MURRAY – According to Dr. Eddie Stenehjem, an infectious disease specialist at Intermountain Healthcare, said the current increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations was a sign of a boom in the holiday season.
How bad it gets again depends on what Utahns do to stop the spread.
“We expect the month of January to be quite difficult from a hospitalization capacity point of view,” Stenehjem said.
As COVID-19 numbers rise, he said there is usually a delay of seven to ten days before increases in hospitalizations increase, which is happening now.
The Utah Department of Health estimated that there were 53,597 active cases of COVID-19 in the state on Thursday. The current average number of positive cases per day of seven days was 2,952, while the positive test rate per day increased to 32.7%.
“This is undoubtedly a boom of, I would say the holidays go from December 24 to the new year,” Stenehjem said.
The number of cases, the positivity rate and now hospitalizations are increasing again after a dip in mid-December.
Here we go …. post-holiday boom. https://t.co/8TgvlSyXcR
– Eddie Stenehjem (@E_Stenehjem) 7 January 2021
“We are now beginning to see it pick up in hospitalizations, both on state data and for Intermountain’s internal data,” he said.
Stenehjem said this is the holiday boom they were expecting. “If you look at the trend line, it’s going higher again,” he said.
Patients in the hospital tell doctors how they believe they contracted the virus.
“‘Yes, I was on holiday … A few days later someone fell ill,’ ‘Stenehjem said.
They had hoped that hospitalizations would drop further in December to make room for patients during this boom, but that did not happen. The hospital is again above the 85% threshold, which is the functional capacity of the hospital.
“Unfortunately, we expect this increase to continue, and we will begin to see more and more cases that will lead to more hospitalizations and, as we know, it will eventually lead to more deaths,” Stenehjem said.
How long the boom lasts depends on how much the virus has spread over the past week, and how quickly everyone returns to social distancing practices and limited gatherings.
“If people return to it, we expect the numbers to come back,” Stenehjem said.
With so many positive cases, the doctor said more people need to be tested so they can better understand what is going on with the virus.
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Jed Boal