BOISE, Idaho — Local public health districts were, as of Friday, 9,700 cases behind when it comes to reporting and investigating possible COVID-19 infections, according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare website.
Not all 9,700 cases are COVID-19, according to South Central Public Health District Public Information Officer Brianna Bodily. However, this backlog is delaying their ability to accurate track and report the spread of COVID in real time, also according to the Health and Welfare COVID dashboard on their website.
Of the 9,700 cases backlogged, 500 of them are within the South Central Public Health according to SCPHD public information officer Brianna Bodily. The technology that houses all these reports is shared across all seven public health districts. While SCPHD is largely caught up compared to their peers, the 500 cases they're behind aren't even accessible.
This is because the technology itself is overwhelmed, and there is not enough space in the shared electronic storage to house those 500 cases. Bodily and officials with the Idaho Dept. of Health and Welfare say this backlog hasn't accrued due to a lack of trying - there are simply more cases reported than local health districts can process.
Health and Welfare says as the backlog is processed over time, the department will retroactively update the weekly data reports on their website. This is to ensure a COVID case is counted for the week in which the case was reported, not the week that case was processed by the health district.
But clearing this backlog isn't going to happen overnight. The most populous public health district in the state, Central District Health, tells KTVB in an email they are receiving 1,000 cases per day. That same email says CDH can only process 600 cases daily.
However, progress is being made. On Thursday, Health and Welfare's website said the backlog was 11,200 cases, so as of Friday, the backlog has been reduced by about 1,500 cases.
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