BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho Gov. Brad Little is ordering the state’s seven public health districts and providers to regularly report the number of coronavirus vaccine doses they have received and administered to increase transparency.
The Republican governor issued an executive order Thursday that also requires the entities to show how many doses they have in their inventories. Little says he wants to make sure doses are administered within seven days of entering Idaho.
Idaho is getting about 24,000 doses a week. Nearly 90,000 people have received at least one dose of the two-dose vaccine.
The virus has infected more than 160,000 residents, and more than 1,700 have died.
Meanwhile, attempts by the Republican-dominated Legislature to wrest power from GOP Gov. Little when it comes to emergency declarations during a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic appear to have taken a hit.
The Idaho attorney general’s office in an opinion on Thursday says a strategy by the Legislature to use concurrent resolutions that don’t require a governor’s signature to end a governor’s emergency declaration is not contained in the Idaho Constitution. The Attorney General’s office says such a concurrent resolution merely expresses the Legislature’s preference but has no legal effect.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate have put forward several concurrent resolutions aiming to end Little’s coronavirus emergency.