The state’s public health and economic recovery committee told FOX 13 on Friday that data shows Salt Lake City could move from the orange, moderate-risk coronavirus stage to the less-restrictive yellow.
But SLC Mayor Erin Mendenhall says she won’t make the move just yet.
“While Salt Lake City data is showing improvement, known hot spots continue to be elevated and the recommendation from public health experts continues to be keeping Salt Lake City in the orange phase until there are additional data improvements,” Mendenhall said in a statement provided to The Salt Lake Tribune.
Since a high point in early July, case counts are trending downward in SLC, Salt Lake County Health Department data shows. As of Thursday, the county reported SLC had seen just under 4,000 known coronavirus cases since the outbreak began. There are 337 current cases.
Salt Lake City is the lone part of the state currently in the orange level. The rest of the state is either in the yellow or green risk categories.
Senate President J. Stuart Adams, who serves on the Public Health and Economic Emergency Commission, told FOX 13 that the commission supports Mendenhall if she wanted to move the city to the yellow risk level.
“The commission looked at data and we reviewed it for Salt Lake City and we think the data supports that move. So the commission, if Salt Lake City chooses to, we would very definitely support their move to go to yellow,” the Layton Republican said to FOX 13.
He told FOX 13 that the commission wasn’t recommending any other areas raise or lower their risk level.
“Most of the state’s been in green and yellow and that’s allowed our economy to move forward. There’s functionality in green and yellow so I don’t see a lot of changes happening in that for a while,” he said.
The state reported 552 new COVID-19 diagnoses on Friday, a number they say is “artificially high” because it includes results from 144 delayed tests.
For tests processed during the past seven days, Utah has averaged 369 new positive results per day, according to the Utah Department of Health. Gov. Gary Herbert had said he wanted the state to have fewer than 400 new cases per day by Sept. 1 — and after three weeks of declining numbers, it would take a sharp rise in infections to surpass that.
For more, visit FOX 13.
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August 15, 2020 at 05:37AM
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