BOISE, Idaho — Idaho's most populous health district is hard at work chipping away at nearly 5,000 outstanding positive COVID-19 tests awaiting processing.
Central District Health can process about 1,000 cases per day. However, with the number of new test results reported each day, it's going to take CDH about a week to finish the backlog, according to Communicable Disease Program Manager Dr. Lindsay Haskell.
Statewide, Idaho's local health districts have 12,700 backlogged tests. It’s leading many to question the accuracy of downward COVID-19 trends reported across the state.
"Recent numbers are close to being accurate," Haskell said.
Of the roughly 5,000 backlogged tests in CDH alone, roughly 4,500 are from January. Weeks are updated retroactively for the day a health system reports the positive test. This results in largely incomplete January numbers, but a generally accurate downward trend through the month of February, Haskell said.
Haskell also said that with at-home rapid tests and some people choosing not to test at all, the process of tracking the total number of COVID cases has flaws.
"It's likely just the tip of the iceberg is what we're seeing. Someone has to seek testing, test positive, and it has to be reported for us to know about," Haskell said.
CDH will cross-reference their case number trends with other side numbers to get a complete picture of local COVID level. One of those data points resides in the City of Boise's wastewater COVID-19 viral load.
CDH case trends and Boise's wastewater loads have matched through the pandemic. Both have shown consistent decreases since middle January to the beginning of March.
"Wastewater is a great indicator," Haskell said.
This same downward trend is seen in the statewide COVID case count, too, but the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is looking to move away from the total number of COVID cases as a tool to assess the pandemic locally.
"We've been talking about this for a while," said Dr. Christine Hahn, the state epidemiologist. "Really focus on the burden of hospitals, burden on communities, outbreaks in congregate settings -- that kind of thing."
This decision comes as a response to a new CDC guidance policy. Each county is now evaluated on a case-by-case basis and given tailored preventative measures based on the community level of COVID-19 in the area.
Each county is evaluated on a series of data points that Idaho health leaders are still learning themselves, they admitted Tuesday afternoon in an IDHW media briefing.
The data points focus on new COVID cases per 100,000 people over a 7-day period, the admission of hospitalized COVID patients, and the availability of hospital resources and infrastructure to care for those sick COVID patients, according to the CDC website.
In covering COVID-19, KTVB is focusing on the facts, not the fear, around the pandemic. To see our full coverage, visit our coronavirus section, here: www.ktvb.com/coronavirus.
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