North central Idaho sees another broken record for virus cases

Public Health – Idaho North Central District on Monday posted the highest weekend total of COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, with 377 new infections reported since the record set on Friday of 359 cases.

No new deaths occurred but Clearwater County had 21 new cases, Idaho County had 24, Latah County had 171, Lewis County had 21 and Nez Perce County added 140 new cases.

Whitman County also reported a record 253 new cases; Garfield County had five and Asotin County reported 98 cases over the weekend for a 14-day count of 573 with three hospitalizations.

* St. Joseph Regional Medical Center reported a big jump in patients being treated for COVID-19, from six last week to 15 on Monday. Of all the patients treated for the coronavirus from Dec. 25 to Sunday, 69% were unvaccinated, the hospital said.

* Moscow School District Superintendent Greg Bailey sent a memo to parents Sunday evening advising them that because of the uptick in the number of COVID-19 cases within the school setting “we recommend that you assume your students will be in contact with someone who is positive with COVID.”

With the possibility of a high increase of students and staff being infected, Bailey said, “we need to be even more diligent in following our precautionary measures to help slow the spread of the virus and keep our schools open.”

Bailey asks that students who show symptoms of the virus be kept home and parents should contact the school for further directions. The school district will continue to monitor the data and communicate with local and regional health officials. Bailey said he will also be changing the district’s website from weekly to daily data reporting for the next few weeks.

* The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare activated the crisis standards of care Monday for the Southwest, Central and South Central health districts because of severe staffing and blood shortages.

“The high number of both clinical and non-clinical staff unable to work due to the impacts of COVID-19 infections coupled with a nation-wide staffing shortage limiting access to contracted traveling staff is impacting current hospital operations,” the department reported in a news release.

“It is also limiting the ability of hospitals to maintain capacity for things like intensive care beds due to inadequate staffing. Additionally, a nation-wide shortage of blood and blood products is significantly impacting healthcare systems, and most have implemented blood conservation strategies.”

Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen said other regions of the state are likely to move into the crisis standards of care regimen if current COVID-19 trends continue.

* The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare will hold a media briefing about COVID-19 at 1:30 p.m. PST today via Webex.

State health department and medical officials will comment and take questions from the media.

The general public can join the briefing as attendees in listen/watch-only mode by selecting this link: bit.ly/3nYj43t.

Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.