Whatcom health department ‘very concerned’ by growing COVID hospital rate among vaccinated
As COVID-related hospitalizations have increased in the past few weeks, the Whatcom County Health Department has become “very concerned” about the rate of hospitalizations among the county’s fully vaccinated residents.
Whatcom County has seen 554 COVID-related hospitalizations during the pandemic, according to data released Tuesday, Aug. 17, on the Washington State Department of Health’s COVID Data Dashboard.
In the past three weeks, Whatcom’s reported total has increased nearly 12%, growing by 59 hospitalizations since July 27. For comparison, the total grew approximately 3% the previous three weeks, increasing by 15 hospitalizations between July 7 and 27.
St. Joseph hospital in Bellingham reported Wednesday, Aug. 18, that it is treating 30 COVID patients, which was down seven from the pandemic record 37 it reported Tuesday. Before last weekend, the highest daily total the hospital had seen throughout the pandemic was 31.
“Our hospitalizations have increased dramatically. We had very few hospitalizations for weeks,” Whatcom County Health Director Erika Lautenbach said during an online briefing last week, adding, “it’s incredibly concerning given the fact that there are very few hospitals in the state that have capacity.”
So what’s causing this recent increase in hospitalizations?
COVID case numbers in the community are obviously up, as Whatcom and the rest of Washington state are in the midst of the fifth wave of the pandemic. Whatcom County has gone from a two-week infection rate of 47.8 confirmed cases per 100,000 residents reported on July 13 to a rate of 225.9 reported by the state’s Risk Assessment Dashboard on Tuesday.
That’s despite the state reporting that as of Saturday, 62.3% of all Whatcom County residents had initiated vaccination and 56.9% had completed it.
“There is about a two week lag period on verification of breakthrough cases and hospitalizations from DOH, so we don’t have confirmed vaccination status data for the most recent time period,” Whatcom County Health Department Health Information and Assessment Supervisor Amy Hockenberry said in a statement emailed to The Bellingham Herald Wednesday.
“However, our preliminary analysis of the COVID-19 hospitalization rate in recent weeks leaves us very concerned about an increasing rate of hospitalization among people who we’ve assessed are fully vaccinated. This is most likely due to the Delta variant.”
If that does turn out to be the problem, it would be a change from what the county health department found between February and June. During that period, the health department reported that only five of 210 COVID-related hospitalizations (2.4%) were in people who were fully vaccinated.
As of the state’s most recent COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations and Deaths in Persons Who Are Not Fully Vaccinated report released Aug. 18, 95.2% of Whatcom’s COVID cases between February and July were in people who were not fully vaccinated. Hospitalizations were not reported down to the county level, but statewide fully vaccinated people accounted for only 5.5% of all COVID-related hospitalizations between Feb. 1 and Aug. 3 and 7.1% of all COVID-related deaths between Feb. 1 and July 20.
The increased COVID hospitalizations have once again forced PeaceHealth to restrict patient visitors.
But the hospital said the increase in COVID hospitalizations has not yet forced the postponement of many non-emergent surgeries.
“We currently review hospital capacity and the impact of COVID on normal hospital operations twice a day, including the capacity to support scheduled surgeries,” Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sudhakar Karlapudi said in a statement emailed to The Herald. “In addition, our surgeons meet to review all cases scheduled in the days and weeks ahead and advise on the priority level of each.
“So far, we have elected to postpone and reschedule only a few non-urgent surgeries. Patients whose procedures need to be rescheduled are notified immediately.”
This story was originally published August 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
