COVID cases in Utah as winter approaches are still among the highest in the United States

Utah’s COVID-19 cases remaining stranded at high levels, Intermountain West remaining the nation’s hotspot for the virus, an infectious disease doctor at the region’s largest health care provider on Friday warned the state could experience another difficult winter.

“We are not in a good position to enter the winter months right now,” Dr. Brandon Webb said at an Intermountain Healthcare virtual press conference, as it is already at that time- there that “we expect to have higher rates, and especially as the holidays approach, we” start in a place that doesn’t give us much confidence. “

Utah and four other western states, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico continue to average more than 50 new cases of COVID-19 per day per 100,000 population, according to data collected by the Mayo Clinic. Only three other states in the country, Alaska, Minnesota and North Dakota, are also badly affected.

The community transmission rate of the virus in Utah is high but stable, Webb said, unlike other states that have seen much higher increases, such as Idaho, where a huge spike earlier this fall led To rationed health care. Earlier this week, Gov. Spencer Cox described Idaho’s case count as “Crazy” compared to that of Utah.

Hospitals in Idaho have experienced significant overcrowding, which Webb said Utah has “been lucky to handle” to some extent because the high number of cases has not fluctuated as dramatically. But the doctor said what was happening in the area was being watched closely.

Colorado, he said, is “experiencing a significant recovery” and is implementing measures to prevent the state’s healthcare system from being overwhelmed, such as going beyond federal recommendations limiting vaccine recalls for allow all adults to get the extra dose.

Transmission dynamics are difficult to predict, Webb said, “but looking at what is happening in communities with similar vaccination rates, with similar or contrasting types of social precautions and cultural conformity is very helpful to us as we continue to plan our public health response. here in Utah.

Utah’s healthcare resources are already saturated with COVID-19 patients, Webb said, leaving “no room for error. So we’re thankful that we haven’t increased as much as we’ve seen in other states, but at the same time, our current steady state over the past few weeks is still too high to be comfortable. “

The Utah Department of Health on Friday reported 3,842 new cases of COVID-19 and 22 deaths from the virus in the state since Wednesday. The new figures for the Veterans’ Day put the seven-day moving average for cases at 1,568 per day.

This is affecting the ability of Utah hospitals to treat all patients, Webb said, while at the same time respiratory illnesses like respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, are appearing sooner than expected, especially in young people. .

Admission rates at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital are already at their highest winter volumes, he said.

It is too early to say whether the opening of the coronavirus vaccinations for children aged 5 to 11 lLast week will make a difference in Utah’s transmission rates, Webb said, though that’s the wait. Cases in children aged 5 to 10 are currently higher in Utah than they were during the peak of the pandemic last January.

Curbing this high level of transmission in young children is “incredibly important” for boosting immunity in the general population, he said, noting that projections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that vaccination of children aged 5 to 11 could prevent more than 600,000 hospitalizations over the next six months.

The immunity that has just been infected with COVID-19 is not yet recognized under U.S. public health policy on the virus, Webb said, but could catch up as more is learned. He said Switzerland viewed immunity against infection as a temporary equivalent of vaccination.

“Science suggests that both are important,” said Webb, describing immunity to both infection and the vaccine as natural. The people with the strongest and longest lasting immunity, he said, are those who have been vaccinated with at least one dose after having COVID-19.

When asked if he was surprised where Utah is as the pandemic’s second winter approaches, Webb suggested there may have been too much optimism on eradicating the virus once vaccines become widely available earlier this year.

“I think we suffered a bit from excess enthusiasm when the first vaccine efficacy rates were announced. To be honest, these vaccines initially performed much better than we expected, that we actually paradigm shifted maybe prematurely to talk about the end of the pandemic, ”he said.

This led to back down hide mandates and other preventative measures in place to slow the spread of the virus, then the highly contagious delta variant hit over the summer, triggering an increase in cases that continues today.

“We quickly recognized that while vaccines are still effective, they are declining. We have certainly learned that the duration of immunity due to vaccination is not as long lasting as we thought. So I think there was widespread disappointment because we had to change as a community, ”said the doctor.

Instead of reverting to the belief that ‘we’re done, we’ve made it, we’ve made it,’ the Utahns need to be more realistic, Webb said, as new ways to fight the virus emerge, such as antiviral treatments in pill form, including a which could be approved later this month.

Even with new tools to fight COVID-19, Utahns still have to take personal responsibility for not exposing others to the virus, the doctor said. “Our strategy needs to be complementary and multi-angle in order to get us through this winter season in a place where I think we can be more rational about our expectations,” said Webb.