Labor Day Weekend starts tomorrow and health professionals in Idaho say they’re expecting to see a rise in COVID-19 cases after the holiday, as people travel and spend time with friends and family.
“Every single opening or holiday, we’ve seen a bump in cases," said Travis Leach, the president of Saint Alphonsus Medical Center in Nampa, during a weekly press conference with Treasure Valley health leaders earlier this week.
"We saw it after Memorial Day, we saw spikes after the 4th of July holiday and we anticipate a couple weeks after Labor Day here that we would see the same,” Leach said.
And it doesn’t take a gathering of hundreds of people to cause local infection rates to skyrocket.
“We’re talking about backyard barbecues with 30 people," Leach said.
During Gov. Little's biweekly press conference Thursday, State Epidemiologist Dr. Christine Hahn said Labor Day, and the fact that more people will be gathering, could threaten the state's ability to maintain some positive trends its seeing, like declining daily COVID-19 case numbers.
Still, Leach and other medical leaders said Idahoans can still enjoy the outdoors this Labor Day, and that wearing masks and keeping a physical distance will help the state avoid a post-holiday spike.
Find reporter Rachel Cohen on Twitter @racheld_cohen
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