As hospital sets new record, Whatcom’s COVID caseload approaches post-holiday surge levels
Whatcom County’s caseload during the fifth surge of the COVID-19 pandemic is nearing levels the county saw during its post-holiday peak in early 2021.
Whatcom County’s two-week infection rate — its number of new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents — for the most recently completed epidemiological data (Aug. 6-19) increased to 400.9, according to the Washington State Department of Health’s COVID-19 Data Dashboard on Friday, Aug. 27.
The last time Whatcom topped 400 cases per 100,000 residents was Jan. 10-23, when the county was recovering from its post-holiday and pandemic peak of 528.1 on Jan. 2-15.
And the state’s incomplete epidemiological data shows Whatcom likely hasn’t seen a summit to the recent surge.
Whatcom’s seven-day rolling average of new cases, according to the state’s epidemiological curves, was 80 from Aug. 13-19 — nearly six times higher than it was just a month earlier. The highest rolling seven-day average of cases the county has seen was 91 from Jan. 5-11.
Whatcom saw a total of 463 new confirmed cases reported by the state last week — the fourth-highest total the county has seen in a single week during the pandemic — as it increased from 10,831 confirmed cases on Aug. 20 to 11,294, with 94 new cases reported Friday.
An additional 96 new probable cases — resulting from a positive antigen test that is not confirmed with a molecular test — were reported by the state last week, including 16 on Friday, as the county now has had 724 probable cases reported during the pandemic.
Hospital sets new COVID record
St. Joseph hospital in Bellingham reported Monday, Aug. 30, to The Bellingham Herald that it is treating 39 patients with COVID-related symptoms.
That is a new record high for the hospital during the pandemic, breaking the one-day-old record of 38 set on Sunday, Aug. 29, which was up one from 37 on Saturday, Aug. 28. Before this weekend, the most COVID-related patients the hospital had reported was 37 on Aug. 17.
The state did not report any new COVID-related hospitalizations in Whatcom on Friday, as the county still had 578 during the pandemic. There were a total of 18 hospitalizations reported by the state last week.
Whatcom County averaged 9.6 COVID-related hospitalizations per 100,000 residents Aug. 10-16, according to The Herald’s analysis of the state’s most recently complete epidemiological data. That was down slightly from the 10.5 hospitalizations per 100,000 residents the county averaged one week earlier.
Through epidemiological data Thursday, Aug. 26, Whatcom has seen 69 COVID-related hospitalizations during the month of August, which represents 4.3% of the county’s 1,598 total cases (confirmed and probable combined) so far this month. Despite the recent increase in hospitalizations, that is slightly lower than Whatcom’s pandemic hospitalization rate of 4.8% of all COVID cases.
More Whatcom numbers
Other Whatcom County COVID data shows:
▪ 95.2% of Whatcom County’s 3,537 COVID cases between February and July were in residents who were not fully vaccinated, according to the state’s latest COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations and Deaths in Persons Who Are Not Fully Vaccinated report.
▪ The state reports that 0.9% of Whatcom’s 12,018 total cases (confirmed and probable cases combined) have resulted in death — better than the statewide 1.2% average. Whatcom saw four COVID-related deaths reported last week.
▪ The state’s vaccination report on Friday showed the county has now administered 244,491 vaccine doses — an increase of 2,768 and more than the 2,368 administered the week before — and estimated that 63.2% of the total population in the county had initiated vaccination and 57.6% had completed it. Both percentages were ahead of the averages across the state, which reported that 60.1% of the state’s total population initiated vaccination and 54.6% are fully vaccinated.
▪ Whatcom’s weekly COVID test positivity rate for completed data Aug. 4-10 was 5.2% (283 positives out of 5,452 tests). That’s up from 4.2% (228 positives out of 5,406 tests) a week earlier.
▪ The CDC’s COVID Data Tracker on Monday continued to list the level of transmission in Whatcom County at “High” (the highest of four classifications). All 39 counties in Washington state are listed in the “High” category, as are 93.8% of all counties nationwide.
