The COVID-19 pandemic isn't done quite yet — as case counts rise in Utah, and vaccinations reach kids as young as 12

Since I last updated this blog with my work covering COVID-19, we’ve seen the case counts in Utah go down, then go back up.

Most recently, Gov. Spencer Cox on July 1 warned that, “if you’re unvaccinated, you should be worried this Fourth of July.” But he also said he’s not interested in restoring any restrictions on state businesses, or bringing back mask mandates to the people, if the numbers continue to climb.

Meanwhile, doctors are concerned that hospitalizations will rise, when the hospitals don’t have the staff to handle patients as they did a year ago — especially on a July 4th holiday weekend that traditionally sees scores of emergency room visits because of drownings, ATV accidents, firework burns and other holiday mishaps.

Cox does repeat his message, which he delivered angrily in June, that approximately 95% of the cases of COVID-19 in Utah since late March — as well as hospitalizations and deaths — happen to people who are unvaccinated. “They’re dead now, and they’re in the hospital now, because they refused to get vaccinated.,” Cox said in June.

Cox expressed early enthusiasm for incentives — such as Ohio’s $1 million lottery — but a lack of interest from the Legislature pretty well killed that idea. Thanks to the Legislature’s “endgame” orders, most statewide restrictions were lifted in mid-May.

Other stories I’ve written about the COVID-19 pandemic for sltrib.com:

• The head of the Utah Department of Health, Rich Saunders, is leaving that post after less than a year, to become Gov. Cox’s new chief innovation officer. Meanwhile, UDOH has named a new state epidemiologist, Dr. Leisha Nolen, who will succeed Dr. Angela Dunn, who left UDOH to become the director of the Salt Lake County Health Department.

• I’ve been following the expansion of the vaccines to Utah’s younger residents. I attended a pop-up clinic at a high school in Woods Cross in April. I talked to parents eager to get their kids the shot, to a pediatrician urging kids to get vaccinated, to teens when they got the vaccine, when the minimum age for the Pfizer vaccine dropped to 12, and to a mom enrolling her younger kids in a vaccine trial.

• How is the state of Utah making the sale to those who have been hesitant to get the vaccine? I talked to health professionals working to fill those gaps. I also looked at the data showing where those gaps are.

• And then there was the middle school principal who, on the last day of school, led a mask burning.

I’m only part of the Tribune’s team of reporters covering the COVID-19 pandemic. Read all of our coverage at sltrib.com/coronavirus.