COVID-19 Update: September 17, 2021

On Thursday, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare announced it had activated crisis standards of care statewide as hospitals in southwest and south central Idaho became overrun with COVID-19 patients, nearly all of whom are unvaccinated. The crisis standards of care designation allows hospitals to operate with higher nurse-to-patient ratios and helps providers prioritize which patients receive limited resources, depending on how ill they are, and their chances of survival. It also means that some patients are being treated in makeshift patient care centers set up in classrooms or conference rooms. Crisis standards have been in place for north Idaho since Sept. 6. Idaho added more than 100 deaths to its statewide death toll in the last 3 days, though at least 30 of those occurred over the summer and are just now being added. While ICU bed availability varies hour by hour, as patients are admitted, discharged, or die, at multiple times over the last week, there were fewer than 10 fully staffed ICU beds available in the entire state of Idaho. We have more information on a special episode of the Idaho Reports Podcast, which you can find and subscribe to on all major podcast platforms.