BOISE, Idaho – Idaho’s Republican governor is calling in 220 medical workers from federal programs and mobilizing 150 Idaho National Guard soldiers to help hospitals overwhelmed by COVID patients.
Gov. Brad Little says the moves are a last-ditch effort to avoid activating statewide crisis standards of care that could force medical professionals to decide who lives and who dies.
Idaho has seen about 1,000 new COVID-19 cases per day in the past week, most of them unvaccinated.
Little says only four intensive care unit beds were available in the entire state on Tuesday, September 1st.