Whatcom County’s COVID-related death total climbs for second straight day, state reports
Whatcom County had its smallest reported increase of COVID-19 cases in six weeks on Wednesday, Sept. 22, according to the Washington State Department of Health’s COVID-19 Data Dashboard, but for the second straight day a related death was added to the county’s total.
It was the 132nd death related to COVID the county has seen reported during the pandemic.
The death was for a person who first tested positive for COVID on Sept. 15, according to the state’s epidemiological data, and was the third death epidemiologically linked to September, according to The Bellingham Herald’s data analysis.
With 1,267 total cases (confirmed and probable combined) in September, according to the state’s epidemiological data, 0.2% of all Whatcom County cases resulted in death so far this — better than the county’s pandemic average of 0.9% and last month’s 0.8% rate when it saw 18 deaths. Statewide, 1.2% of all COVID cases have resulted in death, according to the state dashboard.
No other information about the person whose death was reported Wednesday, such as their age, gender, vaccination status or hometown, was released.
Before the deaths reported Tuesday and Wednesday, 68% of Whatcom County’s 19 epidemiological deaths in August and September were in people 65 and older, according to The Herald’s analysis of the latest age-range data released by the state on Monday, Sept. 20. For the entire pandemic, 85% of Whatcom’s first 130 deaths were in people 65 and older, according to analysis of the state data, which also showed that residents 65 and older accounted for 10.5% of all Whatcom cases through last week.
In August and September there also have been three deaths in Whatcom County of people in the 50-65 age group, two in the 35-49 age group and one in the 20-34 age group, the data shows. The county has not had any deaths of anybody younger than 20 throughout the pandemic.
The latest report on the state dashboard also shows Whatcom County has:
▪ 13,104 confirmed cases during the pandemic — up 35 cases from the last report. That was the smallest reported increase Whatcom has seen since it had eight cases reported Aug. 10.
▪ 959 probable COVID cases during the pandemic — up four from the last report — resulting from positive antigen tests not confirmed by a molecular test.
▪ A 14-day infection rate of 494.3 cases per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological data from Sept. 1-14 — lower than the 532.5 rate one week earlier (Aug. 25 to Sept. 7).
▪ 688 COVID-related hospitalizations during the pandemic — up three from the last report. St. Joseph hospital in Bellingham reported it was treating 28 patients with COVID-related symptoms on Thursday, Sept. 23 — down one from the last report and 12 fewer than the pandemic-high of 40 treated Sept. 11.
▪ A weekly COVID-related hospitalization rate of 13.2 patients per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological hospitalization data from Sept. 7-13 — up from 12.3 a week earlier (Aug. 31-Sept. 6).
▪ The state has stopped updating the number of completed tests until Oct. 31, as it works “to increase its capacity to process the increased testing data volume received in the last few months.”
▪ 253,601 vaccinations administered during the pandemic — up 488 from the last report. The state reports 65.1% of Whatcom County’s total population has initiated vaccination and 59.5% has completed it.
Additionally, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Data Tracker Wednesday 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, and 94.9% of all counties nationwide were “High.”
Whatcom’s COVID variant update
The most active variant in Whatcom County continues to be the delta variant, according to the Washington State Department of Health’s latest SARS-CoV-2 Sequencing and Variants in Washington State report released Wednesday. There were 28 new confirmed delta variant cases reported in the county last week.
Since the delta variant was reported in Whatcom County in the July 6 report by the state, there have been 600 confirmed delta cases in the county according to the state. That represents 72% of the 830 total variant cases reported since then and almost 17% of the 3,586 total confirmed cases reported since then.
Whatcom County also saw its number of alpha or U.K. variant cases decrease by nine (473 total) in the state’s latest report.
Whatcom County has at least one case of nine of the 10 variants currently being tracked in Washington state, but beyond the alpha, delta and gamma (253 total cases) variants, Whatcom has seen fewer than 50 cases of every other variant. A total of 1,392 variants have been reported in Whatcom County, which represents 21% of the 6,635 confirmed cases in the county since the first variant was reported Feb. 23.
Statewide, the report said that 6.7% of all confirmed molecular COVID-19 cases were sequenced during the month of August and 43,170 specimens (7.7% of all confirmed cases) have been sequenced since January.
Statewide, the Department of Health found there have been 2,951 vaccine “breakthrough” cases involving the delta variant, which represents 35% of the 11,240 confirmed delta variant cases in the state.
Whatcom schools COVID update
The Ferndale School District’s COVID-19 Updates page reports that seven students or staff have had a positive test reported to the Whatcom County Health Department in the past seven days, seven of whom were on a school campus during their infectious period.
Western Washington University, which began classes Wednesday, reported that 13,293 students have submitted proof of vaccination, an increase of 764 from last week.
