Whatcom County sees another COVID-related death but no new omicron variant cases reported
Whatcom County had one new COVID-related death but no new cases of the omicron variant were reported by the Washington Stated Department of Health’s COVID-19 Data Dashboard on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Whatcom County Health Department told The Bellingham Herald Tuesday that it believes the county may not see a post-Thanksgiving surge in COVID-19 cases this year.
Instead, Whatcom saw only a slight bump in case numbers, and it may not be attributable solely to Thanksgiving gatherings.
“I would say, no, we did not see a surge,” Whatcom County Health Department Health Information and Assessment Supervisor Amy Hockenberry said in a statement emailed to The Herald. “We did see a slight increase in cases post-holiday, but last week the daily case counts started to decline again.
“It is hard to definitively attribute the increase to the holiday as we had the additional factors of the floods and holiday closures that impacted access to testing in prior weeks.”
Whatcom variant update
Whatcom County had no new omicron variant cases reported in the Department of Health’s latest SARS-CoV-2 Sequencing and Variants in Washington State report released Wednesday. The county’s first and only confirmed omicron case was reported by the county health department on Dec. 10.
Statewide, 10 confirmed omicron cases have been reported, according to the report.
But the state’s latest variant report showed Whatcom had 355 new confirmed cases of the delta variant — the only other “Variant of Concern” being monitored by the state. Whatcom has now had 1,718 confirmed delta cases since the first case was reported July 6. Those 1,718 cases represent 21% of the 8,109 total cases reported in the county since July 6.
Whatcom County has at least one case of seven of the eight “Variants being Monitored” by the state. But beyond the delta, alpha (476 total cases) and gamma (255 total cases), Whatcom has seen fewer than 50 cases of every other variant.
Whatcom’s 2,522 total variant cases, represents 23% of the 11,158 confirmed cases in the county since the first variant was reported Feb. 23.
Statewide, the report said that 9.7% of all confirmed molecular COVID-19 cases were sequenced during the month of November and 54,624 specimens (12.3% of all confirmed cases) have been sequenced since January, meaning variant counts are likely much higher.
Statewide, the Department of Health found there have been 9,266 vaccine “breakthrough” cases involving the delta variant, which represents 29% of the 32,097 confirmed delta variant cases in the state. Three of the 10 confirmed omicron cases in the state have been vaccine “breakthroughs.”
COVID-related death reported
The COVID-related death reported Wednesday by the state brought the county’s pandemic total to 184.
The death was for a person who first tested positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 21, The Bellingham Herald’s analysis of the state’s epidemiological data found, bringing the county’s epidemiological death total for November to 11.
Since Aug. 1 when the delta surge first began to impact Whatcom, there have been 72 epidemiological deaths, The Herald found, which is 39% of the county’s pandemic total.
With 8,751 total cases (confirmed and probable combined) in the county since Aug. 1, Whatcom has seen 0.8% of cases during that time frame result in death, The Herald’s analysis showed. That is better than the county’s pandemic death average of 1.0%, according to the state’s data, and the statewide 1.2% rate for the pandemic.
No other information about the person whose death was reported Wednesday, such as their age, gender, vaccination status or hometown, was reported.
Before the death reported Wednesday, 76% of Whatcom’s 71 deaths since Aug. 1 were in people 65 and older, according to The Herald’s analysis of the latest age-range data released by the state on Monday, Dec. 13. An additional eight deaths (11%) were in people between 50 and 64, while seven (10%) were in people between 35 and 49.
Not counting the death reported Wednesday where the age has not yet been reported, no COVID-related deaths have been seen in any Whatcom residents younger than 30 during the pandemic, according to data released by the Whatcom County Health Department.
Before the two deaths reported this week, there were 57 COVID-related deaths in unvaccinated or partially vaccinated Whatcom County residents between Feb. 1 and Dec. 4, including 30 since Aug. 22, according to The Herald’s analysis of the latest data released Friday, Dec. 10, by the Whatcom County Health Department. For comparison, there were 23 deaths of fully vaccinated residents between Feb. 1 and Dec. 10, including 18 since Aug. 22.
Other Whatcom COVID data
Tuesday’s report on the state dashboard also shows Whatcom County has:
▪ 17,633 confirmed cases during the pandemic — up 41 from the last report.
▪ 1,531 probable COVID cases during the pandemic — up 10 from the last report — resulting from positive antigen tests not confirmed by a molecular test.
▪ A weekly infection rate of 196 cases per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological data Nov. 30 to Dec. 6 — up from 153 one week earlier (Nov. 23-29).
▪ 991 COVID-related hospitalizations during the pandemic — up three from the last report. St. Joseph hospital in Bellingham reported it was treating 27 patients with COVID-related symptoms on Thursday — up two from its last report.
▪ A weekly COVID-related hospitalization rate of 12.7 patients per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological hospitalization data from Nov. 30 to Dec. 6 — up from 10.1 a week earlier (Nov. 23-29).
▪ 348,103 total tests (molecular and antigen combined). The state reported that an “unexpected delay” has once again pushed back the resumption of its reporting of testing data until approximately Dec. 30.
▪ 318,138 vaccinations administered during the pandemic — up 1,113 from the last report. The state reports 68.7% of Whatcom County’s total population has initiated vaccination and 63.4% has completed it. The state also reports Whatcom has administered 45,609 “additional doses,” which includes third doses for immunocompromised residents and booster doses.
Additionally, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Data Tracker Thursday listed Whatcom’s level of transmission as “High” — the highest of four categories. Thirty-one of the 39 counties in Washington state were listed in the “High” transmission category.
Whatcom schools COVID update
The COVID-19 dashboards on Whatcom County school district websites showed:
▪ Bellingham Public Schools has reported 170 total COVID-19 cases in its schools this school year. No new cases were listed Wednesday.
▪ Blaine School District has reported 187 total COVID-19 cases in its schools this school year. No new reported cases since Dec. 5 have been listed.
▪ Lynden School District has reported 281 total COVID-19 cases in its schools this school year, including 20 new cases listed Wednesday. Those included 13 cases reported between Nov. 29 and Dec. 3 at Bernice Vossbeck Elementary (one case), Fisher Elementary (four cases), Lynden Middle School (three cases) and Lynden High (five cases); and seven cases reported Dec. 6 to 10 at Bernice Vossbeck Elementary (two cases), Fisher Elementary (one case), Lynden Middle School (one case), Lynden High (two cases) and the preschool (one case).
▪ Meridian School District has reported 85 COVID-19 cases in its schools this school year. No new reported cases since Dec. 12 have been listed.
▪ Mount Baker School District has reported 43 COVID-19 cases in its schools this school year. No new reported cases since Nov. 24 have been listed.
▪ Nooksack Valley School District has reported 30 COVID-19 cases in its schools since Oct. 31, including four new cases listed Wednesday that were reported between Dec. 5 and 11: two cases at Nooksack Middle School, one case at Nooksack Elementary and one case at Everson Elementary.
▪ Ferndale School District reported Wednesday that five students or staff have had a positive test reported to the Whatcom County Health Department in the past seven days — down three from the last report. Four of those people were on a school campus during their infectious period.
This story was originally published December 16, 2021 at 9:21 AM.
