SALT LAKE CITY – The latest public health order in Utah has expanded the broad mandate for wearing masks to stop the spread of the coronavirus and provide better insight into one of the most popular questions asked months during the COVID-19 pandemic : when can we take off the masks?
Although no specific date has been set in writing, the Utah Department of Health on Tuesday provided an important measure that would trigger the process of lifting mask mandates.
We now know that provinces with “low” transmission rates no longer have nationwide requirements eight weeks after the state first received a little over 1.63 million – also known as “prime” doses of the COVID-19 vaccine .
A primary dose is currently the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, but it will also include the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine approaching the final approval of the Food and Drug Administration.
Why 1.63 million?
The exact number around the process of lifting the mask mandate is not arbitrary at all. The number represents 70% of the adult population in Utah, says Tom Hudachko, a spokesman for the Utah Department of Health.
As noted by the Cleveland Clinic, approximately 50% to 80% of the population is expected to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. The New York Times reported that some public health experts place the area between 70% and 90%. Seventy percent was also a figure estimated early in the pandemic.
There are also early signs that all 1.63 million doses of first vaccine will be administered as soon as the assigned number is reached. The majority of the two age groups in the state health data who had access to the COVID-19 vaccine for more than a month have now received at least one dose. The data show that 71% of Utahns are between 70 and 79 years old and 69% of Utahns aged 80 or older received the first vaccine.
When will we reach 1.63 million?
There are still many vaccines to be allocated to Utah to reach 1,633,000.
The health department reported on Tuesday that the state had 444,905 first doses, with more than 410,000 Utahns receiving at least the first dose of the vaccine.
This means that more than 90% of the allocated first-dose vaccines have so far ended up in Utahns’ arms (again, which shows the popularity of the vaccine so far), but it also means that according to its own numbers, the department 27 was% in the direction of what it would take to reach 1.63 million.
The good news is that more vaccines have been delivered in the last few weeks than in the first few weeks after they became available. The bad news is that the number of vaccines granted to states has been liquid since the beginning and remains so now, making it difficult to project an exact answer when Utah will reach a certain number.
This fluidity was the basis of a New York Times data model that looked at the country’s vaccination process as a whole. SU reached the current rate of 1.7 million shots per day against vaccine immunity by November, but by June the total immunity – the number of people vaccinated – plus the number of people who became immune after recovering from the disease .
If accelerated to 3 million shots per day due to an ‘increase in supply’, total immunity could already be reached in May with the vaccine immunity reaching 70% by July.
There are still some rough estimates left over when Utah could reach $ 1.63 million.
On Feb. 4, Governor Spencer Cox said predictions of the Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines indicated about 130,000 primary doses awarded to Utah in early March. If the total of the week from January 28 to March 6 starts and nothing changes, it will take about nine weeks to exceed 1.63 million. The ninth week in the scenario is the week from April 25 to May 1.
Cox added that the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is expected to act for FDA approval in the coming weeks, could lead to tens of thousands of additional primary vaccines starting as early as April. The addition of a fourth vaccine will also speed up the process and may move the date up faster based on what was said a few weeks ago.
But again, the numbers were fluid, and the expected dose totals have since shifted. Officially, the Utah Department of Health still estimates that 1.63 million allotted prime doses will be reached “later this spring.” This is when a primary dose is expected to be awarded to approximately 70% of all Utahns currently eligible for the vaccine.
In an email, Hudachko told KSL.com on Wednesday that the new figures presented by Congress this week indicate that it “certainly seems possible” that by the first week of May, the state will have 1.63 million allocated primary doses can reach.
If so, it’s good for the state’s effort to ensure that every adult in Utah who wants a vaccine will have access by the end of spring. It also gives enough time to end up with the allotted doses in Utahns arms in the weeks after reaching the 1.63 million allotment point.
When will the masks come loose?
OK, back to the new provision in the health order that went into effect Tuesday.
If Utah had 1.63 million doses on Tuesday when the benchmark was announced, the provinces with low transmission rates on the mandate could already be relieved on April 20th.
If the state reaches 1.63 million allocated primary doses at the beginning of May, it is possible that some provinces in Utah could be exempted from the mask mandate by the end of June. In fact, if the Department of Health were to start the clock on May 3, the mandate would end on June 28 for some areas.
That may explain Cox’s remark Tuesday, in which he tweeted: “I really believe that we are going to celebrate without a fourth in large groups by fourth (if not earlier).”
There is a second component to the question “when can the masks come loose?” and it revolves around business trends, based on the current health order. If the order went into effect immediately, only five counties in Utah would be affected. This is because the provinces of Daggett, Garfield, Piute, Rich and Wayne are currently the only provinces in the state in the category of ‘low level of transfer’.
A country must meet at least two of these criteria to achieve ‘low’ transmission:
- A nationwide positivity rate of less than 5% over the test
- A 14-day business rate is less than 101 per 100,000 people
- Statewide average use of beds for intensive care units during seven days less than 69% and average seven days average use of COVID-19 ICU below 6%
This is where the administration of the assigned vaccines comes into play. At the same time, COVID-19 trends are starting to tip in the right direction. The nationwide average of seven days for new COVID-19 cases has fallen by 56% over the past four weeks – from January 25 to Monday – based on data obtained on Tuesday. ICU use of all hospitals across the state dropped to 69% on Tuesday; about 18% of ICU needs were linked to COVID-19.
To continue these downward trends in the coming weeks, health experts advise, and the health order instructs Utahns to wear their masks in all public areas indoors and outdoors, physically remove themselves from other households, and wash their hands thoroughly.
The masks may only go off if the appropriate number of vaccines are required and the COVID-19 fall trends decrease.