BLAINE COUNTY, Idaho — The South Central Public Health District announced on Friday afternoon that it has confirmed over a dozen cases of different COVID-19 variants in Blaine County.
Officials said they received laboratory confirmation of 12 cases of the California variant and four cases of the UK variant in Blaine County. However, no other confirmed cases of coronavirus variants were found anywhere else in the district's region, which includes Blaine, Camas, Cassia, Gooding, Jerome, Lincoln, Minidoka and Twin Falls counties.
South Central Public Health District epidemiologist Tanis Maxwell said in a statement that they encourage people to get the vaccine as its made more available.
"Our COVID-19 case numbers are at some of the lowest rates we've since this pandemic started. Even with a variant in our community, we can keep those numbers low if we work together to slow the spread of disease," Maxwell said.
On March 31, the public health district opened COVID-19 vaccine eligibility for all residents over the age of 16.
