Coronavirus simulation shows Whatcom County might be past initial peak of infections
Models used by Whatcom County to plan local response to the COVID-19 pandemic show the region may be past an initial wave of coronavirus infections, but policy decisions and residents’ individual choices will be paramount in determining whether there will be any future peaks.
“We are seeing signs that we are on the downside of the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak,” Whatcom County Health Department Director Erika Lautenbach said during an online press briefing Monday about the model county leaders are using.
But Lautenbach cautioned that if all restrictions were to be lifted and the county were to return to life as normal “there could be a large second wave.”
According to documents obtained by The Bellingham Herald, Whatcom County officials initially were battling the coronavirus pandemic operating under a pair of scenarios that forecast the outbreak peaking locally in May or August.
As more data has become available and has been plugged into the model the county is using, the county has been able to further refine the model to help Whatcom Unified Command, the multi-governmental agency that’s directing local pandemic response, make decisions.
“The good news is our community efforts are working,” health department Health Information and Assessment Supervisor Amy Hockenberry said during Monday’s briefing. “It also means that we need to continue what we’re doing.”
No specific projected dates or numbers of infections or deaths were included in the briefing.
“I compare this to a weather forecast,” Lautenbach said. “With the weather, you have a lot of data and trends you can look at. ... It would be ideal if we could provide that level of correlation. But because this is novel, we’ve had to build the entire meteorology tool, and we’re just now getting the numbers to test it.”
Because it is so new, Lautenbach said it was like having a daily forecast that predicts a daily temperature between 30 and 80 degrees.
“What you wear and the activities you plan have a wide range, when you’re talking about a range like that,” Lautenbach said. “And there are things that are out of our control in the forecast, such as policy making and individual decisions.”
Among the policy decisions that will impact the number of infections and any future peaks will be when Gov. Jay Inslee’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order is relaxed — it’s currently scheduled to end May 4.
Exactly how and when Whatcom County and Washington residents are allowed to start reentering their normal lives likely also will impact whether there is a second wave of coronavirus infections this summer, Hockenberry said.
“I think a return to normal will be done gradually,” Lautenbach said. “I like to think of it more as a dial than a switch.”
By doing so, Lautenbach said, officials can decide to “dial back” if they sees additional spikes or “dial forward” as situations allow.
Individual choices to follow the governor’s order between now and May 4 or whatever date the order is relaxed also will impact the path of the pandemic in our area, Western Washington University Associate Professor of Health and Human Development Steve Bennet said during the briefing.
“The data does not show that this pathogen will go away anytime soon,” Bennet said. “This is going to be a longer process.”
The model the county is using to run simulations has been validated by the unified command surveillance team, WWU Dean of Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies Jack Herring said in the briefing. It is also being compared to similar scenarios at the state and federal levels to provide local policymakers with the best information possible.
“We are not forecasting the future,” Herring said. “What we are showing is how the fundamental trends of this are working in Whatcom County. We do think there is quite a robust possibility that we have passed a peak, in terms of infections. ... And if we are going to have a future wave depends on decisions that maybe have not yet been made.”
This story was originally published April 13, 2020 at 4:18 PM.
