Hold at Stage 4

Gov. Brad Little announced Thursday that Idaho will transition to a regional response to COVID-19 and the state did not meet metrics to move out of the final stage of the Idaho Rebounds plan.

Idaho will stay in the final stage of the Idaho Rebounds plan for at least another two weeks.

Idaho did not meet the epidemiologic and healthcare criteria to advance past Stage 4. The number of reported cases from June 10-25 trended upward instead of downward, the percent of positive tests from June 8-21 trended upward instead of downward, and the average percent positive for the prior 14-day period was greater than 5-percent at 5.12-percent.

In addition, the number of healthcare workers reported with COVID-19 from June 10-23 trended upward and the average number of healthcare workers reported having COVID-19 per day was greater than the standard of 2.

In North Idaho, the Panhandle Health District reports that 23 new cases of COVID-19 were discovered Thursday, which brings the total number to 215 in the five norther counties. Since 114 of those cases are no longer being monitored, that means that 101 are active.

Broken down by county, 169 (81 active, 1 death) of the cases are coming from Kootenai County, 13 (3 active) from Benewah, 24 (17 active) from Bonner, and 9 (0 active) are yet to be identified. Shoshone and Boundary counties still report zero confirmed cases.

Once PHD receives notification of a confirmed case from a lab, they connect with that individual to verify their information. This can be difficult for a variety of reasons:

•Contact tracing is voluntary and PHD relies on an individual’s willingness to participate.

•Information provided may be incomplete, incorrect, or not provided at all.

•Those experiencing homelessness or are in a transient living situation are other possible reasons it may take longer to determine a primary county of residence.

In the Panhandle area, community transmission, also referred to as community spread, has been identified in Kootenai, Bonner, and Benewah counties. Community spread means at least one person has been infected with the virus and through contact tracing we are unable to determine how or where they became infected. The individual(s) did not travel and had no identified contact with another person with COVID-19. PHD urges all residents to assume the virus could be anywhere in the community and surrounding counties.

PHD urges all residents to take precautions to slow the spread of COVID-19. This includes, practicing physical distancing, wearing cloth face coverings in public places, practicing good hand hygiene, staying home when sick, sanitizing high-touch surfaces regularly and isolating immediately if you show symptoms of COVID-19.

According to the CDC, people with COVID-19 have had a wide range of symptoms reported – ranging from mild symptoms to severe illness.

Symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure to the virus. People with these symptoms may have COVID-19 (*This list does not include all possible symptoms): Fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea or vomiting, or diarrhea.

Gov. Little urges Idahoans not to let their guard down.

“The goal all along has been to ensure our hospitals aren’t overrun with people seriously ill from complications of this highly contagious respiratory disease,” he said. “You can engage in the economy, safely go back to work, and safely receive care from your medical provider, but you must do so while practicing the proven measures to fight the spread of coronavirus.”

Idahoans are urged to:

• Wear protective face coverings in public.

• Keep physical distance of at least 6-feet from others outside your household.

• Wash hands and surfaces regularly.

• Stay home if you are sick.

The seven public health districts across the state are continually evaluating the criteria at the local level and will announce any changes in moving forward, if that becomes necessary to “flatten the curve.”

For more local information regarding COVID-19, visit panhandlehealthdistrict.org/covid-19 or call the Panhandle Health District Hotline Monday thru Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 877-415-5225.