Idaho’s COVID-19 week: Positivity rate falls, legislators scoff at mask effectiveness
With Idaho’s test positivity rate indicating the state may be past its omicron case peak, hospitalizations and deaths are still expected to rise.
Since Jan. 28, 78 deaths have been reported related to COVID-19, and the state has recorded 13,621 new cases, with 2,428 added on Friday, according to data from the Department of Health and Welfare.
Idaho’s test positivity rate fell slightly to 34% the week of Jan. 23, from a record high of 39% the prior week, according to state data. The week of Jan. 23 is the most recent data available.
Though the positivity rate, which is calculated weekly, dropped for the first time in six weeks, it is still incredibly higher than the 5% figure that public health officials use to indicate control of a respiratory pathogen.
As cases have surged in recent weeks, local health districts have been unable to process all of the new cases, delaying their input into the state data. When cases are received by local public health districts, each one must be manually reviewed before being entered into the state data.
“That can take seconds or minutes, depending upon the quality of the lab report data,” said Dr. Kathryn Turner, deputy state epidemiologist, in a Monday email to the Idaho Statesman.
On Friday, there were around 40,900 outstanding positive lab results, which is down slightly from the roughly 41,600 that were outstanding on Thursday.
As health districts process new cases each day, they also chip away at the backlog, health officials have said.
Although many of the tens of thousands of outstanding positive tests will eventually be recorded as positive cases, not all of them will. Around 20%-30% of the positive labs “will never end up as a counted case,” Turner said in the email. Some of the positive tests are samples from instances where a person who has already tested positive for COVID-19 gets tested again, thus recording two positive tests for only one case. Other positive results come in that were taken in Idaho but were from out-of-state residents.
On Monday, Turner said that 90% of the outstanding lab results were from the previous two-week period, while 10% dated from early January.
Cases in Idaho began climbing rapidly in Idaho in the last week of December.
In January, Health and Welfare activated crisis standards of care in Southern Idaho for the second time during the pandemic, allowing hospitals in three health districts — including in Ada and Canyon counties — with insufficient resources to ration health care if necessary.
Both times crisis standards have been declared — last September and in January — health facilities have been overwhelmed by an influx of largely unvaccinated COVID-19 patients. This year, the highly contagious omicron variant has caused large numbers of health care workers to test positive for COVID-19 in quick succession, further reducing the resources at hospitals and primary care providers.
As of Feb. 2, there were 589 patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 at Idaho hospitals, and 102 patients in intensive care.
Recent data from Health and Welfare shows that people who are fully vaccinated and boosted are 11 times less likely to be hospitalized due to COVID-19 than unvaccinated people, and 20 times less likely to die.
Idaho Republican legislators vs. masks
At a House committee meeting on Tuesday, Idaho Rep. Karey Hanks, R-St. Anthony, introduced a bill forbidding government entities in Idaho from requiring masks to limit the spread of diseases.
Hanks sponsored a similar bill during the 2021 legislative session, which was passed by the House but not the Senate.
“If people were dying in the streets and we felt a mask would change that, then I believe that we would wear them,” Hanks said, while not wearing a mask in a room with legislators and other people who also were largely unmasked.
Since the start of the pandemic, 4,478 Idahoans have died in connection with COVID-19. A boy from Bonneville County was reported to have died of COVID-19 on Tuesday, according to Eastern Idaho Public Health. He was between the ages of 13 and 17.
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a study showing that people who wore a high-quality respirator mask — like an N95 or a KN95 — in indoor public settings were 83% less likely to test positive for COVID-19 than people who don’t wear masks. Other lower-quality masks also provided protection, with 66% and 56% lower odds for people who wore surgical and cloth masks, respectively. The study was based on real-world data collected out of California between February and December of last year.
Also on Friday, Sen. Steven Thayn, R-Emmett, attended a floor session at the Statehouse a day after being exposed to a person with COVID-19 for over an hour. On Thursday, Thayn and Wayne Hoffman, president of the far-right lobbying group the Idaho Freedom Foundation, appeared maskless on video together shortly after Hoffman said he had tested positive for COVID-19.
“I think that we can use common sense as far as when to wear a mask, when not to wear a mask,” Hanks said on Tuesday about her bill.
Long-term care
At long-term care facilities, 1,067 new cases have been recorded in the past week, and 23 new facilities have active infections.
As of Friday, Health and Welfare reports there are 11,489 active coronavirus cases among 208 long-term care facilities. There are 152 facilities with resolved outbreaks.
To date, 1,045 people from 223 facilities in Idaho have died from COVID-19-related causes — nine more than were reported last Friday. Long-term care deaths account for about 23% of the 4,478 in the state.
Below is a list of Idaho cities along with the number of facilities in each city that have active cases among residents and/or staff. For an outbreak to be considered “resolved,” more than 28 days must pass (two incubation periods) without any additional cases associated with the facility.
American Falls (1), Ammon (2), Ashton (1), Bellevue (1), Blackfoot (2), Boise (42), Bonners Ferry (2), Buhl (1), Burley (4), Caldwell (5), Chubbuck (2), Coeur d’Alene (10), Eagle (5), Emmett (3), Fruitland (1), Garden City (2), Glenns Ferry (1), Gooding (1), Grangeville (2), Hayden (3), Homedale (1), Idaho Falls (8), Jerome (2), Kellogg (1), Kimberly (2), Kootenai (1), Kuna (1), Lewiston (10), McCall (1), Meridian (13), Montpelier (2), Moscow (3), Mountain Home (2), Nampa (13), Orofino (2), Payette (3), Pocatello (14), Post Falls (4), Preston (2), Rexburg (2), Rigby (1), Rupert (2), Salmon (1), Sandpoint (4), Shelley (1), Shoshone (1), Silverton (1), Soda Springs (1), St. Maries (1), Star (2), Twin Falls (11), Weiser (1), Wendell (2), Winchester (1).
Weekly snapshot
Vaccine doses administered in Idaho: 2,254,429, according to Health and Welfare. Of those, 912,717 people have been fully vaccinated, which accounts for 53.3% of Idahoans age 5 and older.
Test positivity rate: Out of the 42,799 COVID-19 tests conducted for the week of Jan. 23-Jan. 29, 34% came back positive.
For a list of daily numbers in the Treasure Valley, visit our “What We Know” story.
This story was originally published February 4, 2022 at 7:42 PM.
