COEUR d’ALENE — While COVID-19 cases are rising in some areas of the nation, virus indicators including positivity rates, new cases and hospitalizations remain low in North Idaho.

Panhandle Health District reported just one hospitalization districtwide, and only five new cases on Thursday.

It has reported five COVID-related deaths for the month of April on its website, and about 40 new cases for the week.

PHD’s positivity rate for the coronavirus was 4.3% based on 490 PCR tests for the week ending April 23. Kootenai County’s positivity rate was 3.9% based on 309 PCR tests, while the state’s was 2.6% based on 10,461 PCR tests.

For all three, the number of tests was nearly the lowest in the past two years and the rate is under the goal of 5%.

But the reason for so few new cases could be just so many are using at-home tests or not bothering with tests anymore.

“With the increased access to at-home testing and decreased availability of free, community testing sites, we can reasonably assume that many tests are no longer being reported or people are choosing to forego testing altogether,” wrote Katherine Hoyer, PHD spokeswoman.

According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, only six to seven out of every 100 tests are now being officially reported, suggesting that recent case counts may not be a confident data point, Hoyer wrote.

During the Delta wave, 43% were reported, and 23% during the omicron wave.

“What PHD will continue to monitor are hospitalizations. If we begin to see a surge in hospitalizations, we know community spread has already reached a critical level,” she wrote.

Kootenai Health’s recent COVID-19 daily patient count has been primarily one or two, even none on some days.

But health officials say COVID-19 isn't gone.

Becker’s Hospital Review reported that over the last week, seven-day COVID-19 case averages have risen in 27 states, flattened in 15 and dropped in nine states, according to data tracked by Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

The AP reports that a new omicron mutant, BA.2.12.1, was responsible for 29% of new COVID-19 infections nationally last week, according to data reported Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it caused 58% of reported infections in the New York region.

The variant has been detected in at least 13 other countries, but the U.S. has the highest levels of it so far, according to AP.

Statewide, there were 49 COVID-19 hospital patients this week, down from nearly 800 in late September.

COVID-19’s decline in North Idaho comes despite a full vaccination rate of 55% for those 5 and older, compared to a statewide rate of 70%.

Few wear masks in North Idaho and social distancing is a thing of the past. In April, only 425 people in Kootenai County joined the ranks of the fully vaccinated, bringing the total to 71,454, which is 44% of the age 5 and over population.