BOISE, Idaho — The percentage of positive COVID tests is a valuable tool to assess where we are in the fight against COVID, according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (IDHW).
IDHW's goal is to keep the positive test percentage below 5%. However, at Primary Health Medical Group, that's not even close to reality.
Primary Health is testing more than 1,000 people every day across their 21 facilities according to CEO Dr. David Peterman. Over the last week, 26.7% of those tests were positive.
"Very worrisome number. Very high," Dr. Peterman said. "The demand for testing, again, extremely high."
Just a month ago, Primary Health was testing a few hundred people per day and had a positivity rate in the single digits. This is the fastest surge in positive test Primary Health has seen yet, Peterman said.
"The messaging from the CDC and on TV to the public has been that Omicron seems to be less of a severe disease, less patients need to be hospitalized. While that is likely true, and I am grateful for that, the fact that this is so contagious creates many problems," Peterman said.
Perhaps the biggest of these problems is right at Peterman's own facilities. A total of 38 Primary Health employees were out Monday: the majority of them were for COVID-related reasons, according to Peterman.
If the demand for Primary Health's services continues to increase and employees continue to get COVID, these clinics may be unable to treat patients for regular care.
"I have a big concern of that for all the primary care clinics in this valley," Peterman said. "All the patients that have various needs, can't be met and that is going to lead to more hospitalizations."
People with pre-existing conditions - more colloquially known as immunocompromised - are most at risk of hospitalization from the omicron variant, according to Peterman. He is asking the public to take a step to protect those at high risk.
"Separate from everyone's politics or anything like that, the plea from all healthcare workers right now would be for the public to wear masks," Peterman said. "We can prevent this from spreading and we can continue to go on with our lives in a normal way."
Facts not fear: More on coronavirus
See our latest updates in our YouTube playlist: