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Treasure Valley testing sites staying busy as COVID-19 cases continue to rise

"I hope this is a wake-up call for every single person in Idaho right now," said Tommy Ahlquist, co-founder for Crush the Curve Idaho.

ADA COUNTY, Idaho — Six out of the last seven days, Idaho has reported more than 100 new cases of coronavirus each day. On Wednesday, the state saw its biggest spike yet, with more than 200 confirmed new cases.

But is the jump in cases simply due to an increase in testing, or is the virus becoming more prevalent?

The short answer is, both. 

Statewide data shows since late May, the number of COVID-19 tests administered in most health districts across the state has more than doubled.

Tommy Ahlquist, co-founder of Crush the Curve Idaho, said they also recently started seeing an increase in testing and COVID-19 assessments.

"We started seeing it at Crush the Curve about a week and a half ago," he said. "About eight days before the spike in testing and numbers, we saw more people taking the assessment."

The nonprofit group went from doing tests in the double digits every day to running hundreds each day. 

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And Crush the Curve isn't alone. Saint Alphonsus still has two drive-up testing sites running - one in Meridian and one in Nampa.

Both sites have seen a big increase in visitors recently.

"Certainly we've seen a significant increase in the past two weeks - especially this week and really starting this weekend," said Dr. Daniel Bridger, medical director with Saint Al's. "We've been seeing five to six times as many people over the past few days as we have been previously over the past few months." 

Each site is currently seeing more than 300 people per day - both symptomatic and asymptomatic. 

According to Bridger, Saint Alphonsus is also seeing an increase in the number of positive cases it runs. 

"The first few months it was really pretty steady at about 3% to 4%," he said. "In the past week, we've jumped to near 12%." 

Based on its data, Crush the Curve predicts 1,600 new cases by July 2, with the bulk of those expected to be in the Treasure Valley. Because of that, the organization is working to add two additional testing sites to help fill a need. The goal is to put one site in Eagle and another in East Boise, hopefully as soon as Friday. 

A graph on the state coronavirus website shows the number of tests has increased, but the positivity rate appears to be trending downward. 

Credit: Idaho Dept. of Health and Welfare
Idaho lab tests and percent positivity graph June 24, 2020

Health experts said that's just a percentage based on overall testing numbers. It does not mean the actual number of positive cases is decreasing. 

"Yes, we're testing a lot more people that are asymptomatic that were exposed, appropriately [we are testing them]," Ahlquist said. "So those numbers are going up. The percentage is going down but there's a lot of disease in our community right now." 

Currently, Ada County is one of Idaho's hot spots for COVID-19 cases. 

On Monday, Central District Health announced the county would be rolling back to Stage 3 because the spike in cases was "worrisome." 

"The unfortunate effect in what our community demonstrated in their behaviors and what they were willing and not willing to do as we move forward, is that we saw an exponential increase that was worrisome," said Brandon Atkins, CDH program manager.

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Data for the county shows a very different picture from June 1 to now. 

According to Atkins, Ada County ran 982 tests on June 1, with only five coming back positive. 

Fast forward about a week and a half to June 11. The county ran 253 tests, but had 14 positives. On June 12, 234 tests were done with eight positive cases. And on June 13, only 135 tests were done but still had 14 positives. 

Atkins said even with far fewer tests, the number of positive cases was still trending up. 

"That means more people in our population have the disease and are spreading it actively in our communities," he said. 

Since then, regardless of how many tests are completed, Ada County continues to see high numbers of positive cases. 

"We're seeing more [now] than what we were seeing when we first saw the outbreak come in," Atkins said. "Again, on the first of the month we had five cases, on the 2nd, we had one [case]. 

"We're up to over 70 cases being reported on a daily basis - sometimes between 70 and 90," he added. "That's a lot more cases."

Ahlquist said he hopes this surge in cases will remind people to take the virus seriously and to do their part to keep it under control. He said wearing masks, social distancing, frequent testing and isolation if you're sick are the keys to doing that. 

"I hope this is a wake-up call for every single person in Idaho right now that we need to take this seriously because it's always been about hospital capacity and slowing this down until we get a vaccine and we're not doing a very good job of doing those things," he said.

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