BOISE, Idaho — Central District Health (CDH) is scheduled to vote on a public health order during the next board meeting on Tuesday evening. The vote was originally intended to be voted on during the most recent meeting on Friday, but the board decided to make some changes to the order and rescheduled the vote.
The order is meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 and preserve hospital capacity. Over the last month, CDH has seen alarming COVID-19 metrics in its region, which entails Ada, Boise, Elmore and Valley counties.
All four counties have high case rates. For context, an ideal case rate would be under three for Ada and Elmore counties and under five for Boise and Valley.
No county is where it should be for the weeks of Nov. 15 or 22, the latest available data. Ada County's two-week case rate the week of Nov. 22 is 55.32. This dropped from 80.33 the week before.
Boise County’s was 23.72 the week of Nov. 22 and 29.19 the week of Nov. 15. Elmore County's was 41.02 for the week of Nov. 22 and 54.78 for the week of Nov. 15. Valley County’s was 33.86 for Nov. 22 and 40.13 the week of Nov. 15.
Additionally, confirmed and probable cases took a dip this past week because of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Ada County had 469 confirmed and probable cases during the week that ended on Dec. 5, according to CDH. The CDH dashboard is only updated on Mondays and Thursdays, so this data is incomplete.
The week before, there were 1,014 cases in Ada County. The other counties also saw similar dips in cases from the week of Nov. 22 to Nov. 29.
Counties within the CDH jurisdiction also experienced a dip in the number of tests performed. Ada County's positivity rate dropped from 15,628 tests during the week of Nov. 15 to 11,268 tests the following week.
The other three counties saw also their number of tests drop. The only county that was close to maintaining is Elmore County, with 577 tests done the week of Nov 15., and 531 tests done the week of Nov. 22.
These metrics and the strain on hospitals are why CDH’s board of health is aiming to vote on a new public health order that will implement some restrictions on individuals and businesses.
The latest hospitalization data is from Dec. 2 shows 49 facilities were reporting that 477 patients with COVID-19 were in an inpatient bed and 50 facilities were reporting that 105 COVID-19 patients were in an ICU bed.
The board is scheduled to vote on the revised health order on Tuesday.
The main differences between the revised health order and the original that the Board of Health was scheduled to vote on the order on Friday are that sports may continue, there is more face-covering exemptions, people can visit long-term care facilities with requirements, and bar top seating is allowed with a barrier.
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