COVID rates climbing among Whatcom’s fully vaccinated, but remain lower than unvaccinated
Whatcom County is seeing its fully vaccinated residents increasingly impacted by COVID-19, but at rates that are still lower than for unvaccinated residents.
There were 559 new COVID cases between Aug. 15 and 21, according to data released Friday by the Whatcom County Health Department.
Of those 147 — or 26.2% — were “breakthrough” cases among fully-vaccinated residents, according to the health department data, which added that that rate was up from the previous week.
But the infection rate was still much lower among the fully vaccinated (110 cases per 100,000 full-vaccinated residents) than the unvaccinated (428 per 100,000 unvaccinated residents), the health department reported.
Overall, there have been 499 breakthrough cases in Whatcom County during the pandemic, the health department reports.
Whatcom’s number of breakthrough cases resulting in hospitalization among Whatcom’s fully-vaccinated also is on the rise, but still lower than among unvaccinated residents.
Since Feb. 1, the health department reports that there have been 27 COVID-related hospitalizations among fully-vaccinated residents, including four the week of Aug. 15-21.
According to the state’s epidemiological curves, there have been 299 total COVID-related hospitalizations in Whatcom County since Feb. 1, including 20 between Aug. 15-21. That means that 9% of Whatcom’s COVID-related hospitalizations since Feb. 1 and 20% during the week of Aug. 15-21 were in people who were fully vaccinated.
Additionally, the health department reported that five fully-vaccinated residents have died from COVID-related symptoms, including three the week of Aug. 15-21 — a man in his 80s, a man in his 90s and a man in his 50s.
There have been a total of 40 COVID-related deaths in the county since Feb. 1, according to the state’s epidemiological curves, meaning those who are unvaccinated account for nearly 87.5% of the COVID-related deaths since then.
This story was originally published August 31, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
CORRECTION: The time frame in which the 27 breakthrough hospitalizations in Whatcom County were reported was corrected to Feb. 1, 2021, which changed the total number of all COVID-related hospitalizations during that period to 299 and the percentage breakthrough hospitalizations to 9% of all. The data was corrected Sept. 1, 2021.
