COVID delta variant more prevalent in Whatcom, as reported cases triple from last week
The number of confirmed COVID-19 delta variant cases that have been detected in Whatcom County more than tripled from last week’s Washington State Department of Health report.
Whatcom County has now had 137 confirmed delta variant cases, according to the latest SARS-CoV-2 Sequencing and Variants in Washington State report released Wednesday, Aug. 18, growing by 95 cases over last week’s report.
The 137 cases account for 12.7% of the 1,081 cases reported in the county since the first delta variant case was reported in the July 6 report.
The Whatcom County Health Department has previously told The Bellingham Herald it was expecting the number of delta variant cases to increase because of a lag of several weeks in the time it takes to sequence positive molecular tests.
The number of delta variant cases in Whatcom County also is likely more than 137 reported, as the state reported only between 94 and 204 positive molecular tests within Whatcom County have been sequenced in the past 60 days, according to Wednesday’s report. That represents between 7% and 16% of the 1,272 cases reported in Whatcom County over the past 60 days, which is in line with the statewide average of 17.7% of all confirmed molecular tests that were sequenced during the month of July.
Statewide, the report said that the delta variant is responsible for 848 breakthrough cases of people who had been fully vaccinated, with represents approximately 36% of all vaccine breakthrough cases where a variant was detected. Individual county numbers were not included.
The Herald has asked the Whatcom County Health Department for comment on the reported increase in delta variant cases within the county..
Other variants in Whatcom
In addition to seeing the 95 delta variant cases reported by the state in Wednesday’s report, Whatcom County had 10 other confirmed variant cases reported last week.
Whatcom County has at least one case of nine of the 10 variants currently being tracked in Washington state.
Since its first confirmed variant case was reported Feb. 23, Whatcom has had a total of 918 variant cases reported through Aug. 17, which accounts for approximately 22% of Whatcom’s 4,169 cases reported since then and 8.7% of Whatcom’s pandemic total of 10,603 cases, according to analysis by The Herald.
The state’s most recent variants report for Whatcom County showed:
▪ Three new alpha (U.K.) variant cases — 469 total.
▪ One new B.1.351 (South Africa) variant case — four total.
▪ Six new gamma (Brazil) variant cases — 249 total.
▪ No new B.1.427 (California) variant cases — six total.
▪ No new B.1.429 (California) variant cases — 31 total.
▪ No new B.1.526 (New York) variant cases — 19 total.
No new B.1.525 (New York) variant cases — two total.
▪ No new kappa (India) variant cases — one total.
Whatcom also has seen no cases of the B.1.617.3 (India) variant, according to the report.
