SALT LAKE CITY — After three weeks of surging COVID-19 cases, Utah hospital leaders banded together to issue a strong message Tuesday:
We all need to wear face masks — or risk overrunning the hospital system.
“Right now, coronavirus is moving too fast in our Utah communities. It’s a tough virus, and it is very fast. We need to slow it down, and we need to slow it down now. We need to stop giving one another coronavirus infections,” said Dr. Michael Good, CEO of University of Utah Health.
He joined others with the Utah Hospital Association, Intermountain Healthcare, University of Utah Health, MountainStar Healthcare and Steward Healthcare as they announced a new “Mask Up Utah” campaign and pleaded for people to help stem the spread.
Residents should wear face masks whenever they’re outside of their home. Because when it comes to the highly contagious novel coronavirus, everyone’s decisions impact not only themselves but the health of others, the leaders said.
They also urged people to wear masks properly, covering both their nose and mouths at all times — and to take the initiative without a government mandate.
But Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson and Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall on Tuesday called for such a government mandate that would require masks to be worn in Salt Lake County when people are out in public.
Dr. Arlen Jarrett, chief medical officer for Steward Healthcare, said he feels optimistic Utah can turn its surge around without lockdown measures “if we all just take our responsibility and practice those things that are being preached here today and over and over again.”
On Tuesday, the Beehive State confirmed 394 more cases of the novel coronavirus out of 2,964 tests given — a 13.3% positive rate, according to the Utah Department of Health. They bring the state’s total cases since the pandemic began to 18,300 of 302,276 tested, for an overall positive rate of 6.1%.
Dr. Michael Baumann, Mountainstar chief medical officer, said wearing masks is simply “common sense.”
“This is a health care issue. This should not be a political issue,” he said.
Within Intermountain facilities, COVID-19 patients have doubled within the last few weeks, according to Dr. Eddie Stenehjem, an Intermountain infectious disease physician.
The system still has the capacity to care for more, “but if we continue this trend and we do not abate the crisis that is going on now, we will reach capacity in the coming weeks,” Stenehjem said.
In the next four to six weeks, Intermountain officials believe the system will be approaching its peak capacity, but they have planned for additional contingencies.
“We want to manage this across our health care systems within the conventional beds and ICU beds that have been staffed with experienced nurses and experienced respiratory therapists and experienced physicians,” said Dr. Mark Briesacher, Intermountain senior vice president and chief physician executive.
Utahns can request masks from the state at coronavirus.utah.gov/mask.
The separate state initiative, A Mask for Every Utahn, launched in late April and as of Tuesday, the state has received 256,718 orders for 1,090,258 masks and is “largely up to date” on fulfilling them, said Ben Hart, deputy director of the Office of Economic Development.
Herbert responds to memo
After Utah’s top epidemiologist, Dr. Angela Dunn, warned that the state may need to move back to its orange, or moderate-risk phase if new daily COVID-19 counts don’t decrease by half, Gov. Gary Herbert reacted on Twitter.
“Dr. Dunn’s internal memo raises alarm about the increasing COVID-19 cases in Utah. I appreciate her analysis and share many of her concerns. We will work to stem this tide, but I have no plans to shut down Utah’s economy,” Herbert said late Monday evening after Dunn’s Friday memo to state and local officials went public.
“I urge Utahns to protect themselves and their loved ones from the spread of the virus by following our common sense guidelines for social distancing, good hand hygiene and especially the use of face coverings. #StayStrongUtah,” Herbert added.
For the past week, an average of 471 new cases has been reported each day, compared to an average of 327 the previous seven days, state health officials said. While some have questioned whether the rising cases are due to increased testing, testing numbers have actually plateaued, according to Dunn.
Five more people died with COVID-19 since Monday’s report. They include three Salt Lake County men — one between ages 45 and 64, and two between 65 and 84, one of whom was a resident in a long-term care facility. A Weber County man older than 85 and a Utah County man between 65 and 84, both residents of long-term care facilities, were also among the deaths.
Though 34 new patients required hospitalization for COVID-19 since Monday’s report, the total number of those in hospitals with the disease fell slightly from 171 on Monday to 166 on Tuesday.
For the first time, Utah’s recovered cases — those who have passed the three-week point since their diagnoses — surpassed 10,000 on Tuesday.
In a statement on Tuesday, the governor’s office reiterated that the Unified Command team, which is leading the pandemic response in Utah, “is looking at appropriate responses to the surge in cases.” Dunn’s memo is one of several recommendations on the table. But the governor has made it clear that a so-called shutdown is not under consideration at this time. Even under Utah’s “Stay safe, stay home” directive, most of the economy was allowed to move forward with caution.
“The governor continues to be a strong champion for regular wearing a face covering in public when physical distancing is not possible. He wears a mask each day to all of his meetings and expects it of those who meet with him. We expect all Utahns to follow the common sense built into our current guidelines,” the statement said.
In her memo, Dunn wrote that if the state does not drop to a rolling seven-day average of 200 cases per day by July 1, it needs to move back to the moderate risk phase, which would limit social gatherings to 20 while continuing to call for social distancing and wearing masks in public settings.
“This will send the message to Utahns that this outbreak continues to be a serious problem, and state leadership is committed to saving lives and preventing a complete economic shutdown,” she wrote.
Dunn also called for government or businesses to mandate wearing masks. She also recommends the state not ease social distancing restrictions anywhere in the state until July 1.
Also on Tuesday, the Salt Lake County Health Department, which had been performing daily free testing at mobile sites in underserved communities, announced it is canceling all scheduled events due to an “overwhelming demand” that led to testing kits running out.
The health department will then pause mobile testing until after the 4th of July to evaluate how to “better organize” the events to decrease wait times. Health workers expect their testing kits to be replenished before then, said department spokesman Nicholas Rupp.
The latest breakdown of Utah cases, hospitalizations and deaths by health district:
- Salt Lake County, 9,207; 687 hospitalized; 105 deaths.
- Utah County, 3,355; 171 hospitalized; 22 deaths.
- Bear River (Box Elder, Cache, Rich), 1,337; 42 hospitalized; 2 deaths.
- Southwest Utah, 1,151; 82 hospitalized; 10 deaths.
- Davis County, 905; 62 hospitalized; 4 deaths.
- Weber-Morgan, 708; 60 hospitalized; 10 deaths.
- Summit County, 470; 45 hospitalized; 0 deaths.
- San Juan County, 388; 39 hospitalized; 7 deaths.
- Wasatch County, 387; 19 hospitalized; 3 deaths.
- Tooele County, 208; 11 hospitalized; 0 deaths.
- Central Utah, 114; 7 hospitalized; 0 deaths.
- TriCounty (Uinta Basin), 39; 1 hospitalized; 0 deaths.
- Southeast Utah, 31; 0 hospitalized; 0 deaths.
Correction: A previous version misspelled Dr. Michael Good’s last name as Goode.