SIPH reports 140 COVID-19 cases Tuesday mostly due to testing delays
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POCATELLO — Southeastern Idaho Public Health reported a skyrocketing number of COVID-19 cases Tuesday afternoon.
In a news release, SIPH said they have 140 new confirmed cases of COVID-19. They explained that 83 cases are in Bannock County, 34 in Bingham County, 15 in Power County and two cases are in both Butte, Bear Lake, Caribou and Franklin Counties.
This brings the total of confirmed and probable cases in southeast Idaho to 1,595. Out of the 1,595 cases, 1,284 have recovered from COVID-19 and there have been eight deaths and 311 cases are active. (The SIPH numbers combined with Eastern Idaho Public Health’s numbers are 4,436 total cases in eastern Idaho since mid-March, including 3,802 recoveries, 619 active cases and 23 deaths, including two women in their 70s from Bonneville County who died this week from COVID-19)
The amount of cases being reported is unusual for SIPH. A news release explains that the case count is elevated due to delays in the positive lab report system. Specifically, SIPH spokeswoman Tracy McCulloch told EastIdahoNews.com that part of the reason the numbers are higher than normal is that they recently received the reports on cases from local jails.
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Along with the increased case count, SIPH also said in the news release they are now counting every COVID-19 case on the day they receive it, rather than waiting until they are able to make contact with each case. They are doing this for accuracy, McCulloch said.
“We were trying to get a hold of cases and they would not call us back. We would try to call them three times and send a letter and wait for them to contact us before we put them in our case count,” she said. “Now we decided, we need to include them in our case count without confirming what county they live in.”
Before, they were trying to confirm where the infected individual lived because sometimes they found that they lived in a different health district.
“We decided to go ahead and move forward and count them in our case count rather than holding off,” McCulloch said.
For more information on SIPH and COVID-19, click here.
More COVID-19 news can also be found here.