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Gov. Little addresses growing number of coronavirus cases in Idaho

Little says the state's workforce remains strong even in the middle of this pandemic.

BOISE, Idaho — Gov. Brad Little and Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen addressed the state's growing number of coronavirus cases an AARP telephone town hall meeting Wednesday.

As of Tuesday, 188 people with coronavirus are in the hospital and the governor said 27 percent of those patients are under the age of 50.

He also said that of the 122 COVID-related deaths, 71 of those were people in long-term care facilities.

The top counties for new infections are Ada, Canyon, Kootenai, Bonneville and Twin Falls counties.

Director Jeppesen said that the state’s testing is going well in terms of volume but not good in terms of positive results.

“We are now seeing between 18,000 to 21,000 tests a week, and at that pace that is testing about 5 percent of the population each month,” Jeppesen said, “the bad news on testing is our testing positivity rate, the number of people testing positive is much higher than we would like, we would like to be around 5 percent and we are currently at 14.5 percent, really giving an indication that the virus is very active.”

Despite Idaho's high positivity rate, Gov. Little did report some good news. He says the state's workforce remains strong even in the middle of this pandemic.

“When we started the pandemic we had the third or fourth best employment numbers in the nation, today we have the third or fourth best employment numbers in the nation, and in fact, 30,000 Idahoans out of 89,000 went back to work,” Little said.

The governor added that during this pandemic Idaho has more advancements in telemedicine than any other state in the nation.

He said rural Idaho will benefit from these upgrades for years to come.

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