Two more COVID-19 cases in Whatcom reported Wednesday by state health department
Two more Whatcom County residents have tested positive for COVID-19, the Washington Health Department reported on Wednesday, June 17.
The county now has 457 confirmed cases and continues to have 39 deaths during the pandemic — meaning 8.5% of people diagnosed with the new coronavirus in Whatcom have died — according to state department of health data as of 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, June 16.
The state also reports the county has had 53 hospitalizations and has conducted 14,225 tests, with 3.2% returning positive results.
The state Health Department reported Wednesday it fixed its error in reporting of negative test results on the department’s dashboard and the governor’s Risk-Assessment Dashboard. The error inflated its reporting of negative COVID-19 tests by 13%.
“Because of an error in a work-around established to handle the high volume of negative test results,” the state said in a news release, the state was including negative antibody test results along with negative molecular test results in the total negative tests it reported April 21 to June 15. It had intended to report only molecular test results.
Molecular tests are given to patients while the virus is presumably still active in the body. The antibody tests can detect if a person had been exposed to the virus sometime in the past.
The inflated negative test numbers did not impact decision-making about counties advancing through phases, the department wrote.
While error did not impact reporting of positive test results, it underestimated the overall percentage of positive test results.
The most recent data from the state’s Risk Assessment Dashboard is from Tuesday and it shows Whatcom County missing two of five Phase 2 metrics goals:
▪ Whatcom is making the target rate of fewer than 25 new cases per 100,000 residents every 14 days with a rate of 21.3.
▪ Whatcom is missing the target rate of more than 50 individuals tested for each new confirmed case the past week with a rate of 41.1.
▪ Whatcom is missing the target of less than 2% of individuals testing positive for COVID-19 during the past week with a rate of 2.4%.
The state noted that it will not update hospital bed capacity numbers on the Risk Assessment Dashboard until Tuesday, June 23, posting on the website that “a change in the way the beds are being counted now requires hospitals to fill out forms in a new way. New language from the CDC is prompting this change.”
▪ Whatcom was making the target of less than 80% of all licensed hospital beds being occupied before the state change.
▪ Whatcom is making the target of less than 10% of all licensed hospital beds being occupied by COVID-19 patients before the state change.
St. Joseph hospital reported to The Bellingham Herald Wednesday that it has no patients who have tested positive and no patients who are suspected to have COVID-19 for the fourth day in a row.
U.S. and Washington state
More than 8.3 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed worldwide, with more than 447,581 deaths as of Wednesday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has 2,159,446 confirmed cases — the most reported cases of any nation — and at least 117,663 related deaths.
Overall, the Washington State Department of Health Wednesday afternoon reported 26,7841 cases (an increase of 253), 1,226 deaths (an increase of 5) and 3,938 coronavirus-related hospitalizations (an increase of 23). Approximately 4.6% of all confirmed cases in the state have resulted in death, while 6.2% of the 435,016 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 will need to wait until at least June 26 before it can apply to move to Phase 3.
Whatcom was one of 21 counties in Phase 2 on Wednesday. Three counties remain in Phase 1, three counties are in a modified version of Phase 1 and 12 counties have advanced to Phase 3, according to the state Department of Health.
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.
