‘It is certainly here’: COVID-19 cases spike in Idaho amid national omicron wave
COVID-19 infections are rising quickly in Idaho, according to data from the Department of Health and Welfare.
Since Monday, the state has reported 4,583 new cases; the entire week of Dec. 27, Idaho reported 3,656 cases.
On Tuesday alone, the state reported 1,722 cases, which is more than four times what the 7-day moving average was a week before. More than 1,400 cases were reported on Wednesday. Of those 3,100-plus cases, more than 900 came from Ada County and 400 from Canyon County.
“Our percent positivity increased by 55% last week and a more transmissible variant is circulating,” said Dr. Kathryn Turner, the state’s deputy epidemiologist, in an email. “With recent holidays, there were family and friends gathering during which the virus had an opportunity to spread. All of those things combined would lead to more cases.”
The state’s test positivity rate increased from 5.4% the week of Dec. 12 to 8.4% the week of Dec. 19. Positivity rate data for the week of Dec. 26 will be released on Thursday.
Turner said that COVID numbers include reported cases that were submitted to Health and Welfare by local public health districts between when cases were posted to the dashboard the previous day and the following evening. In recent weeks, local health districts did not work on Christmas and New Year’s Day, and most are not working on weekends, Turner said.
“The cases reported Monday and Tuesday include lab reports received on the holiday and over the weekend, as well as those submitted by testing laboratories on Monday and Tuesday,” Turner said.
National surge comes to Idaho
COVID-19 cases are surging nationally, with more than 1 million new cases reported nationwide on Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University, easily a daily U.S. record.
The vast majority of the country’s new cases are the highly contagious variant called omicron, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC estimates that around 95% of new COVID-19 cases the week of Dec. 26 were caused by the omicron variant. The week of Dec. 19, the CDC estimates that it was around 77%.
In Idaho, only 15 cases of omicron have been confirmed in the state so far, partly because of testing and sequencing limitations. The proportion of sequenced samples that were omicron increased to 41% between Dec. 16 and Dec. 31, however, according to state data. Less than 3 percent of sequenced samples were omicron during the first half of the month.
“While slightly lower than the national percentage, the proportion increased by 13-fold from the previous two-week period,” Turner said. “It is certainly here.”
At Primary Health Medical Group, a major health care provider in the Treasure Valley, clinics saw more than 2,000 urgent care patients on Monday, marking the second-busiest urgent care day in the provider’s history, according to The Associated Press. The No. 1 day was on Sept. 7, just days before Idaho activated crisis standards of care to enable overwhelmed hospitals to ration care if necessary amid the COVID-19 surge caused by the delta variant.
“We have more to worry about than hospitalizations,” Dr. David Peterman, CEO of Primary Health, told the AP. “We’re seeing record numbers in our clinics, and we have 38 of our employees out sick. If primary care doctors cannot see their patients for their hypertension, for sore throats, for diabetes, then we’re in trouble.”
Peterman said that rises in hospitalizations usually follow primary care surges by one or two weeks. As of Monday, there were 274 confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients at Idaho hospitals, up from 210 on Dec. 25.
Some evidence, including studies from the United Kingdom, indicates that the omicron variant causes less severe disease than previous iterations of the virus. The U.K. was hit by an omicron-fueled wave earlier than the U.S., and hospitalizations and deaths continually lag behind case data.
But public health officials have warned that a less severe variant is not necessarily less dangerous if it is also more contagious.
“A significant increase in transmissibility can certainly overcome (being less deadly), because of the sheer numbers of people that will get infected,” Dr. David Pate, the former president of St. Luke’s Health System, told the Idaho Statesman.
Vaccines have been shown to be highly effective at preventing more severe illness, but Idaho has the lowest proportion of vaccinated residents of any state, according to the CDC.
The rise in cases also has Idaho health officials concerned that schools with few or no mitigation protocols in place could see big rises in cases as students return from winter break, and that could have a large effect on virus spread.
At a White House briefing on Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said lots of Americans will still become severely ill from omicron.
“A certain proportion of the large volume of cases, no matter what, are going to be severe,” he said. “So don’t take this as a signal that we can pull back from the recommendations ... about the need for vaccination, for boosters, for wearing masks.”
This story was originally published January 5, 2022 at 6:30 PM.
