Whatcom health officials concerned by these two trends amid rise in COVID cases
As COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations rise in Whatcom County, health officials are doubly concerned about a decrease in vaccinations and patients’ refusal to cooperate with contact-tracing efforts.
More than 75% of people age 65 and older in Whatcom County have been vaccinated and health officials are “making progress among those in their 50s and 60s,” Health Director Erika Lautenbach told the County Council at a committee meeting Tuesday, May 4.
But mass-vaccination clinics have seen a drop in reservations recently, even as the new coronavirus pandemic surges locally.
“We are seeing a noticeable decline in demand for vaccinations at this point,” Lautenbach said.
If not for Gov. Jay Inslee’s pause of the state’s Roadmap to Recovery, Whatcom County would have dropped to Phase 2 with tighter controls on business operations and social interactions, she said.
Health officials are troubled, said Dr. Greg Stern, the county health officer.
“We are concerned about the upward trend and we’re counting on being able to flatten that and turn it around, but it really depends on people‘s behavior and vaccination over time,” Stern told the council.
“We’re really counting on people following the guidelines and doing the distancing,” he said.
But even more disturbing is that COVID-19 patients aren’t telling health officials where they might have contracted the virus and who they might have exposed.
“We’re finding a significant number (of people) are not willing to give information that again slows our ability to slow transmission in schools and businesses,” Stern said.
“In general, I think people are concerned about privacy, they’re not trusting the government if we’re from the Health Department,” Stern said. “I’m also concerned about some of the beliefs about COVID, some (of) what I think is misinformation out there about it being fairly benign for folks. That it’s over-hyped. That’s certainly not true.”
Health information is private under federal law, he said.
“It is personal medical information” that isn’t shared with the public, Stern said.
Meanwhile, the highly transmissible B-117 mutation first noticed in London is spreading through Whatcom County, he said.
“If they do get exposed to (the B-117 variant), it turns out the vaccine is effective against this particular variant,” he said. “But the more people someone who is vaccinated is exposed to, who are infected, the greater the risk of breakthrough cases.”
COVID-19 vaccines are effective but not perfect, he said.
And some 70 percent of the population must be vaccinated against COVID-19 to achieve herd immunity, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The people that we are seeing in hospital that are getting very sick, have yet to be vaccinated and that’s very concerning to us,” Lautenbach said.
