Utah doctors brace for bump in coronavirus cases post-Thanksgiving

Utah – Health experts in Utah are warning of an increase in coronavirus cases as the Thanksgiving holiday winds down.

“The fact that so many more people are traveling this weekend by air than have at any point during the pandemic, it’ll be interesting to see what if any effect that has on cases moving forward,” said Tom Hudachko, Utah Department of Health spokesman.

According to Hudachko, the vaccine wasn’t available during Thanksgiving last year.

“Hopefully we’ve got enough individuals out there that are vaccinated and they’re receiving booster shots that we don’t see the same type of surge that we saw last year,” he said.

According to doctors at Intermountain Healthcare, there’s no room for error as we head into the winter with ICU beds nearly full.

“Not only do we have peak level COVID numbers – same as what we had last winter – but we’re also dealing with a number of other respiratory viruses which we were not dealing with last winter,” said Brandon Webb, an infectious disease physician.

The state health department reports case counts in Utah remain high.

“We’ll have to wait maybe a week to ten days after Thanksgiving to figure out what exactly the impact was,” Hudachko said.