Whatcom County saw 20 coronavirus outbreaks during June as new cases climbed 55%
It wasn’t just Whatcom County’s number of new coronavirus cases that saw large increases during the month of June — the number of outbreaks also was high. And that’s a trend the health department hopes to stem, especially with a holiday weekend on the horizon.
Since the first of June, Whatcom County has seen 20 COVID-19 outbreaks, Whatcom County Health Department Director Erika Lautenbach said in an online briefing Wednesday, July 1. She added that an outbreak is defined by the state as two or more related cases over a two-week period or one case in a congregant living area, such as a nursing home.
Correspondingly, Whatcom’s daily coronavirus statistics also saw big increases during the month of June, as the number of reported cases rose more than 55% from 401 confirmed cases on June 1 to 622 on June 30. The number of reported deaths also increased 33.3% from 30 on June 1 to 40 at the end of the month.
“We are seeing it increase through a number of social events,” Lautenbach said of the case increase during the briefing. “The rate is going up, but also the number of contacts associated with each case has increased. We’re seeing 20 to 30 close contacts over the infectious period of each case.”
Because of that increase, Lautenbach said the health department’s case and contact investigators would be extremely busy contacting 288 possible contacts on Wednesday. They’d also be investigating 39 cases Wednesday, with each investigation taking an estimated hour to complete.
“There is just such a high volume because there are so many contacts associated with each case,” Lautenbach said, adding that the health department continues to bring in more volunteers to help with the increased workload. “Our work is cut out for us as case and contact investigators at the health department.”
Increased social events and more businesses opening with Whatcom County’s move to Phase 2 of the state’s Safe Start plan on June 8 likely led to more exposures, Lautenbach said, which in turn could have led to some of the outbreaks, as people went to work or friends’ houses while they were either sick or pre-symptomatic.
The health department is not releasing where new outbreaks occur unless either the employer agrees to release it or it is deemed to be a community health risk, Lautenbach said.
“The public health benefit is we have cooperation from employees and the employer to work in the resolution of these issues,” Lautenbach said of the reason outbreak information is not disclosed. She added that it wasn’t deemed a community risk with the businesses the health department has worked with on recent outbreaks.
And many recent cases have been tied to social gatherings, Lautenbach said, though she said the county has seen the number of new cases in recent days begin to decrease.
But, with the Fourth of July only days away, the health department is concerned that could get even worse this weekend. Earlier this week, they asked Whatcom residents to keep holiday gatherings small.
“A lot of this is out of our control and relies on community behavior,” Lautenbach said. “I could say right now that the rates are going down, but we’ve also heard about large group gatherings last weekend, so we’ll see how that goes. We’ve also got a three-day weekend with a major holiday, so it all really depends on the behavior of our community.”
When deciding whether to attend a social gathering, Lautenbach said health officials have starting using the following risk assessment for evaluation — “Is the social gathering worth quarantining for two weeks after? If not then it’s probably not worth going,” she said.
This story was originally published July 1, 2020 at 1:05 PM.
