STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK
PHOTO BY LEE DABNEY
COVID GRAPHS BY PAUL RIES
Idaho Gov. Brad Little reiterated Thursday that he wants schools to reopen in person this fall, even though COVID cases in Idaho continue to climb.
“The expectation is that schools will not be closed for extended periods of time during the 2020-21 school year,” he said during an afternoon press conference.
Little said that the state has allocated $10 million for schools to buy masks, gloves and plexiglass barriers. It’s also spending $21 million on COVID-testing for teachers and other staff, along with $3 million to fund quicker test turnarounds and $3 million for pharmacies to conduct tests in rural areas.
The state has allotted $48 million to boost schools’ computer and internet resources.
“The unprecedented amount of money we’re directing to the safe reopening of schools is helping to make schools safe places to teach and learn, and it should provide parents and teachers the confidence to return our students to the classroom for in-person instruction,” he said.
Little said he was keeping Idaho in Stage Four of its reopening plan for the fourth straight two-week period. The state began Stage Four on June 13.
While the number of people turning up at emergency rooms with COVID symptoms is trending downward, the average number of ER admissions is the highest it’s been since reopening began.
The state reached a new high in the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 on Monday. In total 242 people were hospitalized, exceeding 239 on July 29. Forty-of those were in the ICU.
“We really need to take that measure seriously, and that is why we do not pass out of Stage Four at this time,” said State Epidemiologist Christine Hahn. “We recognize that we will have quite a burden of illness and quite a number of people ill in our state.”
During the most recent 14-day window 364 health care workers were infected. Forty new health care worker infections were added a couple days ago—the second most in a single day. In all, 1,350 health care workers have been infected since the pandemic began.
Many of those are believed to have gotten the virus outside of the workplace.
Right now, the positivity rate is high, with 11.1 percent of those being tested testing positive for the virus. Health care supervisors want that number below 5 percent.
New cases of the virus continue to climb. The state recorded 473 new cases on Wednesday. Then the number of new cases soared on Thursday with 692 new cases for a total of 23,399 cases. This is the third time Idaho has had 600-plus new cases of COVID in one day.
Blaine County has gained four cases in the last two days for a total of 575.
The state has 223 deaths—46 in the past week.
The Ada County Jail has seen cases there increase from five to 68. Two hundred inmates were tested. Staff are attempting to isolate infected inmates.
Little said the state has increased its capacity for testing, contact tracing and personal protective equipment for health care workers and businesses. Health districts had been reporting turnaround times of seven to 14 days, which is essentially useless for doing contact tracing.
The White House coronavirus task force recently cited Idaho as being in the red zone and recommended that the state mandate masks, limit social gatherings to 10 people, close bars and gyms and improve access to testing in the most seriously impacted counties.
Central District Health mandated that Ada County go back to Stage Three of the reopening plan. But Little has resisted statewide mandates, noting that some counties have little new coronavirus activity.
SHOP FOR MOUNTAIN HUMANE
J. McLaughlin dress shop is holding a Virtual Sip & Shop in support of Mountain Humane from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 7. Shoppers may visit the store at 520 E. 4th St. in Ketchum or email showe@jmclaughlin.com.
Fifteen percent of proceeds on Friday will benefit Mountain Humane.
GRIDIRON CONTESTS POSTPONED
Put your Bronco-watching remote on pause. Boise State will not open the season against Georgia Southern on Sept. 5 as planned.
The Mountain West Conference has pushed back the fall season to Sept. 26 at the earliest, cutting non-conferences matches in half from four to two. It’s likely the Florida State and Georgia Southern matchups will be cancelled or rescheduled for another season.
Meanwhile, the Indy 500, postponed from Memorial Day weekend to Aug. 23, will be run without fans because of a spike in cases in Indianapolis over the past month.
BOISE SCHOOLS TO START ONLINE
Classes will start online for the Boise School District on Aug. 17, with the hope of having students in classrooms by Sept. 8 if Ada County’s situation improves.
Ada County reverted to Stage three of the state’s reopening plan because of a widespread uptick in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Until it moves out of that stage there will be no extracurricular contests, either.
Central District Health is considering imposing more restrictions on Ada and Valley counties.
Those restrictions including limiting gatherings to 10 or fewer and closing gyms. Masks would be mandated throughout Valley County where resort towns like McCall, Cascade and Donnelly have been populated by recreationalists from Ada and Canyon counties this summer.
RETAIL STORES GO CURBSIDE, TOO
Some retail stores are now following the example of restaurants by expanding to the sidewalk in Boise in hopes of attracting customers who are not keen on sticking their heads inside.
COVID VACCINE MAY NOT WORK AS WELL IN THOSE WHO ARE OBESE
While many see salvation from the novel coronavirus in a vaccine, it turns out that vaccines are less effective in obese people. This is the case for all vaccines, including influenza, hepatitis B, tetanus and rabies.
That could be a problem in the United States where more than 107 million adults are obese.
Scientists say obesity interferes with the body’s immune response, as obese people experience a state of chronic mild inflammation, according to a report from Kaiser Health News.
LIGHTS OUT FOR PARTYGOERS?
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti says he will have his city’s Department of Water and Power cut off service to households hosting large parties illegally during the pandemic.
NEW YORK TO FINE QUARANTINE BREAKERS
New York City has set up checkpoints to remind those coming from states with high virus infection rates that they must quarantine for two weeks. Those caught violating the quarantine can be fined up to $10,000.
Currently a fifth of the city’s new COVID-19 cases are coming from out-of-state travelers.
A BAD TIME TO BE A MINK
Authorities have killed more than a million minks at farms in Spain and the Netherlands after coronavirus outbreaks began surging through the breeding farms. They believe the outbreaks started with infected workers but say some workers may have later caught the virus from the minks.
If so, it would be the first known instance of animal-to-human transmission, not considering transmission in Wuhan from a bat or other animal, according to the Associated Press.
Nine out of 10 minks, or 92,000 minks, were killed this past week at a farm in the Aragon region of northeastern Spain. More than 1.1 million minks were killed on 26 Dutch farms and minks on a 27th farm are slated for disposal.
TOWN GETS PROTECTIVE OF ITS OWN
The northern Idaho city of Nezperce, population 500, declared an emergency, urging residents to stay home Saturday when Ammon Bundy was slated to lead a rally there. City officials said they wanted to protect the residents of their town, which so far is COVID-free, from contracting the virus.
To do that they closed the city park and pool and urged parents to keep their children at home.
Bundy, who led the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Ore., in 2016, led the rally for Sean Anderson, who has been charged with a felony-aggravated assault on a police officer. Anderson, who has taken part in previous Bundy rallies, was involved in a shootout with law enforcement officer in mid-July.
The rally ended up drawing about 50 people, some of them armed citizens who showed up to support law enforcement.
JUST SAY NO TO RED ONIONS
On top of the pandemic, the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare has cautioned Idahoans not to eat red onions in the wake of a national outbreak of Salmonella that has sickened at least 26 Idahoans and 663 people in 45 states.
It’s recommended that people throw away any red onions they have in their pantry. And restaurant workers are urged to sanitize all surfaces that onions have come in contact with, including cutting boards, slicers and storage bins.