Idaho seeing its biggest case spike of pandemic
BOISE, Idaho — Idaho is seeing its largest coronavirus spike since the pandemic began, with the number of new cases increasing 46.5% over the past two weeks.
That has some health care experts urging Gov. Brad Little to take additional action to slow the spread of the virus.
Dr. Bart Hill with the St. Luke’s Regional Health System says Idaho’s current approach hasn’t worked to change the trajectory of the pandemic. He says hospital officials are meeting with the governor to encourage additional steps like statewide information campaigns targeting teens and young adults.
The governor has said the responsibility for efforts to slow the virus falls on individuals. He urges people to wear masks, practice social distancing and wash their hands.
___
HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
— AP-NORC poll: Two-thirds of Americans don’t trust Trump much on virus
— CDC: ‘Strong recommendation’ for masks on planes, trains, buses
— Arizona reports more than 1,000 coronavirus cases
— Federal judge considers challenge to CDC order halting evictions of certain renters through the end of year to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
— British PM Johnson imposing strict coronavirus restrictions on Greater Manchester, England’s second-largest urban area, after talks fail on financial support.
— World Series opens Tuesday night with Major League Baseball relieved to reach the championship of a pandemic-delayed season.
___
Follow all of AP’s coronavirus pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
___
HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
DENVER — Colorado’s governor says he won’t impose new statewide restrictions for addressing what he calls an alarming acceleration of new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.
Gov. Jared Polis said Tuesday that he will instead encourage the people of Colorado to take responsibility for mask wearing, social distancing, getting tested, self-quarantining and other behaviors to stem the virus’s spread.
Polis says roughly 80% of the pandemic fight comes down to personal decisions. He also says local health agencies are best suited to deal with any rising cases among their residents.
The state reported 1,208 new confirmed cases Tuesday and 417 hospitalizations.
___
SEATTLE — Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee is requiring colleges and universities to provide quarantine facilities for all students if they are exposed to the coronavirus.
The governor on Tuesday issued more restrictions for higher education campuses as the University of Washington struggles to contain an outbreak in its fraternities and sororities. There also have been outbreaks in Whitman County, home of Washington State University.
The new guidelines require colleges to provide isolation and quarantine facilities for Greek system houses, communal off-campus homes, students living in dorms and other personnel if they don’t have a place to go. Colleges without dorms or residential facilities will have to devise plans for addressing student and staff needs for isolation and quarantine in the event of exposure.
___
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Students at the University of Michigan are being ordered to stay in place for two weeks after a surge of coronavirus cases driven by social
Business mandates mount as New Mexico deals with virus surge
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Tuesday unveiled more requirements for businesses after a string of record-breaking daily case counts prompted renewed restrictions just last week.
Starting Friday, restaurants, breweries, retail stores, gyms and other businesses will be required to close for two weeks if they have more than four separate incidents of COVID-19 among employees within a 14-day period. Those businesses that have had at least two outbreaks will be listed on the state’s new watch list.
Restaurants that want to continue offering limited indoor dining must also complete specific training and keep a log of customers for at least three weeks. Retail stores must close by 10 p.m., and state-operated museums and historical sites will be closed until further notice.
Lujan Grisham said the restrictions are not meant to punish businesses but rather curb what has become one of the highest rates of spread in the U.S. New Mexico on Tuesday reported an additional 599 cases, bringing the total to nearly 37,900 since the pandemic began. Another seven deaths were reported, and hospitalizations have increased nearly 90% over the last two weeks.
“We don’t have much time,” the governor said during a briefing. “If we don’t attack and snuff out the virus right now by working collectively with businesses and each other, then the virus will win and it leaves us very little opportunity to save lives and to keep our health systems from being overrun.”
Despite having some of the strictest rules in the country, Lujan Grisham’s administration has been struggling in recent weeks with a surge in cases and increases in transmission and positivity rates. The governor said she believes the exponential increase is the result of people letting their guard down and not taking precautions.
The Republican Party of New Mexico called the latest requirements another attack on businesses, saying the Democratic governor’s policies during the pandemic have led to a collapsed economy, tens of thousands of job losses and hundreds of permanently shuttered restaurants.
“Locking down New Mexico more is not the answer,” party chairman Steve Pearce said, suggesting that the governor’s rules were arbitrary.
