Blaine County town hall touches on COVID-19 testing, lifting restrictions, law enforcement
Blaine County residents, who have seen the coronavirus disproportionately affect their home, had the opportunity to listen to and ask questions of community and health leaders discussing COVID-19 updates and local response measures via a virtual town hall public meeting on Wednesday night.
More than 860 people signed up for the online meeting, which offered several key takeaways.
Officials say testing backlog is decreasing
St. Luke’s Dr. Larry O’Connor explained Wednesday night that the hospital has 151 tests that are still processing, a large decrease from the past few weeks, when the Blaine outbreak raged. The county had 441 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, and had reported five deaths. It has also seen health care workers infected.
“We are well past the days where I as an emergency provider would have to plan on up to 14 days to get a test back,” O’Connor said. “The turnaround time is speeding up because there is not an overload on the system, but we are also increasing out capacity.”
At St. Luke’s new machines are coming and will hopefully help increase diagnostic capabilities by the end a week. Included is technology that can process up to 1,000 tests a day, the doctor said.
“My hope is we should have the expectation that by the end of this week, this weekend, next week, we should have the expectation that all of our test results will be coming back within 24 hours,” O’Connor said.
Blaine County’s stricter ordinance could be relaxed for some
The Blaine County ordinance that went further than Gov. Brad Little’s stay-home order, including barring construction workers and landscapers from working, is set to expire Sunday at midnight.
According to county commissioner Jacob Greenberg, those restrictions actually could be lifted at Friday’s meeting. Workers and companies would still need to follow certain guidelines, including setting up hand-washing stations, ensuring that workers do not share tools and having measures in place to ensure proper social distancing.
Logan Hudson, South Central Public Health District administrator, and O’Connor said access to testing, a decrease of pressure on health care facilities and a decline in overall cases are the keys to relaxing edicts.
“We can’t open things back up and not be able to test somebody that is sick. We can’t go back to two weeks of backlogs and restricting who we are testing,” Hudson said. “We (also) need to have the capacity within the health care system to take care of these patients and people with every other medical condition.”
Blaine County has seen an increase of only 36 cases since Friday, and while Hudson said he hopes the next six weeks will see restrictions rolled way back, a second wave of infections is a possibility. Those with summer plans for Sun Valley and Ketchum, as well as businesses, are urged to plan for the prospect of social distancing rules being in place.
“We may have a resurgence at some point and we may have to re-enact a lot of these guidelines again,” Hudson said. “If you can, plan for that possibility and be nimble in your plans.”
How to report noncompliance of ordinances
Blaine County Sheriff Steve Harkins asked the public not to call 911 if they want to report a business or neighbor allegedly violating the orders in place. People are asked to contact their city police department or the Sheriff’s Office only on the non-emergency lines. There have been no reported citations in Blaine County for noncompliance of state or county orders.
Harkins made it clear that any rumors regarding the National Guard being called in to stop travelers are just that: rumors.
This story was originally published April 9, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
