‘Not out of the woods’ with omicron, but crisis standards of care deactivated in Idaho
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Crisis standards of care have been deactivated in the three Idaho health districts that make up much of the southern part of the state, officials announced Tuesday afternoon.
The entire state is now free of the crisis designation as the omicron wave wanes, even though hospitals are still facing large numbers of severely ill patients.
Crisis standards had been reactivated in much of Southern Idaho — Southwest District Health, Central District Health and South Central Public Health — on Jan. 24. Hospitals faced large numbers of employees calling out sick, as well as a nationwide blood supply shortage and an influx of patients.
The staffing and blood supply issues have stabilized, said Dave Jeppesen, the director of the Department of Health and Welfare, on Tuesday.
The omicron wave’s effect on hospitals has not completely passed, though, and many are operating at “contingency” standards, which is one step below crisis standards.
“It will be some time before health care systems return to full normal operations,” Jeppesen said.
The state’s declining test positivity rate still stands at 25.1% for the week of Jan. 30, which is five times the figure aimed for by health officials to indicate control of a respiratory virus.
Thousands of new Idaho infections are still being reported each day, and local health districts continue to work through a backlog of more than 32,000 positive tests that have not been processed in recent weeks.
Since early February, the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units has risen, even as the number of patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 has decreased, according to state data. As of Feb. 10, there were 118 COVID-19 patients in intensive care and 484 patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 in Idaho hospitals.
Health care systems in the state remain “very stretched,” Jeppesen said.
“We are not out of the woods yet,” he said.
This story was originally published February 15, 2022 at 3:10 PM.
