STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
GRAPH BY PAUL RIES
Blaine County will host a virtual Town Hall on COVID-19 and the COVID vaccine at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 11.
The town hall will feature several panelists: Blaine County Commissioner Jacob Greenberg; Melody Bowyer, South Central Public Health District director; Dr. Terry O’Connor, St. Luke’s Wood River emergency medicine physician and Blaine County Ambulance District medical director, and Dr. Josh Kern, vice president of Medical Affairs for St. Luke’s Magic Valley, Jerome and Wood River.
Ruby Garcia of St. Luke’s Community Outreach will provide Spanish translation.
Participants may register for the event at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1164946176516754443. Or, go to www.blainecounty.org, click the green button that says “COVID-19 Resources” and click “Register” in the first paragraph.
Email questions to town-hall@co.blaine.id.us.
The town hall comes as Blaine County’s COVID risk continues to remain high, leaving it in the red or critical zone according to Harvard Global Health Institute metrics, even as much of the rest of Idaho is doing better.
The county has even notched more total cases each day than Twin Falls over the past four days, according to Paul Ries, who constructs COVID graphs for Eye on Sun Valley.
The county averaged 61.4 new cases per 100,000 residents over a seven-day period from Jan. 24-30. That’s down from 82.5 new cases per 100,000 residents the week before but still high.
Its test positivity rate is high with 12.52 percent of all those getting COVID tests ending up positive. That’s down just slightly from 13.08 percent.
Twenty-seven adults between the ages of 18 and 29 tested positive during the week; 19 between 50 and 59 and 14 between 40 and 49.
Nine people between the ages of 30 and 39 tested positive; eight each between the ages of 14 and 17 and 11 and 13.
Six children between the ages of 5 and 10 tested positive with five adults between 60 and 69 and three people above 70 testing positive.
South Central Public Health District continues to investigate an active outbreak in one of the valley’s long-term care facilities.