Community Hospital opened just before COVID-19 hit eastern Idaho Its ICU beds were crucial postregister.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from postregister.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Mountain View Charity and Ball Ventures recently partnered to launch a new program that benefits both local restaurants and health care workers during the holidays.
The Feeding Our Heroes program is providing free meals to employees on shift at Idaho Falls Community Hospital and Mountain View Hospital. These meals are intended as a sign of gratitude for health care workers during the holiday season, many of whom are working 12- to 15-hour shifts. More than 20 businesses donated to Feeding Our Heroes. Those donations have been used to purchase meals from local restaurants and delivered to the hospitals.
Ball Ventures CEO Cortney Liddiard started the program after a conversation with a local hospital employee. He learned how much health care workers were struggling, not only with the long hours, but also with feeling âforgottenâ by the community.
While coronavirus cases have slowed significantly this month in eastern Idaho â with daily case averages declining from the 200s to fewer than 150 over the past week â medical leaders warn that local intensive care units remain stretched near their limits treating mostly COVID-19 patients.
Idaho Falls hospitals, for the most part, still have relatively low ICU capacity and high total COVID-19 patients as they did during the spike in cases after Thanksgiving.
Small private gatherings have been fueling new infections in the region, according to experts who are asking people to stay home for the holidays to avoid overwhelming the health care system.
Another 4,000 doses of two newly approved COVID-19 vaccines are expected to come to eastern Idaho this week, a health district spokeswoman told the Post Register on Tuesday.
Mimi Taylor with Eastern Idaho Public Health said the largely rural eight-county part of the state is expecting 975 doses of Pfizerâs vaccine and 3,000 doses of Modernaâs vaccine. Last week, the district expected 975 doses of Pfizerâs vaccine. Thatâs among the 28,000 Moderna doses that Gov. Brad Little said the state expects to receive by weekâs end.
The allocation is much higher than last week, when health care workers were first inoculated with the very limited initial doses of Pfizer/BioNTechâs vaccine outside of a medical trial. Week twoâs allocation includes Modernaâs new COVID-19 vaccine, which the FDA approved for emergency use on Friday, but reduced allocations of Pfizerâs vaccine have slowed a lengthy distribution process that has prioritized health care wor