Under the state’s rapid response program, officials responded to more than 830 businesses during the past week. That marked a six-fold increase over the last month. Businesses on the watch list range from hospitals and medical marijuana operations to law firms, car dealerships, grocery stores and gas stations.
Sandia National Laboratories is among them. The state’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau has opened an investigation of the lab after receiving a complaint about alleged violations of the state public health order.
A letter sent Monday by the bureau and obtained by The Associated Press alleges that Sandia failed to comply with the health order by not limiting operations to remote work to the greatest extent practicable to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The state claims employees were ordered to cease telework and report to work in-person.
The state is requiring the lab to inform
N.Y. Accuses Religious Health Cost-Sharing Group of Misleading Consumers
New York State accused a major Christian group on Tuesday of deceiving customers by illegally offering health insurance to as many as 40,000 residents since 2016.
The state filed civil charges against Trinity Healthshare, the Christian group, and Aliera, a for-profit company that markets the plans.
The state insurance regulators’ complaint included a list of charges, which said Trinity and Aliera “aggressively marketed and sold their products to consumers in the health insurance marketplace, preying on people who were uninsured and deceiving consumers into paying hundreds of dollars per month for what they were led to believe was comprehensive health coverage.”
New York regulators said patients were often left with thousands of dollars in unpaid medical bills. A woman with leukemia was denied coverage for an emergency hospital stay that cost thousands of dollars because she was told she had a pre-existing condition. Aliera denied a $15,000 claim for breast cancer treatment, according to regulators, while another patient said even routine doctor’s visits were not covered by Trinity.
State officials said the cases of financial hardship were exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, which has spawned high unemployment and resulted in the loss of health insurance for millions of Americans.
“New Yorkers should not have to worry whether a trip to a medical professional could lead them to bankruptcy, a factor that has been compounded by this unprecedented global health crisis,” Linda A. Lacewell, the state’s superintendent of financial services, said in a statement.
The state said it would seek civil penalties and other relief on behalf of consumers, and had issued a cease-and-desist letter in April that prevented the group from enrolling new customers.
Both Trinity and Aliera have been the targets of actions by other states, including Connecticut and Washington. They say they are not selling health insurance and that there is no confusion about their plans. They say customers are expressly told there is no guarantee that their medical bills will be covered.
Customers “must acknowledge either on a recorded line or by signature that the program is not insurance,” Aliera said in a statement on Tuesday. It said plans would not be affordable if all pre-existing conditions were eligible for sharing but they “are a legitimate option for people of faith who maintain a healthy lifestyle.”
Given the health crisis, “it’s deeply concerning to see New York State regulators working to deny their residents access to more affordable alternatives to traditional health insurance,” Aliera said.
Trinity disputed the claims made by state regulators. “The vast majority of Trinity’s members around the country are very pleased and satisfied with Trinity’s health care sharing ministry and continue to choose to participate in Trinity’s ministry as a cost-effective arrangement,” it said in a statement on Tuesday.
In New Hampshire, where Trinity and Aliera are suing to block the state’s efforts to regulate their activities, a Superior Court judge in Merrimack County halted an administrative hearing to be held by regulators until their court case is resolved.
With the economic downturn’s
131 new cases over weekend
Not sure how to have a safe and happy Halloween this year? Here’s some guidance from the Centers for Disease Control.
Fort Collins Coloradoan
Editor’s note: The Star is making this story free to readers due to public health concerns related to coronavirus. Please consider a digital subscription to The Star so we can continue doing this important work.
Ventura County added 131 new COVID-19 cases over the weekend, continuing an overall decline in new cases in recent weeks, public health officials reported Monday.
The new cases bring the county’s total confirmed coronavirus infections to 13,728 since the first local case was reported on March 6. No new deaths were reported over the weekend. Monday’s report includes data collected Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Among those who have tested positive, 13,079 residents have recovered while another 489 people with active cases remained under quarantine Monday.
No new deaths were reported over the weekend, keeping the county’s toll at 160 fatalities attributed to complications of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Story continues below
The number of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 stood at 30 on Monday, an increase of one since Friday’s report. Of those patients, 11 people were being treated in an intensive care unit, also an increase of one since Friday.
Ventura County is in its second week of being in the “red” tier, which is the third-most restrictive category in California’s four-tiered system. If it continues to meet various state metrics, it could move to the less restrictive “orange” tier as early as Oct. 27, officials say. That could allow even more expansion of indoor operations for restaurants, movie theaters, places of worship and shopping centers. State officials review county data every Tuesday to track progress.
