Kootenai County's positivity rate rises for fourth straight week
COEUR d'ALENE — Kootenai County's positivity rate for the coronavirus rose for the fourth straight week.
According to the Panhandle Health District, Kootenai County's positivity rate for the week ending April 24 was 5.6% based on 1,953 PCR tests. That's double its 2.8% on March 27 based on 2,449 tests, and it's been climbing slightly each week since then.
PHD's positivity rate was 5.3%, up from 2.9% a month ago.
The state's most recent positivity rate was 4.3%, the lowest in nearly a year and well off its high of 19.1% five months ago.
On the vaccination front, 478,186 Idahoans are considered fully vaccinated, which is 26% of the state's population. In Kootenai County 50,195 have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Of the county's 16 and over age group, 132,501 people, the vaccination rate is 38%.
The Centers for Disease Control and prevention recently announced fully vaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks outside unless they’re in a crowded setting. That announcement changed little, if anything, in North Idaho, where most people don't wear masks outside.
Meanwhile, The Panhandle Health District said it is offering mobile vaccine teams that come to businesses or organizations to vaccinate employees and families.
The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, back in use after being "paused" earlier this month due to what the CDC described as a "rare and severe type of blood clot in individuals after receiving the J&J vaccine," will be used in the majority of the mobile vaccine clinics.
PHD has also made changes to its mass vaccine sites.
The Kootenai County Fairgrounds mass vaccine clinic will move to North Idaho College's Coeur d’Alene and Rathdrum campuses beginning next week. Mass vaccine sites in Boundary, Benewah and Shoshone counties will close and vaccine appointments will be made at PHD’s clinical office locations in those counties.
The state has had 2,045 deaths attributed to the coronavirus of its 187,470 cases for a case death rate of 1%.
PHD has reported 302 coronavirus-related deaths. Of those, 290 were people age 60 and over.