With 112 new coronavirus cases reported on campus in just three days, Brigham Young University in Provo appears to be driving a rise in cases in Utah County, which has the worst infection rates in the state.

It’s really both public school being back in session as well as having university students being back [in] classes as well as being back in the community and comingling together,” said Aislynn Tolman-Hill, spokeswoman for the Utah County Health Department.

Statewide, coronavirus cases spiked on Friday, with 656 new infections, the Utah Department of Health reported.

But the rise may be tied to reporting delays due to Monday’s Labor Day holiday and Tuesday’s windstorm in northern Utah, health officials said.

A third of those newly reported cases were from Utah County.

And BYU on Friday reported 258 cases since Aug.

That’s up from the 146 cases the school reported on Wednesday, making it the most infected campus in Utah, and the campus with the fastest spread.

In Utah County, Tolman-Hill said, “there is kind of a — I don’t know if you want to call it a counterculture or not — that is kind of a ‘We’re back in school, end of summer, celebrate, live it up’ attitude.

Meanwhile, Utah County on Friday posted its biggest single-day increase, with 219 new infections reported.

Provo and Orem account for the largest share of the new cases, reporting three of every five of the county’s new cases in the past three days, despite making up about a third of the county’s population, according to county health data.

Multiple cases have been linked to two businesses that organize dance parties in Utah County, Tolman-Hill said.

Although Tolman-Hill said health officials had seen photos of events where people weren’t wearing masks, the venue’s manager said masks had been required since Provo implemented a mask order.

Tolman-Hill said she did not know the number of cases tied to the dance parties, but she said contact tracers have “definitively” linked multiple cases to them.

“There absolutely have been multiple cases linked to those parties — I would say clusters — which is absolutely concerning to us,” she said.

At least 595,000 of the county’s 636,000 residents live in communities with infection rates above the statewide average of 12.4 daily new cases per 100,000 people, according to county data for the past three days.

There are 384,000 people in Utah County communities with more than 20 new cases per 100,000 residents, and 176,000 in towns with a rate of over 30 new cases per 100,000.

Brown said she thought she was being careful, avoiding big parties and meeting with friends only in small groups.