The number of COVID-19 cases have been declining in Utah since the end of January, but the virus still remains a major threat in hospitals across the state.

“We are coming up on two years doing this and it has been very fatiguing for a lot of people,” said Dr. Kencee Graves, associate chief medical officer for inpatient health at University of Utah Health. “While we still have direct impact, including long COVID, we still have indirect impact.”

Graves said the indirect impact of COVID shows in the fact that a lot of people are are still having to delay care and postpone surgery. There are only a few open acute beds and the emergency departments continue to be very busy.

“So while there might be waning in the community, we are still stressed in the hospitals,” she said.

Erin Clouse, strategic engagement manager for U of U Health, said there has been a 46% decrease in the number of hospitalizations since the end of January; however, there are still over 500 people admitted across the state.

“So while the rates are quickly decreasing, we are still exceeding 500 hospitalizations and we are still seeing high rates of the virus, exceeding the delta variant that we saw last year,” she said.

Dr. Stephen Goldstein, a researcher at the U of U School of Medicine, said while the virus is decreasing, in most places, including Utah, the omicron variant is still dominating the world, and a new subvariant of omicron has been slightly increasing as well.

“We haven’t seen a new wave of infection with the subvariant,” Goldstein said. “We’ll see if that continues to be the case, but there’s still the potential of new variants and we’ll have to track things as we go. As far as I know, there aren’t any new variants emerging right now. The best defense we have is to continue to get vaccinated.”

Goldstein said viruses, like COVID, are always evolving and while new variants will most certainly crop up, it’s hard to predict what they will look like or whether they will be severe. He also said it’s still extremely important for the majority of the public to get vaccinated and boosted so herd immunity can build up.

“It’s hard to say what new variants will look like, but if we have a large portion of the population vaccinated, the severity will be limited,” he said.

Graves said as the virus declines, people will continue to relax on personal protection protocols. She said everyone should weigh their individual risk and act accordingly.

“I would continue to mask for the next few weeks,” she said. “We still have a lot of cases, still as much as there was during the fall and winter of 2020 and 2021. We need to weigh our risk factors and what the risk of getting COVID is to ourselves and in our community. I personally would be masking in crowded indoor spaces and ask myself, ‘How well protected am I in this building?’ It’s still out there. It’s still a risk.”

Graves said COVID-19 is not going away, which means the public will have to find ways to live with it.

“We know COVID-19 is a risk, but moving forward what we do will depend on our risk level and whether we are immunocompromised or live with someone who is immunocompromised and things like that,” she said. “If that’s the case, that person may want to continue to take precautions.”

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