Idaho’s COVID-19 moving average falls below 100 cases per day for first time in a year

In the last week, Idaho’s seven-day moving average for new daily COVID-19 cases fell below 100 per day for the first time in a year, Idaho Department of Health and Welfare data showed.

On June 17, the seven-day moving average fell to 98.3 cases per day. Since then, it has remained under 100 cases per day, falling to an average of 72.3 new cases by Monday. The average caseload last fell below 100 cases per day on June 21, 2020, when it hit 97.4. It hasn’t been as low as Monday’s average since June 18 of last year.

The drop in average caseload comes as Idaho reports a small decline in the test positivity rate. For the week of June 6-12, 3.6% of more than 15,000 tests administered came back positive. The previous week, 3.8% of tests were positive.

Despite those positive milestones, the state reported 14 additional COVID-19 deaths since June 11. They were in Bonner (1 new, 43 total), Canyon (3 new, 309 total), Cassia (1 new, 28 total), Jefferson (1 new, 33 total), Kootenai (4 new, 214 total), Lewis (1 new, 11 total), Nez Perce (2 new, 56 total) and Shoshone (1 new, 35 total) counties.

Idaho health officials reported slight increases in the number of health care workers infected with COVID-19 over the last 10 days (62 new, 10,888 total), as well as hospitalizations (58 new, 8,743 total) and ICU admissions (7 new, 1,472 total) associated with the disease.

The state continues to lag on COVID-19 vaccination rates. By Monday, nearly 645,000 eligible Idahoans had been vaccinated — about 43% of the population 12 and older, compared with nearly 53% of the same age group nationwide. That gap is slightly smaller among seniors. Nearly 73% of Idahoans over age 65 have been fully vaccinated, compared with about 77% in the U.S.

Idaho has reported 194,249 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. Of those, 114,000 are considered recovered. To date, 2,136 Idaho residents have died of COVID-19.

Weekly snapshot

Vaccine doses administered in Idaho: 1,303,233, according to Health and Welfare. Of those, 644,342 people have been fully vaccinated, which accounts for 42.7% of Idahoans age 12 and older.

Test positivity rate: Out of the 15,106 COVID-19 tests conducted for the week of June 6-12, 3.6% came back positive.

Counties with highest current seven-day incidence rate per 100,000 population: Lewis 14.9, Shoshone 14.4, Valley, 12.5, Elmore 9.3, Boundary 9.3.

Visit our “what we know” file for a daily look at new cases by county and other key numbers.