By RANDY’L TETON
EOC Public Information Officer
FORT HALL — According to Tribal Health officials, 20% of total cases in Fort Hall are children (ages 10-17 years old). In the past 45 days, 50% of the positive cases are children under the age of 18 years old. In the past two weeks, 9 of the 11 positive cases were under the age 18 years old.
We are urging the Fort Hall community to get your child/children over the ages of 12 years old vaccinated. Fort Hall now has the Pfizer vaccine to help prevent the transmission of Covid-19 for our youth in our community. We also had a recent COVID death, bringing our total to 20. We offer our prayers to the families and encourage everyone to keep safe as the COVID is still here.
Council member Nathan Small stated, “the COVID virus is still alive and spreading in our community. Keep wearing your face mask and don’t let your guard down. We don’t need anyone else to pass away from this virus.”
Numbers for this week as of May 11 at 4 p.m.: Total cases to-date: 932; total active cases: 6; total currently hospitalized: 1; total recovered to date: 906; total deceased to date: 20; total vaccines given to date: 5,119
MASS SCREENING UPDATES
Weekly screenings will still be available until further notice. Here are the results from this week’s screenings: Monday, May 10 – 94 were screened with 0 positives. Good job Fort Hall. Tuesday, May 4 -- information not available at time of report.
Friendly reminder- screenings for the month of May start an hour earlier at 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and a day was added, every Thursday at the Chiefs Event Center. For the month of April, we provided 526 tests and so far in May we have issued 373 tests.
Health officials are reporting an increase of community members participating in the weekly screenings due to the $10 incentive card that is provided to tribal members (provided weekly not daily). We thank everyone that participates in the weekly screenings to help slow the spread of the virus.
VACCINE UPDATE
On average, Fort Hall vaccination rate is currently 7.4 people per day, this increased in the last 10-15 days. According to Tribal Health Data Analysis, Travis Martin, “with this low rate we are now forecasting to reach above 75% vaccination rate in the community by Christmas 2021. With the changes made to the Tribes Covid Policy, we are hoping to see a higher rate in vaccinations in the coming weeks.”
To date, the Tribes have given a total of 5,119 vaccines to the Fort Hall community. Of this number, 2,658 are fully vaccinated which provides an estimate of covering 44% of our community population. Please note, this number includes American Indians, Shoshone-Bannock Tribal members 18 plus and older, and non-tribal employees and residents that work and live in Fort Hall.
Fort Hall will be offering the Pfizer vaccine to Native American students aged 12 to 18 years old later this week. To schedule, an appointment for a vaccine call I.H.S at 208-238-5427 or Tribal Health at 208-238-5435.
OUTREACH
This week, the Tribes will have a Facebook LIVE on Thursday, May 13, at noon on the Sho-Ban Tribes Facebook page. Please join us for an update from the Chairman, Incident Commander and Tribal Health staff for COVID related information.
Visit us online at www.sbtribes.com/covid-19/ or to view Fort Hall Covid dashboard, https://arcg.is/1G9HaO /