Whatcom’s COVID infection rate drops below 100, but hospitalization rate slowly climbing
Though Whatcom County’s weekly COVID-19 infection rate officially dropped out of triple digits Monday and no new deaths were reported over the weekend, the state reported one number worthy of keeping an eye on.
Whatcom County’s weekly COVID-related hospitalization rate climbed to 8.3 patients per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological data from Feb. 27 through March 5, the Washington State Department of Health COVID-19 Data Dashboard reported on Monday, March 14.
That is nearly double the 4.8 rate from one week earlier (Feb. 20-26), and is inching closer to the 10 patients per 100,000 weekly benchmark the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses to determine whether Whatcom will remain in the “low” community level designation or rise to “medium” recommended guidelines.
The county’s increased hospitalization rate was not seen in the daily snapshot at St. Joseph hospital in Bellingham, as it reported it was still treating four COVID-related patients on Tuesday, March 15 — unchanged from Monday’s report. In the past seven days, the hospital’s daily snapshot has averaged 5.3 COVID patients per day.
Whatcom had 52 total new cases reported on the state dashboard on Monday.
The latest report on the state dashboard, which is updated on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, also shows Whatcom County has:
▪ 32,321 confirmed cases during the pandemic — up 43 from the last report.
▪ 4,478 additional probable COVID cases during the pandemic — up nine from the last report — resulting from positive antigen tests not confirmed by a molecular test.
▪ A weekly infection rate of 96 cases per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological data Feb. 27 to March 5 — down from 125 one week earlier (Feb. 20-26).
▪ 1,474 COVID-related hospitalizations during the pandemic — up six from the last report.
▪ 279 COVID-related deaths during the pandemic — unchanged from the last report.
▪ 369,522 vaccinations administered during the pandemic — up 408 from the last report. The state reports 74.6% of Whatcom County’s total population has initiated vaccination and 68.2% has completed it.
▪ 86,427 booster vaccine doses administered and 60.8% of Whatcom’s residents to receive a booster dose have done so.
