Whatcom sees 2 deaths, bump in COVID vaccine boosters
Whatcom County saw 136 new COVID-19 cases and two related deaths reported in the last two days, according to the Washington State Department of Health’s COVID-19 Data Dashboard on Thursday, Dec. 2.
The state had technical issues and did not report data Wednesday, Dec. 1.
The deaths were the 176th and 177th related to COVID-19 during the pandemic in Whatcom County.
The deaths were for people who first tested positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 7 and Nov. 19, according to The Bellingham Herald’s analysis of the state’s epidemiological data, making them the fourth and fifth deaths epidemiologically linked to the month of November. There have now been 65 deaths in the county since Aug. 1.
No other information about the people who died, such as their age, gender, vaccination status or hometown, was reported.
Vaccine booster update
Whatcom vaccine providers are seeing increased demand for boosters, as the CDC expanded its guidance on Monday, Nov. 29, to recommend that everyone over 18 get COVID-19 booster shots, according to Lynn Pittsinger, public health nurse supervisor with the Whatcom County Health Department. The new variant may also be a factor in this demand.
“Because the news about the Omicron variant broke over the holiday weekend, we think we’ll have a better sense of whether booster uptake is changing next week, when there’s been a full week of data after the Omicron announcement,” according to Amy Hockenberry, health information and assessment supervisor.
Washington state has seen a 30% increase in the number of calls on the state’s vaccine hotline compared to recent weeks and a 75% increase in visits to the state online vaccine finder, Secretary of Health Dr. Umair A. Shah said during a news briefing Thursday afternoon.
The state has received an additional 30,000 vaccine doses in its quota from the federal government, Gov. Jay Inslee said at the briefing, and it has requested an additional 80,000 doses on top of that in upcoming weeks.
Inslee urged Washington residents seeking the vaccine to realize it may take some time and effort to schedule vaccination appointments due to that increased demand, but to “keep at it — hours don’t count, but weeks do when it comes to booster shots.”
More Whatcom COVID data
Thursday’s report on the state dashboard also shows Whatcom County has:
▪ 16,997 confirmed cases during the pandemic — up 136 cases from the last report.
▪ 1,468 probable COVID cases during the pandemic — up 21 from the last report — resulting from positive antigen tests not confirmed by a molecular test.
▪ 952 COVID-related hospitalizations during the pandemic — up 12 from the last report. St. Joseph hospital in Bellingham reported Friday, Dec. 3, it was treating 32 patients with COVID-related symptoms — up one from its last report.
▪ 348,103 total tests (molecular and antigen combined). The state reported that an “unexpected delay” has once again delayed the resumption of its reporting of testing data until approximately Dec. 30.
▪ 302,090 vaccinations administered during the pandemic — up 1,442 from the last report. The state reports 68.1% of Whatcom County’s total population has initiated vaccination and 62.8% 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. Twenty-two of the 39 counties in Washington state were listed in the “High” transmission category.
This story was originally published December 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
