“We’re constantly working. We’re exhausted. We’re frustrated. … Funeral homes are out of storage. Our hospitals are out of storage. It’s gotten so messy,” said Ada County Coroner Dottie Owens Said, Idaho told CNN on Saturday.
Owens explained that the county purchased a mass fatality trailer late last year to accommodate the larger number of bodies, and that too has grown near capacity in recent weeks. “Now we are packing them there. Our internal cooler is full,” she said.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Idaho has the lowest vaccination rate in the US, with 41.3% of its total residents being fully vaccinated as of Saturday. The only two states to fully vaccinate their residents are West Virginia (40.3%) and Wyoming (41.1%).
As Idaho struggles with low vaccination rates and rising Covid-19 mortality rates, some funeral homes are facing capacity issues.
“Our refrigeration facility here in Cloverdale is substantial, and it’s full,” Salov told the news outlet.
Salov said part of the problem is that many victims’ family members are also ill with Covid-19, meaning they can’t attend funeral services until they recover from the disease. The dead bodies have to be kept.
The Summer Funeral Home in Adda County also told KVI that it is working to increase capacity if deaths continue to rise.
“Right now, we are fine. But if this continues, we will have to make arrangements, and we are in the process of doing that now,” said Ken Pearce, Idaho market leader at home.
States facing shortage of staff
As hospitals and funeral homes struggle to keep up with the effects of Covid-19 in Idaho, a school district has been temporarily closed after some staff and students tested positive for the virus.
The Filer School District (FSD) closed Friday due to “excessive staff absenteeism and a shortage of substitute teachers,” district officials said in a Facebook post. Students will not learn remotely during the short recess that ends on 4 October.
“It is difficult to say whether the absence and shortage is due to COVID-19,” FSD Superintendent Kelly Schroeder told CNN in an email. “There are many other employees who are out due to illness and other reasons,” Schroeder said.
The district’s Covid-19 dashboard shows that 11 school staff and 56 students have tested positive for Covid-19 since the school started on 7 September.
Schroeder pointed out that the district is finding it difficult to operate because of a lack of teachers, kitchen staff, custodians and other staff, as well as alternative teachers.
Meanwhile, Alaska is asking for additional medical staff to be stationed there to help manage COVID-19 cases. The state is seeking 297 registered nurses, 114 nursing assistants and several other technicians and physicians to help hospitals that are grappling with staffing and near capacity. Officials said the effort would cost the state about $1 million a day, which would be reimbursed by the federal government.
The new resources come as the state has authorized hospitals to enter Crisis Standards of Care, allowing them to act in “good faith” to ration resources when they are overwhelmed with patients.
Leaders launch vaccine promotion program
In an effort to improve the speed of vaccination in America, state and local leaders are trying to inspire people by providing some facilities.
In Ohio, Governor Mike Devine introduced the “Vax to School” program, which allows eligible residents ages 12 to 25 to enter with proof of vaccination. The program will award five scholarships of $1,000 and 50 scholarships of $10,000. All scholarship money can be used for any type of education or on-the-job training chosen by the winner.
When announcing the program, Devine pointed to an “alarming trend” of COVID-19 cases among young people in the state, including 42,000 cases of children aged 5 to 17, since school started on August 15 Are included. Huh.
“Vaccination remains our ticket to this pandemic; vaccination is the way we protect our hospitals from overcrowding,” Devin said.
In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot this week announced a new vaccine campaign that aims to vaccinate 77% of all eligible Chicagoans. He said so far 72.4% of all eligible residents have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Lightfoot emphasized the importance of vaccination, saying that for non-vaccinated Black and Latin people aged 15 to 60, their chance of death from COVID-19 is 50%.
“I don’t want people to play with their lives,” Lightfoot said at a news conference.
CNN’s Maggie Fox, Melissa Alonso, Jen Selva, Andy Rose and Karma Hassan contributed to this report.
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