COVID-19 metrics are showing improvement in most of Gem State, but not in North Idaho

Though COVID-19 metrics are improving in much of the Gem State, that is not the case in the Idaho Panhandle.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Department of Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen said that the northernmost part of the state is still facing steep caseloads and test positivity rates.

“While the statewide numbers are too high but improving, the numbers are too high and not improving in North Idaho,” he said.

In some counties in the Panhandle Health District, the COVID-19 positivity rate is more than double the state average of 12%, he said. And the number of hospitalizations in the Panhandle district, which is about 14% of Idaho’s population, rose by 3% last week, Jeppesen said.

The North Idaho area became the first region of the state to enter crisis standards of care (Sept. 7), when hospitals there were seeing “a massive increase in patients with COVID-19 who require hospitalization,” according to a Health and Welfare news release.

The rest of the state followed on Sept. 16, with hospitalizations surging statewide, especially in the Treasure Valley.

The two health districts where crisis standards were first declared — Panhandle and North Central — have the lowest vaccination rates in the state, according to Health and Welfare. Those districts are made up of 10 counties: Idaho, Lewis, Nez Perce, Latah, Clearwater, Shoshone, Benewah, Bonner, Boundary and Kootenai (home to Coeur d’Alene).

Only 48% of eligible residents in the Panhandle district are fully vaccinated and only 49% in North Central. Idaho’s statewide vaccination rate is 54.7%, one of the worst in the U.S. The national rate for eligible residents is 67.2%.

Elsewhere in Idaho, the state continues to see COVID-19 hospitalization rates that are well above the numbers seen during the surge last year. On Tuesday, health officials reported 1,345 new cases and 45 deaths.

“While we continue to see encouraging trends statewide, the number of cases, hospitalizations, ICU stays and deaths remain too high,” Jeppesen said.

Idaho has seen five straight weeks of declining positivity rate, but at 12%, it’s still way above the target of 5% that shows control over the virus spread.

Jeppesen said the state will remain in crisis standards until the surge of patients no longer exceeds available health care resources. He said the state is closely following a few indicators: when nontransitional spaces are no longer used to care for patients; when patients who must be admitted are no longer being boarded in the ER; and when small hospitals can transfer critical-care patients to large hospitals.

As of Oct. 21, there were 573 patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 in Idaho hospitals and 160 patients in ICUs. There were 11 pediatric COVID-19 patients hospitalized.

Those numbers are down from the peak numbers of hospitalizations seen on Sept. 24, when there were 793 COVID-19 patients and 213 in intensive care.

Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 12,518 hospitalizations, 2,094 intensive care patients and 12,407 health care workers infected, according to state data.

There have been 287,677 cases and 3,473 deaths.

For a full list of the weekend’s county-by-county totals, visit our “What we know” story.