A phony letter with Panhandle Health District letterhead is circulating in Bonner County, falsely claiming that the staff at a North Idaho extended care facility has been exposed to the coronavirus.

A letter dated April 1 was reported by at least one employee at an unnamed facility, which Panhandle Health officials have since confirmed is Life Care in Sandpoint. The unsigned letter states that all staff and their families are being investigated to track contact with the spread of the disease and should remain home.

Panhandle Health was alerted to the letter when an employee at Syringa Property Management, the company that manages Life Care’s physical grounds, called the health district’s contact center to inquire. Katherine Hoyer, public information officer at Panhandle Health, said the letter is fake, as evidenced by the very nature of the letter itself.

“We would not send a letter,” she said. “If you learned of a possible contact with COVID-19 and called us, our epidemiologists and our team would begin contact tracing. We would call individuals to learn as much as we could about the risks of possible exposure. We wouldn’t send a blanket letter.”

The details of the letter further hinted the letter was fraudulent. Panhandle Health’s letterhead at the top of the document was the only legitimate marker on the phony letter, and semi-legitimate at that.

“The letterhead looked like it was trying to be similar to ours,” Hoyer said. “It looks like they really just placed our logo on the top of the page. It looked awkward and crooked. The letter wasn’t ours.”

Capt. Tim Hemphill of the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office said his department is investigating the matter.