Idaho — and the Treasure Valley — are making progress in coronavirus fight. But how much?
Idaho’s second surge of coronavirus infections has shown signs of decline in recent weeks.
Idaho’s seven-day average of new cases peaked July 19. Ada County peaked the same day, and Canyon County peaked July 21.
The numbers for all three remain so high that they meet the White House coronavirus task force’s “red zone” criteria — but all are on the way down, even as the state’s death toll rises. The red zone indicates areas that need the most measures in place to fight the virus.
Here’s a look at how the state and the Treasure Valley are faring compared to where we stood on June 1 and at the peaks of the surge:
New coronavirus cases
IDAHO
June 1: 39.4 new cases per day (including probables) on a seven-day average.
Peak: 568.9 per day on July 19.
Through Aug. 18: 387.6 per day.
Red zone threshold: 255 per day.
Trend: Idaho’s seven-day average has been below 500 for all of August, and it dropped below 400 on Tuesday. That’s the lowest it’s been since July 8. We hit 500 cases twice last week, but the numbers dropped Saturday-Tuesday with 294.5 per day.
ADA COUNTY
June 1: 3.3 new confirmed cases per day on a seven-day average.
Peak: 239.3 per day on July 19.
Through Aug. 18: 106.1 per day.
Red zone threshold: 69 per day.
Trend: Ada County remains well above the red zone threshold, and the Idaho Statesman’s number doesn’t include probable cases (we don’t track probables per day by county). From Aug. 4 to Aug. 15, Ada reported more than 100 cases on 11 of 12 days. During that time, the seven-day average actually increased. But the county has added 75 or fewer cases each of the past three days — a first since June 18-20.
CANYON COUNTY
June 1: 3.7 new confirmed cases per day on a seven-day average.
Peak: 170.4 per day on July 21.
Through Aug. 18: 75.9 per day.
Red zone threshold: 33 per day.
Trend: Canyon County remains at more than double the red zone threshold, and the Statesman’s number doesn’t include probable cases. Canyon experienced a rapid rise and as many as 269 cases on July 15, but it has had fewer than 100 cases 10 of the past 11 days. The seven-day average has dropped from 123.3 to 75.9 in the past 10 days.
Hospitalizations
June 1: 25 hospitalized patients statewide, according to Idaho Department of Health and Welfare data.
Peak: 242 on Aug. 3.
On Aug. 14: 184 hospitalized patients. The IDHW data goes through Aug. 15, but because the last day of hospital data often is underreported, we went with Aug. 14. The St. Luke’s and Saint Alphonsus health systems reported a total of 106 hospitalized COVID-19 patients on Aug. 17.
Trend: The number of hospitalized patients is declining but remains more than seven times higher than June 1. In the governor’s criteria for reopening, the number of emergency department visits with COVID-19-like symptoms is at 16 per day for the fifth attempt at Stage 4. That’s the lowest that number has been since the first two-week attempt (11). COVID-19 admissions through emergency departments is at 1.21 per day, down from 2.64 during the fourth attempt and 2.43 during the third attempt.
Positivity percentage
June 1: 3.8% of Idaho’s coronavirus tests were positive during the week ending May 30, according to IDHW.
Peak: 14.8% of tests were positive the week of July 5-11.
Aug. 8: 11.4% of tests were positive the week of Aug. 2-8. However, that data won’t be complete until later this week because of testing delays.
Trend: Idaho has recorded a positivity rate of more than 10% for seven straight weeks. Experts say that rate needs to drop below 5% to demonstrate control of the outbreak.
St. Luke’s reports that its 14-day average of positivity percentage has dropped from 14% on July 20 to 9% on Aug. 17. Saint Alphonsus reports a drop from 27% on July 27 to 20.5% on Aug. 17.
Southwest District Health, which includes Canyon County, reported a 14.2% positivity rate for its district for Aug. 2-8. Central District Health, which includes Ada, doesn’t publish positivity rates.
Testing
Idaho was conducting about 10,000 tests per week on June 1, according to IDHW. It has averaged about 25,000 tests per week during the past five weeks with completed data (through Aug. 1.)
Complete testing data is posted nearly two weeks after a week ends, so it’s unclear whether testing has dipped during the past two weeks as cases have dropped. The state does update its total tests daily. However, that’s raw data that usually under-reports the number of tests conducted by a significant amount.
Deaths
Deaths, as expected, have trailed the peak in cases. Idaho has reported 180 deaths in the past 35 days — just over 5 per day — beginning July 15. The state total was at 103 before that.
The state added a record 49 deaths for July 27-Aug. 2. The total has dropped the past two weeks to 39 and 33.
There were 11 deaths reported in all of June. There have been 283 overall.
WILL WE FAIL STAGE 4 AGAIN?
So much of the data required to see how Idaho is faring against Gov. Brad Little’s criteria for reopening isn’t public that it’s become nearly impossible to predict where Idaho will land.
However, it appears this could be Idaho’s best chance to move out of Stage 4 and into whatever replaces it. Ada County remains in a modified Stage 3 at the direction of Central District Health.
Little is scheduled to address Idaho’s progress during a press conference at noon Friday.
The state will pass the two criteria based on ER data, which is public. It likely will pass the criteria based on cases, because the number of daily cases and the positivity percentage appear to be trending downward. It also will pass two criteria based on health care capacity.
The two significant question marks are health care worker infections and new hospitalizations.
▪ Health care workers: Idaho added a record 387 infected health care workers to its statewide total during the two-week evaluation period for this attempt at Stage 4. However, that number hasn’t lined up with the data that IDHW uses for the governor’s criteria. Even with a then-record 364 health care workers added during the fourth attempt, IDHW’s data showed a downward trend within the 14-day period. That formula doesn’t account for what was happening in previous weeks, so numbers can increase from the previous attempt and still trend downward.
▪ Hospital admissions: Idaho added a new element to the criteria during the fourth attempt at Stage 4. Hospital admissions of confirmed COVID-19 patients must be less than 4 per day during the 14-day evaluation period. This data isn’t public, but because there’s no “downward trend” caveat, this is the metric the state is most likely to fail.
During the previous attempt, hospitalizations went from 204 to as high as 242. The admissions average was 7.9 per day.
During this attempt, hospitalizations went from 201 to as high as 216 — less than half of the increase. That seems to indicate the state will be close to the 4-per-day threshold.
This story was originally published August 19, 2020 at 4:00 AM.
