More than 5,000 Utahns have died of COVID-19 — including eight children younger than 14 — since the beginning of the pandemic, according to state data released Thursday.
The state crossed this grim threshold after reporting 12 new deaths this week. One of those deaths was a Davis County boy, age 1-14, who died at the end of August. Department of Health and Human Services data also shows that tens of thousands more people got vaccinated against the virus in the last seven days.
Nearly 29,000 Utahns received some form of COVID-19 vaccine, driven largely by the availability of the new omicron variant-specific vaccines, DHHS said. More than 12,000 people received a second booster. The seven-day average case count increased slightly from 339 to 360. The state reported 2,487 new cases since last Thursday. Experts have said they aren’t relying on testing data to track COVID-19 spread, since the state’s numbers don’t account for people who took at-home tests. Instead, they’re tracking hospitalizations, emergency room visits and how much of the virus is found in Utah wastewater.