Utah prepares for drive-thru inoculation sites with big boost in COVID-19 vaccine
and last updated 2021-02-09 20:02:18-05
SALT LAKE CITY â Utah s Department of Health is working with the state s largest health care providers to create mass vaccine clinics to supplement the efforts of local health departments, FOX 13 has confirmed.
The agency is anticipating that within the next few weeks, Utah s share of COVID-19 vaccine doses will jump dramatically. Right now, the state gets about 70,000 to 75,000 doses weekly that it exhausts as it vaccinates Utahns over the age of 70.
By March 1, that could change. Between Pfizer and Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, we could be looking at somewhere between 243,000 to 245,000 doses coming every week, Rich Lakin, the head of the Utah Department of Health s immunization program, said in an interview Tuesday with FOX 13.
| Updated: Feb. 11, 2021, 12:30 a.m.
An avalanche in Mill Creek Canyon crashed down the north face of Wilson’s Peak on Saturday, killing four young Utahns in one of the deadliest slides in Utah’s modern recreation era.
One skier clung to a tree as seven others were swept away. Six were buried, and one was partially covered in snow, according to the Utah Avalanche Center.
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He used a transceiver to locate signals being transmitted by beacons carried by buried skiers, and dug down to two who were trapped under 3 to 5 feet of snow, Hardesty said.
“To see this occur,” he said, “and then have the wherewithal to go acquire the [beacon] signals and do not one but two full and deep burials and rescue two lives, is amazing.”
Hereâs what we know about the young Utah skiers killed in Saturdayâs avalanche
All were in their 20s and loved exploring.
(Photo courtesy of the Hopkins family) Stephanie Hopkins skiing in an undated photograph. Hopkins was one of four people who died in an avalanche in Mill Creek Canyon, Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021. | Updated: Feb. 10, 2021, 1:09 a.m.
The four skiers killed in Saturdayâs Mill Creek avalanche were young Utahns who reveled in the stateâs beauty, pursuing adventures from its ski slopes to its redrock country.
Stephanie Hopkins, known as âStephâ to her friends, was a nurse at University of Utah Health who âcould often be found climbing in the desert or skiing the tallest mountains,â said her friend Lismore Nebeker. âShe became best friends with strangers and found beauty in everything.â
New method can help evaluate potential sight-preserving properties
Scientists like the John A. Moran Eye Center s Paul S. Bernstein, MD, PhD, know a special class of lipids, or fatty acids, found in the retina of the eye and in just a few other parts of the body play an important role in maintaining vision.
But it s been difficult to study whether giving these lipids, called very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (VLC-PUFAs), to patients as a supplement could prevent blinding eye diseases like age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and some inherited retinal diseases. Made in the body by the ELOVL4 enzyme but rarely consumed as part of a normal diet, VLC-PUFAs weren t commercially available in enough quantities for animal or human research.