BOISE, Idaho — Some good news from Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Tuesday. He announced that Idaho is advancing in a positive direction from Stage 2 to Stage 3 of the Idaho Rebounds reopening plan.
“We came together to do the right thing. Virus activity and its impacts have been trending downward in Idaho throughout the months of December and January,” Little said in a news conference Tuesday.
A major factor in the decision is healthcare capacity. Back in November, Idaho was in rough shape with fears that crisis standards of care would be needed. The state never hit that point, and Little says since then things have improved. Since late November into early December, Idaho has seen a decrease in daily cases and hospitalizations.
“Today, Idaho are still stressed for resources, but the majority are operating much more normally,” Little said.
Idaho has used a set of metrics for months to show the state’s progress towards loosening restrictions. Noticeably though Tuesday, a criteria of having less than an average of 25 admissions of COVID patients in the ICU over the last two weeks was not met. Nor was the criteria on daily hospital admissions for suspected or confirmed COVID patients.
Little addressed questions on the criteria during an AARP telephone town hall Tuesday afternoon.
“We move what we use as an indicator based upon what we think is critical for our healthcare capacity and some of those we’ve been above for a long time, but some of them we may never get them up until we get more people vaccinated.”
The governor’s office elaborated on the criteria decision in a statement Tuesday saying in part,
“Idaho is in a much better place with COVID-19 case counts and hospitalizations today compared to November, when he moved Idaho back to Stage 2 of the Idaho Rebounds plan. Case counts and hospitalizations have declined for weeks, and his decision to move Idaho forward to Stage 3 was made after evaluating impacts to public health, the economy, and students and families. Dr. Christine Hahn, the State Epidemiologist, confirmed today that while we are not where we need to be with certain criteria, allowing larger gathering sizes at this point is appropriate, if other measures remain in place and continue to be practiced by Idahoans.”
As Gov. Little alluded to, making progress on specific criteria could be based on vaccine rollout. Right now, Idaho has more than 250,000 people eligible to get the vaccine while receiving about 24,000 first doses of vaccine a week. Little provided an update on if Idaho could soon expect more weekly does.
“I was on a call with the White House a little earlier today and we think next week it’s going to be up to 27,000 but you can do the math, that’s not a lot,” Little said.
Access to the vaccine has been a challenge as well. Idahoans have had vaccine appointments canceled because of a lack of supply and others are frustrated they can’t even schedule an appointment beyond a week or so out. Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen, who joined Little on the AARP call, addressed the supply and scheduling frustration.
“We would love to get to a place where we have a consistent number of doses that we know through the future, and I would love to see an increase and know what that is, but we don’t have that yet," Jeppesen said. "As we get more certainty about how many doses we have for a number of weeks that will allow us to open up appointments further and further into the future. So I recognize that is frustrating for folks but we also don’t want to be creating appointments we can’t keep.”
With everything in mind, Little has a strong message for Idahoans as restrictions loosen up.
“This is not a signal to let up on our collective good efforts. We must stay vigilant,” he said.
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