Cox Government: Utahns 65 and older may get COVID-19 vaccine in March; 1,273 new cases, 14 deaths were reported on Thursday

SALT LAKE CITY – Utahns 65 and older will be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine next month, Government Spencer Cox announced Thursday.

On March 1, the vaccine for the vaccine will be extended to Utahs 65 years and older. Utahns who have certain comorbidities – but not all comorbidities – will also be eligible for the vaccine from March 1, Cox said.

Utx’s weekly allotment of the vaccine could quadruple by March if two other pharmaceutical companies are able to distribute their vaccines by that time, Cox said. The state grant this week is about 50,000, according to Cox, already significantly higher than about 33,000 last week.

He pointed out that this week is a major milestone on the Utah virus website: the total number of vaccine doses administered has exceeded the number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. There were now 362,701 shots between the first and second doses of the vaccine, compared to 351,273 total COVID-19 cases since the Utah pandemic began early last year.

“We’re trying to be more viral than the virus, and it’s happening,” Cox said.

All the information on extending the suitability is available at coronavirus.utah.gov/vaccine-distribution.

Cox stressed Thursday that this is merely an announcement about expanding the suitability. The people will not yet be able to make appointments to get the vaccine, and they should not contact their local health department, he added.

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Government Uten, Spencer Cox, with Lieutenant Government Deidre Henderson and Utah State Epidemiologist, Department of Health, dr. Angela Dunn, delivered an update on the COVID-19 pandemic on Thursday morning. Watch the rerun of the event below.

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Vaccine addition expands

Currently, all Utahns 70 years and older are eligible to receive the vaccine. About 84,000 people in the category have been vaccinated so far, making up about 35% of the age group, Cox said.

The governor said he expected it would take another two or three weeks to vaccinate the remaining 70-year-olds who want the vaccine, which totals about 240,000 people.

The federal government recently increased Utah’s weekly allocation of vaccines to about 40,000, and it was increased again by about 5% this week, Cox said. In addition, the state government recovered thousands of doses from the federal government’s pharmacy partners, who were tasked with vaccinating staff and residents at long-term care facilities. The pharmacies have an excess of the vaccine, so the state has recovered and redistributed some doses for use.

The federal government also sends additional equipment with each Pfizer vaccine, allowing vaccine administrators to extract a sixth dose from each vial of the vaccine, Cox said.

All of the changes have meant that about 50,000 doses of the vaccine have been delivered to Utah this week. Small awards are expected every week, Cox said.

“Our numbers are increasing significantly every week, and that’s the good work of our local health departments,” Cox said.

With further production promises from Pfizer and Moderna, which are currently producing the vaccine, as well as vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, which have yet to be approved by federal regulators, the Utah allocation could expand significantly later this spring, Cox said.

That means Utah could potentially receive 150,000 to 200,000 doses by March or April, Cox said.

“(It) just changes the ball game for all of us,” he said.

Cox estimates that the extended suitability will have about 400,000 additional people having access to the vaccine. If the Utah grant is increased to 150,000 or 200,000 by the first week of March, it will take a few weeks to get through the population, and then admission to the vaccine will be opened to more populations, starting with the people with the biggest risks and the most vulnerable people in the state, the governor added.

In addition, some pharmacies in Smith and Walmart will begin offering vaccinations from Feb. 11, according to Lieutenant Governor Diedre Henderson. State leaders hope that if people already have an appointment with their local health department to get a vaccine, they will keep the appointment instead of making a new one at a Smith or Walmart, Henderson said.

As the state prepares for rapid expansions in the distribution of vaccines, a call for volunteers is expected in the coming weeks, Henderson said. People will be needed to help with the administration of vaccines, as well as managing traffic at vaccination centers and other tasks, she said.

There will likely be problems with planning the appointment of vaccines as the state expands the distribution, so Utahns are being asked to be patient, Cox and Henderson said.

“We’re going to do something amazing here, but it’s not going to be easy,” Henderson said. “Please watch, because we’ll need you.”

New COVID-19 cases

According to the Utah Department of Health, Utah’s COVID-19 cases increased by 1,273 on Thursday, with another 14 deaths. Three of the deaths occurred before Jan. 14, but were still being investigated by Utah Medical Officers.

The Department of Health now estimates that there are 33,948 active cases of the disease in Utah. According to the Department of Health, the average number of positive cases of seven days per day is now 1,264. The positive test rate per day for that period is now 16.5%.

The state epidemiologist of the department of health, dr. Angela Dunn, pointed out on Thursday that the average of seven days has dropped since last week, as in the past few weeks. It is promising to see the numbers decrease, she added.

“We still have work ahead of us, but we’re heading in the right direction,” Dunn said.

Utahns are encouraged to continue wearing masks and social removal as variants of the COVID-19 virus occur in the state, she said.

There are 365 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized in Utah, including 125 in intensive care. About 76% of the beds in Utah’s intensive care unit were occupied on Thursday, including 78% of the ICU beds in the 16 referral hospitals in the state. About 57% of the non-ICU hospital beds are also filled, the health department shows.

A total of 362,701 vaccines were administered in the state, compared to 345,179 on Wednesday. Of these, 84,154 are second doses of the vaccine, according to the health department.

The new numbers point to a 0.4% increase in positive cases since Wednesday. Of the 2054,230 people tested so far in Utah for COVID-19, 17.1% tested positive for the disease. According to the Department of Health, the total number of tests that increased using Thursday increased by 13,702, of which 9,419 were tests of people who had not been tested for COVID-19 before.

The 14 deaths reported on Thursday are:

• A Box Elder County man who was between 65 and 84 and was hospitalized when he died
• A Box Elder County man who was between the ages of 65 and 84 and a resident of a long-term care facility
• A Davis County man who was between 65 and 84 years old and was hospitalized when he died
• Two men in Salt Lake County who were between 45 and 64 years old and were hospitalized when they died
• A Salt Lake County man who was between 65 and 84 years old and was hospitalized when he died
• A Salt Lake County man who was between 65 and 84 years old and was not admitted to the hospital when he died
• A Utah County man who was between 65 and 84 and was hospitalized when he died
• A Washington County man who was between 65 and 84 years old and was admitted to the hospital when he died
• A Salt Lake County woman who was between 65 and 84 years old and a resident of a long-term care facility
• A Salt Lake County woman who was over 85 and a resident of a long-term care facility
• A Weber County woman who was between 45 and 64 years old and a resident of a long-term care facility
• A Weber County woman who was between the ages of 65 and 84 and a resident of a long-term care facility
• A Weber County woman over the age of 85 who was a resident of a long-term care facility

Thursday’s total number of cases confirmed Utah 351,273 cases, with 13,677 total hospitalizations and 1,711 total deaths due to the disease. A total of 315,614 Utah COVID-19 cases are estimated to be recovered now, according to the Department of Health.