Crisis standards canceled in southern Idaho

This story has been updated from its original version to fix an incorrect word.

Crisis standards of care at hospitals in southern Idaho are no longer active, officials announced at a media briefing Tuesday.

Crisis standards had been in place in the state’s Southwest District, Central District and South Central District.

The decision was made because of a decrease in COVID-19 hospitalizations and stabilization of staffing and blood supplies, said Dave Jeppesen, director of the Idaho Department of Health and Wellness.

“While we have seen a decline for two weeks in the testing positivity rate, it is at 25%, which is higher than at any time during the delta surge late last year and five times higher than the target of under 5%,” Jeppesen said. “We are not out of the woods yet.”

Public Health – Idaho North Central District reported 49 new cases Tuesday, including 29 in Nez Perce County, nine in Latah County, six in Idaho County, three in Lewis County and two in Clearwater County. No deaths were reported.

In Washington, Whitman County had 37 new cases and two deaths since Friday. Asotin County had 14 cases Tuesday, and Garfield County did not update its numbers.

Primary care providers in Idaho also reported staffing numbers increase in correlation with case numbers, Jeppesen said.

“That’s actually allowed many of them to return to normal hours, and or keeping clinics open through the weekend,” he said. “(That is) really important because if the primary care clinics are closed, those patients are going to go somewhere and they’re going to go to the hospitals, which are already overstressed.”

As cases go down, it remains important to take precautions and get vaccinated — especially for people who are immunocompromised, said Christine Hahn, state epidemiologist. That includes cancer patients, people on immune suppressing medication, or people with HIV who are not in treatment yet.

For those who are immunocompromised, Hahn said, three doses is considered fully vaccinated for the two preferred vaccines, Moderna or Pfizer, with a recommended fourth booster shot at least four months after the third vaccination.

It is also recommended that people who received the J&J vaccine get a second dose of either Moderna or Pfizer, with a booster at least two months following their last dose.

Many immunocompromised people, including those on immune-suppressing medication, are also eligible for Evusheld, a long-lasting antibody treatment, 14 days after a vaccination. Those supplies are still limited, Hahn said, but people should talk to their doctors if they think they may be eligible.

As more people receive at-home COVID-19 tests, case data is less able to account accurately for positivity rates, said Christopher Ball, chief of the Idaho Bureau of Laboratories. One of the methods Idaho will use to track new outbreaks moving forward is data collection at wastewater treatment plants across the state.

So far, data analysts have found a positive correlation between increases in COVID-19 genes in wastewater and spikes in cases, which have shown to precede spikes in case counts by roughly six days, he said. That testing will include collaboration with Idaho’s state colleges and universities.

“The hope is that this data will help us monitor COVID-19 activity at the community level rather than at the individual level,” Ball said. “This is because we’re seeing an increase in the use of rapid antigen testing, and a decrease in the number of reportable tests being tracked by the state.”

Moscow School District Superintendent Greg Bailey announced Tuesday he will recommend to the district’s Board of Trustees to remove the mask requirement in schools and at school events.

If approved, masks will be optional. According to his announcement, this decision is based on the decreasing number of absences as well as “the recent Omicron variant’s surge decreasing its impact in our schools.” Bailey said he received support from the district’s Health and Safety committee.

“Eliminating the mask requirement will provide a more positive learning environment in the classrooms,” Bailey wrote in his announcement.

Bailey will host a Zoom meeting called “Community Chat with the Superintendent” at 7 tonight. The link to the meeting can be found on the Moscow School District website.

The Board of Trustees will hold its meeting at 7 p.m. Feb. 23.

Sun may be contacted at rsun@lmtribune.com or on Twitter at @Rachel_M_Sun. The Moscow-Pullman Daily News' Anthony Kuipers contributed to this story. This report is made possible by the Lewis-Clark Valley Healthcare Foundation in partnership with Northwest Public Broadcasting, the Lewiston Tribune and the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.