Local vaccine exemption rate triples state average

SANDPOINT — News of flu deaths and outbreaks of measles and other diseases for which vaccinations are readily available have been much in the news of late. So how is Bonner County fairing in terms of immunizations and infections?

Health officials aren’t giving out county-specific numbers about things like flu deaths, citing privacy issues.

“We don’t typically release county-level information because it then becomes pretty easy to identify people who have died from flu complications, especially when they are all of a certain age,” Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Public Information Officer Niki Forbing-Orr said.

They will offer some aggregated numbers, however: there were 22 reported flu deaths in Idaho as of the beginning of February, most of them elsewhere. Most of them.

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