COVID-19: Positivity rate down, crisis standards dropped, Idaho ‘not out of the woods’
The decline of the omicron wave continued in Idaho over the past seven days, as the state positivity rate fell and crisis standards of care were deactivated in the southern part of the state.
The state’s COVID-19 positivity rate has fallen steeply for three straight weeks, though the most recent rate remains over three times higher than what public health officials aim for.
The week of Feb. 6, the most recent data available, Idaho clocked a 17% positivity rate. Health officials aim for 5% or less to indicate control of a pandemic.
On Tuesday, the Department of Health and Welfare deactivated crisis standards of care for three of the state’s public health districts, which had had the designation activated for more than three weeks. The designation allowed hospitals within the Southwest, Central and South Central health districts to ration care if they lacked the resources to provide standard levels of care.
Despite the change, Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen said Tuesday that hospitals in Idaho are still “very stretched.”
“We are not out of the woods yet,” he said .
Hospitalizations have been declining since the end of January, from a high of 614 patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 on Jan. 30 to 380 as of Feb. 16, according to state data. During the delta surge in September, hospitalizations peaked at 793 COVID-19 patients.
Intensive care patients have dropped from a high of 121 on Feb. 9 to 86 as of Feb. 16.
Local public health districts are still dealing with a backlog of around 26,300 positive lab tests that have yet to be processed, meaning daily case numbers may not reflect the actual number of cases reported on any given day.
Since Feb. 11, Idaho has reported 11,324 new COVID-19 cases and 121 deaths. A total of 413,372 cases and 4,674 deaths have been reported since the pandemic began.
There have been a total of 15,525 hospitalizations, 2,626 intensive care unit patients and 15,469 health care workers infected.
Idaho still has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, and hospitals in recent weeks have reported that nearly all of their COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated. Around 53.6% of Idahoans 5 or older are fully vaccinated.
Health and Welfare has reported that people who are vaccinated and boosted are 11 times less likely to be hospitalized and 20 times less likely to die of COVID-19 than unvaccinated people.
Long-term care
At long-term care facilities, 433 new cases have been recorded in the past week.
As of Friday, Health and Welfare reports there are 12,122 active coronavirus cases among 205 long-term care facilities. There are 155 facilities with resolved outbreaks.
To date, 1,062 people from 223 facilities in Idaho have died from COVID-19-related causes — fifteen more than were reported last Friday. Long-term care deaths account for about 23% of the 4,674 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 (43), Bonners Ferry (3), Buhl (1), Burley (4), Caldwell (7), Chubbuck (2), Coeur d’Alene (10), Eagle (5), Emmett (5), Fruitland (1), Garden City (2), Glenns Ferry (1), Gooding (1), Grangeville (1), Hayden (2), Homedale (1), Idaho Falls (7), Jerome (3), Kellogg (1), Kimberly (2), Kootenai (1), Kuna (1), Lewiston (10), McCall (1), Meridian (15), Montpelier (1), Moscow (3), Mountain Home (2), Nampa (13), Orofino (2), Parma (1), Payette (3), Pocatello (12), Post Falls (4), Rexburg (1), Rigby (1), Rupert (1), Salmon (1), Sandpoint (3), Shoshone (1), Silverton (1), St. Maries (1), Star (2), Twin Falls (11), Weiser (1), Wendell (2), Winchester (1).
Weekly snapshot
Vaccine doses administered in Idaho: 2,276,535, according to Health and Welfare. Of those, 919,057 people have been fully vaccinated, which accounts for 53.6% of Idahoans age 5 and older.
Test positivity rate: Out of the 22,623 COVID-19 tests conducted for the week of Feb. 6-Feb. 12, 17% came back positive.
For a list of daily numbers in the Treasure Valley, visit our “What We Know” story.
