Whatcom County’s August COVID surge continues with dozens of new confirmed cases reported
Whatcom County’s August surge continued, as it saw 61 new confirmed COVID-19 cases and 13 additional probable cases reported on the Washington State Department of Health’s COVID Data Dashboard Thursday, Aug. 19.
Reporting for positive test results, case counts, hospitalizations and deaths may include some backlog from earlier, according to a statement on the dashboard.
Three new COVID-related hospitalizations also were reported Thursday.
The county now has 10,734 confirmed cases, 610 probable cases — resulting from positive antigen tests not confirmed by a molecular test — and 556 hospitalizations during the pandemic, according to the state’s dashboard.
During the first 19 days of August, Whatcom has had 849 confirmed cases reported by the state — an average of 44.7 per day. For comparison, the county averaged 13.0 reported cases per day in July and 14.5 in June and has only seen a higher rate last January (66.2 per day).
Whatcom’s two-week infection rate — its number of confirmed cases per 100,000 residents — climbed to 255.7 between July 29 and Aug. 11 (the most recently completed epidemiological data), according to the state’s Risk Assessment Dashboard. That’s the highest mark the county has seen since it registered a rate of 267.2 on Feb. 26.
St. Joseph hospital reported that it was continuing to treating 31 COVID patients on Friday, Aug. 20, “the vast majority without vaccine,” hospital spokesperson Bev Mayhew told The Bellingham Herald. Though an increase of one from Wednesday, Aug. 18, the 31 cases Thursday, were still six fewer than the pandemic record 37 it treated Tuesday, Aug. 17.
The latest report on the state dashboard also shows Whatcom County has:
▪ 109 COVID-related deaths during the pandemic — unchanged from the last report.
▪ 302,800 tests (molecular and antigen combined) have been performed during the pandemic — up 631 from the last report.
▪ 240,73 vaccinations had been administered during the pandemic — up 448 from the last report. The state reports 62.4% of Whatcom County’s total population has initiated vaccination and 56.9% has completed it.
Additionally, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Data Tracker Friday listed Whatcom’s level of transmission as “High” — the highest of four categories. All 39 counties in Washington state were listed in the “High” transmission category.
State COVID situation report
Whatcom County is far from the only area seeing increased COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.
The Washington State Department of Health’s latest COVID-19 modeling and surveillance situation report showed:
▪ The estimated reproductive rate in the state as of Aug. 6 was 1.49, meaning on average every new case is likely to spread to 1.49 more people. For comparison the rate in June was 0.70, meaning the disease was shrinking.
▪ COVID prevalence in the state nearly quadrupled, as the state estimates that on Aug. 6 one in 156 Washingtonians has an active COVID-19 infection. That number was one in every 588 residents on July 8.
▪ The seven-day rolling average of COVID-related hospital admissions has more than tripled to 96, as of Aug. 6, up from 29 on July 8. Most notably, according to the report, was the increase in hospitalizations for people between ages 20 and 39.
▪ About 98% of all cases in the state are believed to be caused by the delta variant.
“Vaccinations will help us in the long term, but in order to get through the short term, we need to be wearing face coverings right now to control the spread of COVID-19,” Acting Chief Science Officer Dr. Scott Lindquist said in a release with the report. “We absolutely need to realize that it could literally be any one of us, or our loved ones, needing hospital care in the near future.
“At this point, to ensure that care is available when we need it, our hospitals are counting on every one of us to mask up and get vaccinated.”
This story was originally published August 20, 2021 at 8:32 AM.
