Gov. Brad Little spoke at Nampa High School to discuss COVID-19 and the incoming semester, emphasizing the importance of vaccines in the school’s gymnasium. Here, Little also announced that the state will provide $30 million for expanded testing in K-12 schools.
“The time to get the vaccine is now, when our students are going back to school,” Little said. “We can minimize or eliminate disruptions in the delivery of education, as well as sports and extracurricular activities, during this school year.”
Little reviewed a graph showing the vaccination statuses of Idaho COVID-19 cases. Of new COVID-19 cases, 89.9% were unvaccinated. COVID-19 hospitalizations consisted of 98.6% unvaccinated people. COVID-19 deaths consisted of 98.7%.
“Since May 15, there’s been 10 times more COVID-19 cases, 13 times as many COVID-19 hospitalizations (and) 8 times as many COVID-19 deaths among unvaccinated compared to vaccinated people,” Little said.
Aundrea McNutt, a Spanish teacher at Nampa High School, spoke during the conference to discuss the impact of distant learning.
“I’ve seen firsthand the importance of in-person learning, spending the last year and a quarter of the previous year watching the impact of online learning on students,” McNutt said. “I watched the many emotions that come along with distanced learning and a constantly changing schedule.”
Idaho has seen an increase of the COVID-19 Delta variant in the past weeks. Most of the state is classified as having a high level of community transmission, with the state having 736 new cases of COVID-19 since Aug. 11.
This comes as University of Idaho, Idaho State University and Boise State University have all mandated masks for the fall semester.
UI, ISU and BSU will not require the COVID-19 vaccine for the fall semester, as Little’s executive order prohibits state entities from requiring vaccines. However, the universities recommend students to receive the vaccination.
“The more Idahoans do not choose to get vaccinated now or in the coming weeks… case counts will continue to increase through the fall and exceed last year daily peak counts,” Little said.
Daniel V. Ramirez can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @DVR_Tweets