The big screen beckons: Movie theaters around Ventura County flicker back to life
Location of local COVID-19 cases
Many Ventura County locales saw new infections confirmed over the weekend. They are, in descending number of total cases:
- Oxnard, 5,510 total cases (+38 over the weekend)
- Simi Valley, 1,911 (+36)
- Ventura, 1,473 (+8)
- Thousand Oaks, 1,273 (+ 10). The city’s total includes 361 cases in Newbury Park.
- Santa Paula, 895 (+9)
- Camarillo, 710 (+5)
- Fillmore, 543 (+4)
- Moorpark, 520 (+7)
- Port Hueneme, 427 (+6)
- Ojai, 139 (+4)
- Piru, 103 (unchanged)
- Oak Park, 90 (unchanged)
- Oak View, 76 (+4)
- Somis, 55 (unchanged)
- Bell Canyon, 3 (unchanged)
For more information and resources, visit www.venturacountyrecovers.org
Map: COVID-19 by county
More than 856,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported elsewhere in California outside Ventura County.
The Star’s Data Central page has an interactive map tracking confirmed COVID-19 cases, recoveries and deaths across the state, country and world.
The map is updated automatically and shows a closeup of each California county, or zoom out to see numbers from around the nation and the world.
Not seeing the map? Click here to get to our interactive Data Central page: https://data.vcstar.com/coronavirus/.
Gretchen Wenner covers breaking news for the Ventura County Star.
Idaho’s coronavirus cases spike again, doctors urge action
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho is seeing its largest coronavirus spike since the pandemic began, with new cases increasing by 46.5% percent over the past two weeks. That trend has some health care experts urging Gov. Brad Little to take additional action to slow the spread.
“As a health system, we’re all very concerned,” said Dr. Bart Hill, the vice president and chief quality officer of St. Luke’s Health System, the largest health system in the state. “It’s indicative of anticipating we’re going to see more hospitalizations affecting an older population in the next two, three, four weeks.”
Idaho is currently sixth in the nation for new cases per capita, with a positivity rate of just over 15% — one of the highest in the nation. Still, Little has declined to take additional statewide steps like requiring masks to slow the virus.
“Idaho is an expansive state, and communities and their needs vary greatly across the state,” Little’s spokeswoman, Marissa Morrison, wrote in an email to The Associated Press on Tuesday. “Governor Little remains committed to working closely with public health districts and mayors, and he supports the decisions of local officials in slowing the spread of COVID-19 in communities experiencing high virus activity.”
Little has repeatedly said that the responsibility to slow the coronavirus falls on individuals, urging people to wear masks, practice social distancing and practice good hygiene.
“Our personal actions work better to slow the spread of coronavirus than anything else,” Little said Thursday when he announced Idaho would remain in Stage 4 of his reopening plan for the 18th week in a row. “This is about personal responsibility, something Idaho is all about.”
A significant portion of Idaho residents, however, don’t seem to be taking Little’s message to heart. Photos of a volleyball game in the southern Idaho town of Twin Falls area posted to social media on Monday showed mask-less people sitting hip-to-hip in a packed school gym. St. Luke’s hospitals in the region, meanwhile, are now postponing elective surgeries to ensure there is room for an expected influx of COVID-19 patients in the coming days.
Hill said health care providers knew that the pandemic would ebb and flow over time, and the temporary statewide shutdown that Little ordered back in March gave medical facilities time to prepare for spikes like the one Idaho is currently experiencing. St. Luke’s Health System still has adequate capacity for now, he said.
“I know (St. Luke’s) leadership is having conversations with the governor today and tomorrow expressing our concerns that doing the same of what we have been doing is not likely to change our trajectory,” he said. “The direction we’re heading is one that it looks real problematic.”
Hill said he’s not advocating steps that would hurt the economy, but rather targeted interventions like information campaigns aimed at teens and young adults who are more likely to spread the virus to older and more at-risk Idahoans. Hill also said the state needs to improve testing capacity so
Hospitalized COVID-19 patients are five times more likely to die than patients hospitalized with flu, CDC says
Coronavirus patients are five times more likely to experience complications and die in the hospital than hospitalized flu patients, a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Tuesday says.
The CDC assessed data from the national Veterans Health Administration that included health records of nearly 4,000 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 between March and May 31 and 5,453 patients hospitalized with influenza between Oct. 1, 2018 and Feb. 1, 2020.
