Bellingham hospital reports record-high COVID patient load, as Whatcom sees another death
Bad news came in threes for Whatcom County, as it continued to try to fight its way free from the grips of the latest surge of COVID-19:
▪ The county had its 12th-straight triple-digit weekend increase in COVID cases reported by the Washington State Department of Health’s COVID-19 Data Dashboard on Monday, Oct. 25.
▪ It also had its 155th COVID-related death of the pandemic reported by the state on Monday.
▪ St. Joseph hospital in Bellingham reported a new record high for COVID-related patients it was treating during the pandemic, with 42 reported Tuesday, Oct. 26.
Whatcom’s weekend COVID case data
Whatcom saw 174 new confirmed COVID cases reported by the state on Monday, upping its pandemic total to 14,967 confirmed cases.
An additional 1,224 probable cases, resulting from a positive antigen test not confirmed by a molecular test, were reported by the state. That was an increase of eight from the previous report on Friday.
In the 12 weeks since the week of Aug. 8, Whatcom has averaged 147 confirmed cases in the state’s weekend reports, which generally include data from the previous Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Whatcom’s 14-day infection rate stands at 355 cases per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological data from Oct. 3-16, according to the dashboard, which is down from 395 one week earlier (Sept. 26-Oct. 9).
Whatcom’s latest COVID-related death
The death that was reported Monday was for a person who first tested positive for COVID-19 on Oct. 18, according to The Bellingham Herald’s analysis of the state’s epidemiological data.
They were the second person, so far, to die after first testing positive during the month of October, after there were 21 in August and 20 in September.
Based on the latest age-range data released by the state on Monday, the person was 80 years old or older, but no other information, such as the person’s gender, hometown or vaccination status, could be determined from the data that was released.
With 5,776 total cases (confirmed and probable combined) in August, September and October, according to analysis of the state’s epidemiological data, 0.7% of all Whatcom County cases during that time frame resulted in death. That is better than the county’s pandemic death rate of 1.0% cases resulting in death and the statewide average of 1.2%, according to the state dashboard.
Including the death that was reported Monday, 56% of Whatcom’s deaths (87 deaths) during the pandemic have been in residents 80 or older, including 42% (18 deaths) of the 43 in the past three months.
Before the death reported Monday, there were 45 COVID-related deaths in unvaccinated or partially vaccinated Whatcom County residents between Feb. 1 and Oct. 16, according to data released by the Whatcom County Health Department on Friday, Oct. 22, compared to 16 deaths of fully vaccinated residents during that same time frame.
Record COVID hospital patients
Before the 42 COVID-related patients reported Tuesday, the previous record at St. Joseph’s hospital was 40 reported on Sept. 11.
The 42 reported Tuesday were an increase of seven from the 35 reported on Monday.
The state data included 12 new COVID-related hospitalizations over the weekend, as Whatcom’s pandemic total increased to 801.
The county’s weekly COVID-related hospitalization rate stands at 9.7 patients per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological hospitalization data from Oct. 10-16— down from 11.4 from a week earlier (Oct. 3-9).
Whatcom’s other COVID numbers
The latest report on the state dashboard also shows Whatcom County has:
▪ 270,724 vaccinations administered during the pandemic — up 403 from the last report. The state reports 66.6% of Whatcom County’s total population has initiated vaccination and 61.5% has completed it.
Additionally, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Data Tracker Tuesday 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 79.0% of all counties nationwide were “High.”
Whatcom schools COVID update
The COVID-19 dashboards on Whatcom County school district websites showed:
▪ Bellingham Public Schools has reported 92 total COVID-19 cases in its schools this school year, including nine new cases reported Monday that all had a possible exposure window of Oct. 18-22: one case at Alderwood Elementary, one case at Bellingham High, two cases at Cordata Elementary, one case at Kulshan Middle School, one case at Shuksan Middle School, one case at a non-school site and two cases at Squalicum High School. Close contacts of all cases have been notified, according to the dashboard.
▪ Blaine School District has reported 82 total COVID-19 cases in its schools this school year. It listed no new cases Monday.
▪ Lynden School District has reported 140 total COVID-19 cases in its schools this school year. It listed no new cases Monday.
▪ Meridian School District has reported 21 COVID-19 cases in its schools this school year. It listed no new cases Monday.
▪ Mount Baker School District has reported 26 COVID-19 cases in its schools this school year. No new cases were reported Monday.
▪ Ferndale School District reports that as of Monday, 11 students or staff have had a positive test reported to the Whatcom County Health Department in the past seven days — an increase from eight in the last report. Six of those people were on a school campus during their infectious period.
COVID case information could not be found on the Nooksack Valley School District website.
Western Washington University reported that it has 76 students and four employees test positive for COVID during the school year so far, including 10 students and one employee Oct. 18-24.
