Nez Perce County sees biggest one-day increase in virus cases

Nez Perce County saw its biggest one-day increase in COVID-19 cases Wednesday, with health officials reporting 166 new cases.

The other counties in north central Idaho and southeastern Washington also had big increases Wednesday, which added up to a regional total of 499 new cases. Also, Whitman County announced a COVID-19 death but didn’t report any details about the person who died.

The Public Health – Idaho North Central District announced 337 additional cases Wednesday, which overtook Tuesday’s report of 326 new cases for the second-biggest increase of the pandemic.

Orofino Elementary School and Orofino Junior/Senior High School will be closed until Tuesday because of an increase in COVID-19 numbers.

Orofino School District Superintendent Michael Garrett sent an email Wednesday notifying parents of the closure. The announcement of the closure was also posted on the schools’ Facebook pages by elementary school Principal Denise Pomponio and junior/senior high school Principal Brian Lee. Other schools in the Orofino School District, including Timberline schools, Cavendish and Peck, remain open.

The Orofino School Board COVID-19 policy, approved in September, states that when a school has higher than 2% of the student population test positive for COVID-19 or more than 25% of the student population is absent, the school will close for a recovery period. The junior/senior high school had 2.2% positive cases with 22% absent and the elementary school had 2% positive cases with 19% absent.

Garrett also said in the email that in addition to students being absent with COVID-19, many staff members had positive cases or were in quarantine and it was difficult to find substitutes.

Students finished the school day Wednesday, but the school will not be going to online learning. The Facebook posts said teachers will be available by email to help students with missing work. The last day of the academic semester will be extended to Tuesday.

All extracurricular activities, including sporting events are canceled until Tuesday as well.

“Hopefully, this closure will allow enough time for our affected students and staff to get healthy and reduce the current transmission rate,” the Facebook post stated.

Potlatch School District moved to the yellow phase Wednesday and Genesee School District moved to the yellow phase Tuesday. The yellow phase means face coverings will be required for all students and staff in the building and on buses. Nonessential visitors will be limited, but will also be required to wear a mask, including to extracurricular and sporting events.