Coronavirus cases keep climbing

It was a week of climbing coronavirus cases and rising tensions in North Idaho over masks.

Kootenai Health reported Friday it had 43 patients being treated for the coronavirus, the most since the pandemic began earlier this year, with 14 of them in critical care.

Meanwhile, the Panhandle Health District said it had 134 new cases on Friday, bringing its total to 5,587 cases — 778 new cases in the past week — and 76 deaths. Of those, 70 were people age 70 and over, five were in the 60-69 age group and one was in the 50-59 age group

For the week ending Oct. 24, PHD’s positivity rate based on 4,110 PCR tests for the coronavirus was 13.9%, which is triple the low of 4.3% positivity rate based on 2,267 tests for the week ending Aug. 29.

The state’s positivity rate of 14 percent for the week ending Oct. 24, was the highest since July 11, when it hit 14.8%.

Kootenai County had 108 new cases Friday, and now has had 4,410 total COVID-19 cases, with 51 deaths. In the past week, Kootenai County had 682 new cases.

One caller to The Press on Friday said she had recently returned home to Coeur d’Alene from a vacation and was dismayed to discover most people were not wearing masks when in public and the PHD had lifted the mask mandate for Kootenai County.

She said she no longer felt safe leaving her home, would have to shop in Spokane and was considering moving from her longtime home to another state where people adhered to mask laws.

She said when she was in Oregon and Washington, she noticed most people were wearing masks as they went about their daily business.

Both states also have rising COVID-19 numbers.

Oregon averages about 400 new cases each day, with 600 confirmed on Friday, and has about 45,000 coronavirus cases, according to the Oregon Health Authority.

Washington state had about 107,000 COVID-19 cases as of Friday and 2,463 deaths attributed to it, according to the Washington State Department of Health, with 814 new cases on Thursday.

Another person contacted the Press upset about Friday's editorial supportive of the mask mandate.

"Please don’t speak for the 'silent majority' because we don’t agree with this mandate," she wrote.

The PHD recently moved Kootenai, Boundary and Shoshone to the red category in its monitoring of the virus, which means substantial risk level. Benewah and Bonner remain in orange, moderate risk level.

The Coeur d’Alene City Council on Monday passed, by a 4-2 vote, a mask mandate for the city. Authorities have said they initially support education over citation.

A Press visit to downtown Coeur d'Alene Wednesday found that most people were not wearing masks and only a few businesses were requiring customers to use them.