“Due to the alarming rate of COVID infections within our state, tonight I issued a new state of emergency with several critical changes to our response”, Herbert said on Twitter.

“These changes are not shutting down our economy, but are absolutely necessary to save lives and hospital capacity,” he said.

The governor said the entire state was being placed under a mask mandate until further notice and casual social gatherings were being limited to household-only for the next two weeks.

All extracurricular activities were being put on hold, he said.

The total number of coronavirus infections in the US rose past 10 million late on Sunday, according to a Reuters tally.

Utah has had 132,621 total confirmed cases and 659 deaths from Covid-19 since the pandemic began.