BOISE — With COVID-19 continuing to spread in Idaho, Gov. Brad Little on Tuesday said he’ll hold a news conference on Friday to announce “next steps” after his Oct. 26 move to shift the state back to Stage 3 of reopening.

The virtual press conference will be today at 1 p.m. The conference will be streamed on Facebook and broadcast live on Idaho Public Television statewide on the Idaho channel (.1)

“Most of you, if not all of you, are aware of the magnitude of the problem that we have,” Little said on a statewide call-in with AARP of Idaho. “We have way too many health care workers that either have been sick or exposed to COVID just because of the viral loading in their communities. We’ve got quite a ways to go yet.”

Dave Jeppesen, director of the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare, said, “Our cases across the country are up and that’s certainly the case in Idaho, at levels that are concerning. … We’ve seen multiple days in the last week and a half of over a thousand cases per day across the state.”

The virus is “very widespread” in Idaho now, Jeppesen said; every county has reported at least 10 cases per 100,000 residents. Residents of long-term care facilities have particularly been suffering, he said. As of mid-day Tuesday, 324 of the 698 deaths reported statewide were at long-term care facilities.

Jeppesen said as of Tuesday, 147 of the state’s 400 long-term care facilities had at least one case, “and that is the highest we’ve seen throughout the pandemic.”

Idaho also is seeing record numbers of hospitalizations for COVID-19.

Several callers pressed Little to impose a statewide mask mandate, like neighboring Utah Gov. Gary Herbert did this week; a couple spoke out against any mandate. About half of Idaho’s population currently is under locally imposed mask mandates, including Boise and Ada County.

“We know what we’ve been doing in the past hasn’t been doing a good job of messaging,” Little said. “With a mandate or without a mandate, there’s still not a lot of compliance, particularly in some communities. So we continue to hone in on how to communicate with Idahoans the urgency of this problem. It exists.”

While there’s been promising news this week about progress toward a vaccine, Little and Jeppesen said it likely would be mid-January before Idaho’s front-line health care workers could be protected from two doses of a vaccine, and Little said it’ll be “a lot later” before the rest of the population could see similar protection.

Said Jeppesen, “It’s really about all of us wearing our masks and keeping six feet of distance, washing our hands. … That’s the best tool we have to slow the spread until we get to a vaccine and therapeutics.”

Little told a caller from Council that he remains convinced that residents there would be more likely to follow a mask mandate issued by their local city or county officials, than one coming from Boise.

“The rest of the state thinks everything that comes from Boise is a mandate from big government,” he said, “and that is why … I’m trying to get this done holistically to where we get compliance, not where it comes from. But that is my reasoning for us being where we are right now.”

Little’s Oct. 26 announcement moved the state to a modified version of Stage 3, from the more-permissive Stage 4 that had been in effect since June. The statewide public health order limited indoor gatherings to 50 people or less; limited outdoor gatherings to 25% of capacity; required physical distancing at gatherings of all types; required masks on the premises of long-term care facilities; encouraged employers to protect at-risk employees by offering telework or other accommodations; and allowed bars and restaurants to operate only for seated customers at tables. It exempted churches and schools from the definition of “gatherings.”

“Currently we are waiting for the results of the rollback to Stage 3 that we did a week and a half ago,” Little said. “And we’re also working on our messaging.”