Bellingham hospital reports 45% increase in COVID patients with record number over weekend
St. Joseph’s hospital in Bellingham reported that it treated a pandemic record 61 patients for symptoms related to COVID-19 over the weekend.
That snapshot of 61 COVID-related patients Sunday, Jan. 9, was a 45% jump from the 42 patients the hospital reported on Friday. It also broke previous pandemic record of 48 seen earlier last week and again on Saturday, Jan. 8.
The number of COVID-related hospitalizations dropped to 58 on Monday, Jan. 10, the hospital reported.
Despite the rapid increase in cases and hospitalizations likely fueled by the omicron variant, PeaceHealth Northwest Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sudhakar Karlapudi said the hospital has been preparing contingencies for increases such as this throughout the pandemic.
Last week the hospital reported that it was examining all scheduled surgeries to see which ones could be rescheduled and increasing the bed space in the COVID unit at the hospital to handle the increased patients.
“I think a lot of the plans we have put in place ... omicron might make us implement them,” Dr. Karlapudi told The Herald. “I think omicron is challenging every other system. It will challenge any institution that depends on people to do their work, because it has affected so many people in our community so quickly, and that is why we are seeing schools being closed and other establishments being severely limited because of the staffing challenge that omicron is going to cause.”
With eight new COVID-related hospitalizations reported on the Washington State Department of Health’s COVID-19 Data Dashboard Friday, Whatcom County had a total of 45 reported last week. That was a pandemic high, beating out the 40 reported between Sept. 5 and 11.
Whatcom County has a weekly COVID-related hospitalization rate of 10.1 patients per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed data from Dec. 23 to 29, according to the state, which is up from 7.9 one week earlier (Dec. 16-22). It is the first time Whatcom has reached double digits since it had a rate of 12.7 from Dec. 1-7, and incomplete data shows the weekly rate could rise to as high as 16.7 hospitalizations per 100,000 residents later this week.
Whatcom has the 18th-highest weekly hospitalization rate among the state’s 39 counties, according to the state dashboard.
Whatcom’s COVID breakthrough data
Six of the seven COVID-related deaths between Dec. 24 and Jan. 1 were among unvaccinated or partially vaccinated residents, according to the Whatcom County Health Department’s latest COVID-19 Data Report.
Among the deaths were:
▪ One unvaccinated man in his 40s.
▪ One unvaccinated man in his 50s.
▪ One unvaccinated man in his 60s.
▪ Two unvaccinated men in their 70s.
▪ One unvaccinated woman in her 70s.
▪ One vaccinated woman between 100 and 109 years old.
Since Aug. 22, 66% of Whatcom County’s 67 COVID-related deaths have been unvaccinated or partially vaccinated residents, The Bellingham Herald’s analysis of the county’s data found.
The county also reported that 15 of Whatcom’s 21 COVID-related hospitalizations (71%) between Dec. 26 and Jan. 1 were among unvaccinated or partially vaccinated residents. Since Aug. 22, 82% of the county’s 446 hospitalizations have been among unvaccinated or partially vaccinated residents, The Herald’s analysis found.
Case-wise, the country reported that there were 578 positive tests among Whatcom’s vaccinated population between Dec. 26 and Jan. 1.
Based on the 144,906 residents in the county who would have been fully vaccinated by Dec. 26, according to previous reports on the state dashboard, that works out to a weekly infection rate of 399 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 vaccinated residents, The Herald’s analysis found.
That was still less than half the infection rate for unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, The Herald’s analysis found. The county reported 806 cases among that segment of the population, which worked out to a weekly infection rate of 962 cases per 100,000 residents.
Since Aug. 22, 71% of Whatcom’s 9,515 COVID-19 cases have been among unvaccinated or partially vaccinated residents, The Herald found.
As of Friday, the state reported that 336,441 vaccinations have been administered in Whatcom County — an increase of 5,951 reported doses last week — and that 69.6% of Whatcom’s total population had initiated vaccination and 63.9% has completed it. The state also reported 61,721 additional doses, which include extra doses administered to immunocompromised residents and booster shots, have been administered in the county.
More Whatcom numbers
Whatcom County more than tripled its week-old record for the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases reported in a week by the state with 2,069 reported last week. The previous record was 661 confirmed cases reported Dec. 26 through Jan. 1.
With 370 new cases reported by the state on Friday, Whatcom County now has a pandemic total of 20,755 confirmed cases.
Other weekly Whatcom County COVID based on data released Friday on the state dashboard shows that:
▪ With an additional 82 probable cases reported Friday, Whatcom had 319 reported last week resulting from a positive antigen test not confirmed by a molecular test. That was 280 more than the week before and brought the county’s pandemic total to 1,941.
▪ Whatcom’s weekly infection rate stands at 464 cases per 100,000 residents based on the state’s most recently completed data from Dec. 23-29, which is up from 233 the week before (Dec. 16-22). Whatcom has the seventh-highest weekly infection rate of the 39 counties in the state, according to the state dashboard.
▪ The state is still working “to increase its capacity to process the increased testing data volume received in the last few months” by Feb. 28.
▪ The statewide Effective Reproductive Number (R-effective) show that each person who tests positive for COVID-19 is estimated to infect 2.03 others as of Dec. 18, which is up from 1.24 on Dec. 4. Anything above 1.0 means that transmission of the disease is increasing.s
The CDC’s COVID Data Tracker on Monday continued to list the level of transmission in Whatcom County as “High” (the highest of four classifications). All of Washington state’s 39 counties and 99% of counties nationwide are listed in the “High” category.
