KOOTENAI COUNTY, Idaho – Kootenai Health said it is seeing an unprecedented increase in the number of COVID-19 patients.
The organization said August 2021 is starting to look like December 2020 but this time, the strain on the hospital is happening faster and more severe due to the Delta Variant.
“With the trending cases climbing, we are rapidly exhausting our staffing resources,” Kootenai Health CEO Jon Ness said. “The COVID-19 hospital census is rising at a faster rate than it did last winter. If this trend continues, in just five days we will surpass our previous COVID-19 high census from December 2020.”
On Monday, Kootenai Health saw 68 positive inpatients with COVID-19. Over 42% of the patients required critical care.
Kootenai Health has the highest COVID-19 inpatient volumes in Idaho, more than double that of the inpatient census of the next busiest hospital, which is St. Alphonsus in Boise, with 30 COVID-19 patients.
Since the beginning of the Delta Variant surge, 97% of COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalizations at Kootenai Health have not been vaccinated.
