
Utah is experiencing "one of the worst outbreaks in the country" and has announced a new three-tier Covid-19 monitoring system for counties, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said Tuesday.
Gov. Herbert said during a news conference Utah has seen infection rates and case counts skyrocket over the past month to the highest they've been, with new cases hovering around 1,000 per day since Oct.4.
“We are utilizing 15.8% of our ICU beds to treat COVID-19 patients, more than double what we were before, and our total ICU utilization is at 69.6%,” Gov. Herbert tweeted. “This leaves our hospitals precariously close to being unable to treat COVID and non-COVID patients in need of critical care.”
Gov. Herbert also tweeted, “The new system is based on the Transmission Index, which calculates the level of COVID-19 transmission in each county by analyzing three data points - percent positivity of tests, cases per 100,000, and hospital capacity.”
Counties will be placed on a low, moderate, or high transmission level which will determine things like when masks are required to be worn, and how large of a group can gather.