Idaho - I doubt you are listening, but I have to say this. No matter how bad you thought we were or were not in the past, we are way worse today. We have levels of community transmission that most of us could not even have imagined a few months ago, when we thought it was bad

then. We are at an average new cases per day of 55.5 per 100,000. That is shocking. (Ideal would be less than 1; I would settle for <5). I am warning you. We are not far away from the point that we will have no choice but to take actions you don’t want our leaders to take. I am

shocked that we have 320 COVID patients hospitalized in Idaho. I remember when we had 71 patients hospitalized and we were wondering whether we might have to set up a field hospital. We have 90 patients with COVID in the ICU. That is more than 4 times the number we had at the

peak of our first spike and almost twice as many at the height of our second spike.
So, I am alarmed today, but guess what. It is going to get worse, and I really don’t know how long it will be until our hospitals will be at the breaking point. We are now beginning to see cases

of influenza, and we have had our first two influenza deaths in Idaho already. And, it appears that co-infection of influenza and COVID results in worse outcomes. Plus, we have Thanksgiving coming. This is going to result in significant new numbers of cases as people get together

for the holidays with people they don’t live with. If Idahoans don’t change their behaviors and soon, we will get to the breaking point, and it won’t be long.