State reports Sunday that 8 people test positive for COVID-19 in Whatcom County

Eight new Whatcom County residents have tested positive for COVID-19, but no new deaths were reported on Sunday, June 14, by the Washington Health Department.

That makes 20 cases in the last three days reported. The last time as many cases were reported in three days was April 5-7 when there were 39 in three days.

The county now has 448 confirmed cases and 38 deaths during the pandemic — meaning 8.5% of people diagnosed with the respiratory illness in Whatcom have died — according to state department of health data as of 11:59 p.m. Saturday, June 13.

The state also reports the county has had 53 hospitalizations and has conducted 14,038 tests, with 3.2% returning positive results.

On Friday, the Whatcom County Health Department said it was investigating a series of outbreaks of COVID-19 related to “large private and recreational social gatherings” held in late May while Whatcom County was still in Phase 1.

An outbreak is two or more cases of COVID-19 among individuals who were exposed to the virus from the same source, such as at a workplace or informal gathering, according to the news release. The Bellingham Herald has asked the health department to detail how many outbreaks it is tracking and where they occurred.

Whatcom Health notified the state Department of Health of the outbreaks, as required. The county health department said it is not yet known if the outbreaks will hurt the county’s ability to remain in Phase 2.

The most recent data from the state’s Risk Assessment Dashboard is from Thursday, June 11, and shows all five metrics meeting Phase 2 goals:

▪ Whatcom is making the target rate of fewer than 25 new cases per 100,000 residents every 14 days with a rate of 16.9, back to trends seen earlier in the month.

▪ Whatcom is making the target rate of more than 50 individuals tested for each new confirmed case the past week with a rate of 87.4.

▪ Whatcom is making the target of less than 2% of individuals testing positive for COVID-19 during the past week with a rate of 1.1%.

▪ Whatcom is making the target of less than 80% of all licensed hospital beds being occupied with a rate of 71.4%.

▪ Whatcom is making the target of less than 10% of all licensed hospital beds being occupied by COVID-19 patients with a rate of zero.

St. Joseph hospital reported to The Bellingham Herald Sunday that it has no patients who have tested positive and no patients who are suspected to have COVID-19.

More than 7.8 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed worldwide, with more than 432,173 deaths as of Sunday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has 2,063,812 confirmed cases — the most reported cases of any nation — and at least 115,271 related deaths.

Overall, the Washington State Department of Health Saturday evening reported 25,834 cases (an increase of 296), 1,217 deaths (an increase of 4) and 3,856 coronavirus-related hospitalizations (an increase of 11). Approximately 4.7% of all confirmed cases in the state have resulted in death, while 5.6% of the 462,602 tests administered have come back positive for COVID-19.

Phased reopening

Whatcom County was approved Friday, June 5, to move to Phase 2 under new benchmarks announced May 29, by Gov. Jay Inslee. Whatcom is now one 25 counties in Phase 2 — six remain in Phase 1 and eight have advanced to Phase 3.

Whatcom will need to wait until at least June 26 before it can apply to move to Phase 3.

Phase 2 enables retail firms to resume in-store purchases, restaurants to reopen with 50% capacity and table sizes no larger than 5, and the re-start of new construction, real estate, hair and nail salons, and barbers.

Phase 3 allows restaurants/taverns to reopen at 75% capacity with table sizes no larger than 10, as well as bar areas in restaurants/taverns at 25% capacity, movie theaters at 50% capacity, and libraries and museums.

This story was originally published June 14, 2020 at 4:11 PM.