the day before really shows that we are at a high plateau. So I anticipate that we'll probably continue to see this level of occupancy in our hospitals for at least a couple of weeks. And that's assuming that cases start to trend down in the next week or so. So we're still in the thick of it and we anticipate to be at these capacities for at least another two to four weeks."

Stenehjem added that Intermountain Healthcare hospitals have put a halt to all the nonurgent surgeries. He says that's because the hospitals can't provide the care post-operative patients need since resources are tied up with COVID patients. According to Intermountain Healthcare, the vast majority of hospitalized COVID patients are unvaccinated. 

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