Our country is in a historic fight against the Coronavirus. Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.
Researchers found 21 percent of COVID-19 patients died in the hospital compared with 3.8 percent of those who died while hospitalized with the flu.
“Findings from a large, national cohort of patients hospitalized within the VHA illustrate the increased risk for complications involving multiple organ systems among patients with COVID-19 compared with those with influenza, as well as racial/ethnic disparities in COVID-19-associated complications,” the CDC report said.
COVID-19 patients were hospitalized nearly three times longer than flu patients and had a higher risk of 17 respiratory and nonrespiratory complications — including more than twice the risk of pneumonia. They were also twice as likely to need intensive care and 19 times more likely to experience acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Influenza patients were more likely to experience worsened asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Coronavirus patients were slightly older on average and flu patients had more underlying conditions. Researchers said Black and Hispanic patients were at higher risk for respiratory, neurologic and kidney complications than white patients.
“Compared with influenza, COVID-19 is associated with increased risk for most respiratory and nonrespiratory complications. Certain racial and ethnic minority groups are disproportionately affected by COVID-19,” the CDC said.
The CDC estimates there were about 22,000 influenza deaths last flu season with 38 million infections. As of Tuesday, more than 220,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S. since the outbreak began earlier this year and more than 8.2 million have been infected.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CORONAVIRUS RIGHT NOW
CDC ‘STRONGLY RECOMMENDS’ ALL PASSENGERS ON PLANES, TRAINS, BUSES WEAR MASKS TO SLOW SPREAD OF COVID-19
THE COMING WEEKS WILL BE ‘DARKEST OF THE ENTIRE PANDEMIC,’ INFECTIOUS DISEASES EXPERT SAYS
WISCONSIN REIMPOSES CORONAVIRUS RESTRICTIONS AMID SURGE IN HOSPITALIZATIONS
ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE COULD GET WORSE DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
PROPOSAL TO LET CORONAVIRUS SPREAD NATURALLY THROUGH US POPULATION INTERESTS WHITE HOUSE, ALARMS MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT
Senators urge Pentagon to suspend implementation of Army’s new fitness test
“We have considerable concerns regarding the negative impact [the test] may already be having on so many careers,” they said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. “It is imperative that we pause implementation until all questions and concerns are answered. Soldiers’ careers depend on it and the continued lethality of our force requires it.”
The senators asked the committee leaders to ensure a measure that would suspend rollout of the test until an independent study can be conducted is included in the final version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, an annual defense bill. The provision appeared in the Senate-passed version of the bill, but not in the House version.
Lawmakers are expected to convene to reconcile the two versions of the bill after the Nov. 3 presidential election.
The test has become a charged issue within the Army as it pits the service’s effort to establish gender-blind standards and improve soldier readiness against fears it could pose an additional challenge to retaining skilled troops and compound obstacles faced by underrepresented populations within the force. Critics say it could have a disproportionate impact on women, who make up 15 percent of the Army but occupy few leadership positions.
Army data shows that, 18 months after small cohorts of soldiers started taking the test on a provisional basis, women continue to fail at dramatically higher rates than men. In the second quarter of 2020, 54 percent of women failed the test, compared to 7 percent of men.
The stark gender gap comes as Pentagon leaders express an urgent desire to rectify the military’s legacy of racial and gender inequity, issues that have long dogged the force but were given new prominence when race-related unrest gripped the nation this summer.
The test consists of six events, including a dead lift, weighted ball throw and, most problematically for women who have taken it to date, a “leg tuck,” which requires soldiers to lift themselves up from a pullup bar using their arm, core and leg muscles.
The test has different requirements for different career fields, but critics say that even the least demanding standards could remain out of reach for some. They also say consistently lower scores for female soldiers, who are typically lighter than men and thus must lift weights that are heavier relative to their body weight, could hold women back.
While Army leaders have said the test won’t impact evaluations until as early as 2022, it is expected to eventually affect enlisted personnel’s promotion potential and officers’ careers.
Army officials say the test is a product of years of research and is designed to better prepare troops for conditions they would encounter in combat. It places a higher emphasis on muscular strength than the previous Army fitness test, which was adjusted for age and gender and included pushups, pullups and a two-mile run.
Officials have also said troops can do an alternate to the leg tuck, a two-minute plank, while the test