Confirmed cases jump by 11 in NPC

Public health officials added 11 cases to their daily tally of positive COVID-19 test results in Nez Perce County on Thursday.

The number of confirmed and presumed cases in the Public Health – Idaho North Central District had been growing at a diminished rate over the past two weeks, but Thursday’s numbers accounted for the single biggest jump since the county recorded its first case on March 24.

Health district spokeswoman Tara Macke said the sharp increase is because of increased testing and does not indicate community spread.

Including the new cases, 46 people have tested positive in Nez Perce County. No new deaths were reported, leaving that total at 13. The number of positive results in the other counties in the health district were unchanged, with Latah at four, Idaho at three, and none in Lewis and Clearwater counties.

Earlier on Thursday, county commissioners on the District 2 Board of Health expressed strong desires to cautiously reopen the economy, even as Idaho Gov. Brad Little announced his phased plan to do just that.

Latah County Commissioner Dave McGraw, the board’s chairman, was especially worried about Moscow. The college town’s economy is heavily reliant on the thousands of University of Idaho students who pump money into its bars, restaurants, salons, apartments and other businesses. But most of them never came back after spring break when the university closed its campus in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“You can shoot a cannonball down Main Street at 9 o’clock on a Friday night and not hit anybody,” McGraw said, adding that he knows of one closed restaurant that will not be reopening.

Moscow has spent years building up its boutique bar and restaurant scene, especially downtown, McGraw said. He and two fellow board of health members — Lewis County Commissioner Greg Johnson and Idaho County Commissioner Mark Frei — agreed to draft a letter to Little asking for more county control over how and when to reopen parts of the economy.

The board tentatively planned to discuss the letter at its next meeting May 28. Health board member and Nez Perce County Commissioner Douglas Zenner didn’t stake out a position on local control, but said he would listen to input from fellow board members. But any letter may come after Idaho reopens significant portions of its economy if certain benchmarks in Little’s plan are met. The plan does not offer any control to local officials.

Latah County Commissioner Tom Lamar doesn’t sit on the board of health, but he attended Thursday’s electronic meeting. Lamar expressed the same concerns as the other commissioners about the dismal state of their local economies, but had serious reservations about reopening too soon.

“We need really good data to make this decision,” he said. “Otherwise, we’re going to go right back into this thing. I get that we need to come back into an open economy at some point, but I’m not super confident that we know how that’s going to look.”

It will be difficult to design a “smart” reopening plan absent widespread testing, Lamar said. Public health experts say such testing will be required to properly target and isolate the areas with the highest rates of infection.

Board members also voted unanimously to approve the draft fiscal year 2021 budget for Public Health – Idaho North Central District, where they serve as the governing body. The budget provides no increases in contributions from the counties because of the financial hardships they will endure from the ongoing economic shutdown, Director Carol Moehrle said.

Public Health officials revised their estimate for revenue from food service licensing from $115,000 to $100,000 over concerns many restaurants may not survive the shutdown. McGraw said even that estimate was probably too optimistic, and asked Moehrle to lower it to $90,000. Moehrle also said the agency is not budgeting for any salary increases “because of the times we’re in.”

Operating costs are down by about 21 percent, however, since expenses like travel by Public Health employees has been severely curtailed during the pandemic. Moehrle noted that the district has enough funding in reserve to bridge any shortfalls and didn’t request an increase in county contributions.

Board member Connie Osborn, a registered nurse in Latah County, said such shortfalls may occur if there is a second wave of COVID-19 cases, as many experts are predicting.

“So I know there’s more to come that’s going to stretch Public Health,” Osborn said.

Moehrle said the health district is hearing that coronavirus-related emergency room visits are declining. Osborn added that visits to a mobile testing facility are down, as is the number of calls to the district COVID-19 hotline. In what became a prophetic remark in light of the 11 new cases, Moehrle said numbers tend to ebb and flow, and it may be too early to pinpoint any trends from the data.

Whitman County received one new positive COVID-19 test result Thursday, bringing its total to 16. The male patient is between the ages of 20 and 39, and Whitman County Public Health is currently investigating. Asotin County, Garfield County and the Nez Perce Tribe reported no new cases.

Mills may be contacted at jmills@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2266.