SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Dec. 31, 2020 (Gephardt Daily) — Gov.-elect Spencer Cox is urging Utahns to stay home this New Year’s Eve in the hope of avoiding a further surge in COVID-19 cases.
The Utah Department of Health on Thursday announced 13 more COVID-19 deaths and a new record of 4,672 lab-documented cases in the past 24 hours.
“While case numbers and hospitalizations have been steadily decreasing over the past month, unfortunately we will see a big increase in cases today,” Cox tweeted. “While some might be attributed to low testing over the Christmas break, it’s possibly the beginning of a holiday-related surge.”
A follow-up tweet said: “Fortunately we only saw a small surge related to Thanksgiving. But our fear is that people were less cautious during Christmas. If you are planning large gatherings to celebrate New Years Eve, please reconsider.
“While our early vaccine rollout has been slower than we planned for, the past couple days have been very encouraging. Many hospitals have revised their procedures for more throughput. And this week our local health departments have significantly ramped up capacity.”
In addition, long-term care facility residents are receiving the first dose of the vaccine, he tweeted.
“There is so much reason to be hopeful and optimistic as we enter the new year, but we must remain vigilant,” Cox concluded.
