Surge of COVID-19 infections overwhelming Idaho hospitals
BOISE, Idaho – Moments after hearing an Idaho hospital was overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients and looking at sending people as far away as Seattle for care, members of a regional health department board voted Thursday to repeal a local mask mandate.
“Most of our medical surgical beds at Kootenai Health are full,” Panhandle Health District epidemiologist Jeff Lee told board members in the state’s third most populated county.
The hospital in Coeur d’alene reached 99% capacity a day earlier. Idaho is one of several states where a surge of COVID-19 infections is overwhelming hospitals, U.S. health officials said.
Similar scenes – with doctors and nurses asking officials for help, only to be met with reluctance or even open skepticism – have played out across the conservative state.
Still, Republican Gov. Brad Little has declined to issue a statewide mask mandate or limit crowd sizes beyond requiring social distancing at large events and in businesses, which is seldom enforced. Instead, Little has left it up to local health departments and school districts to make the tough decisions that sometimes come with blowback from the public.
In the southern city of Twin Falls, hospital officials told health board members this week that they too were in danger of being overwhelmed, with one out of every four hospitalized patients sick with COVID-19. The region’s hospitals, operated by St. Luke’s Health System, have been forced to postpone non-emergency surgeries and ship patients elsewhere.
In central Idaho, Adams County commissioners have approved a resolution rescinding all orders, recommendations and restrictions related to COVID-19.
Health leaders in the Boise region and in eastern Idaho have been more willing to take sometimes unpopular steps. Residents in Ada County, Idaho’s most populated, and Valley County, a resort destination with many visitors, are required to wear masks in public, and health officials have issued safety recommendations to schools.
Idaho reported 987 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, bringing the total to more than 56,600.