BOISE, Idaho — Central District Health's five critical factors to assess the state of the pandemic and local decision-making are trending in the wrong direction, according to a presentation made to CDH Board during a meeting on Friday.
Epidemiologist Lindsay Haskell gave a 22-minute presentation outlining the five factors, which include:
- Level of Community Transmission
- Health System Capacity
- Vaccination Coverage
- Capacity for early detection of increases in cases
- Populations at risk for severe outcomes.
"Cases reported are raising, we're seeing about a doubling every two weeks. All of our counties are considered high transmission," Haskell explained. "Our percent positivity continues to increase. So all the indicators we monitor continue to go in the wrong direction for the last month."
CDH officials said 98.3% of COVID-19 cases reported in its jurisdiction are from unvaccinated people. Of the 255,494 vaccinated people in the four-county district, 0.4% of them have contracted COVID-19, a total of 1,058 breakthrough cases.
Data from CDH also states that 28 breakthrough cases resulted in hospitalization. Of those, four of those cases resulted in death. A total of 521 unvaccinated people have died from COVID-19.
"The vaccine remains highly effective at preventing infection, severe illness, and death," Haskell said.
Currently, there are 99 people hospitalized for COVID-19 and 44 are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), according to CDH data. Three months ago in May, 37 people were hospitalized and eight patients were in the ICU.
These numbers are close to what CDH was seeing at the peak of the pandemic last November and December, according to Haskell.
"We’re also hearing about concerns for capacity to handle any other mass casualty events that could happen. Something like a large accidents, weather events or man-made threats because the healthcare systems are surging to treat COVID. Again, very high numbers," Haskell said.
CDH also reported that the average age of people hospitalized from COVID-19 is lower than what they've seen in the past. While the average age for a hospitalized COVID-19 patient was 60 to 72 years old last summer, CDH said the average age now is between 44 and 66 years old.
At KTVB, we’re focusing our news coverage on the facts and not the fear around the virus. To see our full coverage, visit our coronavirus section, here: www.ktvb.com/coronavirus.
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