Canyon County hit with largest COVID-19 case increase since last November
New cases of COVID-19 in Idaho have increased more than 1,200% since early July.
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare on Tuesday reported 904 new cases of COVID-19 and seven new coronavirus-related deaths statewide. Idaho’s seven-day moving average stands at 646.9 cases per day after falling as low as 49.7 per day on July 5.
Canyon County residents made up nearly 30% of Tuesday’s new cases with 270. It is the county’s largest single-day increase since last November, according to an Idaho Statesman analysis of Health and Welfare data, and pushes Canyon County’s seven-day moving average to 97.5 cases per day. On July 6, Canyon County was averaging just 6.7 new cases per day, which means cases in the area have risen more than 1,300%.
Idaho’s test positivity rate for the week of Aug. 1-7 was 12.3% on 24,374 tests. Southwest District Health, which includes Canyon County, had a positivity rate of 15% for the same date range.
Ada (165 new) and Kootenai (126 new) counties also saw triple-digit case increases Tuesday.
Of the seven new deaths reported, three were in Canyon County (328 total), and Bannock (119 total) and Latah (15 total) counties each added two. According to updated demographic data from Health and Welfare, one of the individuals was in their 30s, one was in their 50s, two were in their 70s and three were 80 or older.
Since the start of the pandemic, Idaho has lost 2,258 residents to the virus, with a case fatality rate of about 1.07%.
As of Friday, there were 326 people hospitalized in Idaho with suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 108 in intensive care. Idaho hit a peak of 122 COVID-19 patients in the ICU on Dec. 18 of last year. In early January, the mean age for patients admitted to the hospital with the coronavirus was 66.1. That average is down to 61.6 as of Aug. 14, according to Health and Welfare.
For a county-by-county breakdown of Tuesday’s new cases, see our “What we know” file at IdahoStatesman.com.
This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 6:25 PM.
