Idaho’s COVID-19 week: Positivity rate breaks record, more than 20,000 cases backlogged

Cases of COVID-19 surged all week in Idaho, as local health providers in the state struggle with high demand for testing and many employees out sick.

Idaho reported 12,625 new cases for the week on Friday, well more than the nearly 7,700 cases that were reported the prior week. The actual number of cases is likely much higher, since the Department of Health and Welfare is reporting a backlog of around 20,200 cases that have yet to be entered into the official count. The number of Idahoans testing positive has overwhelmed local public health districts, which review each case that is reported to the state.

On Thursday, the state announced the test positivity rate had jumped to 25.7% for the week of Jan. 2-8, breaking a record set in November 2020. The week before that, it doubled. That increase was an “alarming amount,” according to a tweet from Health and Welfare.

During the worst of the delta surge last fall, the positivity rate was 17.3% for the week of Sept. 5.

Omicron, a highly contagious new variant of the coronavirus, now makes up around 88% of genomically sequenced cases in Idaho. Research shows it may be three or four times more infectious than the delta variant.

“We expect statewide testing positivity to continue to increase and stay well above the goal of 5% for some time to come,” Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen wrote in a Friday blog post. “Health care systems across the state are seeing the number of COVID-19 patients increase dramatically at the same time that a large number of health care workers are unable to work either because they are sick with COVID-19 or have been exposed to COVID-19. This means that health care capacity is decreasing while demand for health care services is increasing.”

Health providers in the Treasure Valley, like Primary Health Medical Group, have had to curtail their hours or even temporarily close clinics due to staffing issues.

A spokesperson for Primary Health, Chryssa Rich, said on Wednesday that the medical group had tested more than 13,000 patients since Jan. 3 and saw more than 2,600 patients on Monday and Tuesday.

“These numbers far surpass anything we’ve seen previously during the pandemic, including our busiest days in September during the delta surge,” she said in an email.

On Tuesday, Saint Alphonsus Health System announced it would be temporarily closing three urgent care clinics on weekends.

Hospitalizations are also rising quickly in the state, although they are not yet near the levels seen last fall, which pushed many hospitals into crisis standards of care.

As of Wednesday, there were 378 patients hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 in Idaho, and 98 COVID-19 patients in intensive care, according to the state dashboard. As recently as Dec. 25, there were 210 hospitalized patients and 73 intensive care patients.

Idaho also reported 35 COVID-19 deaths since Jan. 7. Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 4,270 COVID-19-related deaths.

Long-term care

As of Friday, Health and Welfare reports there are 6,405 active coronavirus cases among 106 long-term care facilities. There are 247 facilities with resolved outbreaks.

To date, 1,025 people from 221 facilities in Idaho have died from COVID-19-related causes — three more than were reported last Friday. Long-term care deaths account for about 24% of the 4,270 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.

Bellevue (1), Blackfoot (2), Boise (23), Bonners Ferry (2), Burley (1), Caldwell (2), Coeur d’Alene (8), Eagle (1), Emmett (2), Fruitland (1), Garden City (1), Gooding (1), Hayden (2), Idaho Falls (6), Kootenai (1), Kuna (2), Lewiston (6), McCall (1), Meridian (5), Montpelier (2), Nampa (8), Orofino (2), Payette (1), Pocatello (5), Post Falls (3), Rexburg (2), Rigby (1), Rupert (1), Salmon (1), Sandpoint (3), Silverton (1), St. Maries (1), Twin Falls (8), Weiser (1).

Weekly snapshot

Vaccine doses administered in Idaho: 2,200,371, according to Health and Welfare. Of those, 901,624 people have been fully vaccinated, which accounts for 52.6% of Idahoans age 5 and older.

Test positivity rate: Out of the 38,227 COVID-19 tests conducted for the week of Jan. 2-Jan. 8, 25.7% came back positive.

For a list of daily numbers in the Treasure Valley, visit our “What We Know” story.