'It's as bad or worse than it has ever been in Shoshone County'
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare reports just over 40% of Shoshone County residents have received either one or both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. Local health officials stress that all recent COVID-19 patients presenting serious symptoms are unvaccinated.
Image courtesy of IDAHO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND WELFARE
Dr. David Lawhorn
Editor's note: A previous version of this online article and the Monday, Aug. 24 print edition incorrectly stated that Shoshone Medical Center has three respirators, rather than three ventilators. The online version has been corrected.
KELLOGG – COVID-19 numbers continue to rise again, both locally and nationally, and are putting a severe strain on local medical resources.
The Panhandle Health District reports that from Aug. 10-20, there were a total of 63 new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Shoshone County alone. Shoshone, which remains in the red or "substantial" COVID-19 risk category, has also recorded six COVID related deaths since May 1 — all being over the age of 70.
Along with these new cases comes an increased demand for medical services.
Both Shoshone Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Lawhorn and Shoshone County Fire District No. 1 Cpt. John Miller have seen evidence of this spike first-hand.
"Of the last six calls that have come in between 9 and 11 a.m. (Monday) morning, five of them were COVID-related," Cpt. Miller said.
Adding to that point, Dr. Lawhorn stressed that finding ICU beds for serious COVID-19 patients has been a challenge
"In the past 24-hours, we had several people coming into the ER here that were COVID-positive and sick," he said. "Our emergency room here called roughly 78 other hospitals in the northwest to try and find an ICU bed to shift them too. Everyone said, 'No, we're at capacity.'"
While SMC is equipped with a limited number of ventilators, they have neither the manpower, nor the space to handle an overflow of ER-level patients, COVID or otherwise.
Standard protocol since the pandemic began was to send seriously ill COVID patients to Kootenai Health in Coeur d'Alene, as they are the COVID-19 treatment hub for the area. Unfortunately for medical staff of all involved providers, there's just no room.
Kootenai Health reported it had 90 COVID patients Monday, its second-highest since the pandemic began as it continues to operate near or at capacity, depending on the day.
The common theme Lawhorn and Miller have noticed since case numbers started taking a turn for the worse is that nearly all the seriously ill patients they see are over the age of 50 and unvaccinated.
In a recently column by Gov. Brad Little wherein he asked Idahoans to get the vaccine, he stated that since Jan. 1, 98.9% of new COVID cases, 98.6% of COVID hospitalizations and 98.7% of COVID deaths have been attributed to unvaccinated individuals in Idaho.
"Statistically, it's less than 0.003% of people who are fully vaccinated that have gotten infected with COVID, gotten really sick and/or died. So it's extraordinarily rare. It just not true that hospitals are seeing people dying who are vaccinated."
SMC recently reimplemented its COVID-19 incident command meetings again in an attempt to meet the current, and possibly rising, demand that COVID could put on the hospital, but Lawhorn is afraid they could be fighting an uphill battle as the Delta variant continues to present symptoms in unvaccinated residents.
"As of right now, the situation of people being sick with COVID and being presented to the hospital, it's as bad or worse than it has ever been in Shoshone County and multiple places in the country," he said.
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare states that approximately 42% of individuals 12 years old and up have either received one or both COVID-19 doses in Shoshone County.
