COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations continue decline. Idaho ‘on path’ to end crisis standards
New cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations continue to drop in Idaho.
For the second straight day, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare reported less than 700 new cases, checking in with 650 on Wednesday after adding 664 on Tuesday.
The state also reported 16 new deaths on Wednesday between Ada (4 new), Bannock (1), Bingham (1), Elmore (1), Fremont (1), Jefferson (1), Kootenai (2), Latah (1), Nez Perce (1), Owyhee (1) and Twin Falls (2) counties.
Idaho has lost 3,801 residents to the virus, with a case fatality rate of about 1.26%.
Overall hospitalizations remain on the decline, with 354 individuals needing inpatient care statewide as of Monday — the most recent day for which data is available — including 118 in intensive care. There are also two children hospitalized.
Total hospitalization numbers first dipped below 400 on Nov. 9 and have remained that way since. Idaho’s seven-day moving average of new COVID-19 cases stands at 458.4 cases per day, the third consecutive day below 500.
For a county-by-county breakdown of Wednesday’s new cases and deaths, see our “What we know” file at IdahoStatesman.com.
No timeline yet for crisis standards deactivation
While Idaho is “on a path” out of crisis standards of care, the state is not there yet, because the surge of patients still exceeds the health care resources available, according to DHW Director Dave Jeppesen.
Jeppesen told reporters at a press briefing on Tuesday that hospitalization numbers remain high and that he does not have a timeline for when the state will leave crisis standards. And even when it does, he said many hospitals will still be operating in contingency standards of care, which is just one level below crisis standards.
The burden on overwhelmed hospitals over the past two months caused the delay of thousands of critical surgeries that did not absolutely need to be undertaken immediately. Jeppesen said that backlog will take time to clear.
Dr. Frank Johnson, chief medical officer for St. Luke’s hospitals in Boise, Elmore and McCall, told the Idaho Statesman last Thursday that it could take up to six months for the hospital system to catch up on an estimated 5,000 medically necessary procedures and surgeries that have been put on hold.
“As we contemplate coming out of crisis standards of care, that does not mean that the state is going to be backing away from providing additional resource support to hospitals,” Jeppesen said.
He said the state has helped direct hundreds of medical personnel to help at hospitals around the state, which will continue into next year. He hopes that the extra personnel will help provide health care workers with a break, while also keeping hospital capacity as high as possible in order to “get into this backlog of cases and move through them as quickly as possible.”
COVID-19 and Idaho’s Hispanic population
Throughout the pandemic, the burden on different communities in Idaho has not been shared equally, officials say.
The virus, for instance, has hit the Hispanic population especially hard.
In 2020, the average age of COVID-19 related deaths was 79.6 among the non-Hispanic population, while it was 71.5 among Hispanics. So far in 2021, the average age of deaths among the non-Hispanic population has been 72.7, but only 64.6 for Hispanics.
“That represents a lot of Hispanic folks dying in their 40s, 50s and early 60s,” said Dr. Christine Hahn, state epidemiologist, at Tuesday’s briefing.
People of Hispanic descent represent about 13% of Idaho’s population but about 16% of cases, Hahn said. According to Health and Welfare, 327 people of Hispanic origin have had COVID-19-related deaths.
The Idaho Immunization Coalition has been operating vaccine clinics around Southern Idaho in communities of color and in rural areas since last summer. Heather Gagliano, a registered nurse and volunteer with the coalition, said the group has found the most effective vaccine clinics to be those where the organizers partnered with trusted community groups.
She said that before the clinics are set up, she and other volunteers go out and talk to people about concerns they might have about vaccines.
“We would stop and have those conversations for however long the people really wanted to talk,” Gagliano said.
Some people had individual health concerns, while others had read the false information about vaccines that proliferates on social media, she said.
“We could individually answer the particular concern that the person had with the (misinformation), and (we) just took that time,” Gagliano said.
On at least one occasion, a group of people who came to a clinic said they did not want to get vaccinated. But after speaking with a community organizer they trusted, Gagliano said, they changed their minds.
“After people got vaccinated, they seemed to have this confidence that came over them,” she said. “They received their vaccine and they just took a deep breath. And then they would start calling people or texting people, saying, ‘Hey, it went really well. You’ve got to come down here.’”
