KOOTENAI COUNTY, Idaho — North Idaho's major hospital is reporting that is nearing capacity amid a COVID-19 surge driven by the highly contagious delta variant.
According to a press release from Kootenai Health, on July 28 they had 29 COVID-19 patients with 11 of those patients requiring critical care. Then, on Aug. 4 there were 43 with 19 of those requiring critical care. On Aug. 11, there were 73 total cases and 29 that required critical care. On Thursday, Aug. 19, there are 84 COVID-19 patients with 35 that are requiring critical care.
The hospital said the delta variant is leading to more severe illness in a younger population, many of which have few factors for hospitalization. Patients age 18-60 now represent approximately 50% of the hospitalizations for COVID-19, compared to 20% during the winter surge.
In the press release, Kootenai Health released a graph of COVID-19 hospitalizations from April 2020 to current projections into Sept. of 2021.
In the press release, the hospital added that it has canceled elective surgeries and no longer has the capacity to receive patient transfers from other regional hospitals.
Hospital leaders and physicians are critically concerned they will not have the space, equipment and staffing to provide care for everyone in our community who needs hospital care. This includes COVID-19 patients and patients who require care for other concerns such as heart attacks and injuries from car accidents, according to Kootenai Health.
In Spokane County as of Aug. 18, there are currently 165 COVID-19 hospitalizations, the Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD). SRHD also reported 347 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday and added that 10 new COVID-19-related deaths were reported last week. That brings the total number of cases in Spokane County to 53,099 and the total number of deaths to 707 since the pandemic began.
Spokane County's current two-week coronavirus case rate is sitting at 534.6 per 100,000 residents, according to the SRHD data dashboard. As of Saturday, Aug. 14, the Washington State Department of Health reported that 56.9% of eligible Spokane County residents age 12 or older have initiated COVID-19 vaccination and 51.2% are fully vaccinated.