Whatcom County surpasses 37,000 total COVID-19 cases during pandemic and adds a death
Whatcom County surpassed 37,000 total COVID-19 cases during the pandemic and had a new COVID-related death reported by the state in Wednesday’s update.
The county now has had 37,040 total COVID cases (confirmed and probable combined), which have resulted in 287 deaths, the Washington State Department of Health COVID-19 Data Dashboard reported on March 23.
The new death replaces one that was taken away in Monday’s update, after the state reconciled and adjusted data.
The death reported Wednesday was for a person who first tested positive for COVID on Dec. 28, The Bellingham Herald’s analysis of state epidemiological data showed, making it the 30th death epidemiologically linked to December. So far there have been 61 deaths epidemiologically linked to 2022, including one in March.
With 15,655 total cases in the county since so far this year Whatcom has seen 0.4% of cases during that time frame result in death, The Herald’s analysis showed. That is better than the county’s total pandemic death average of 0.8% of cases.
No other information about the person whose death was reported Wednesday, such as their age, gender, vaccination status or hometown, was reported.
Through data reported by the Whatcom County Health Department Thursday, March 17, 87% of the first 281 COVID-related deaths in the county were in residents 60 and older, including 133 deaths in residents 80 and older. The data also shows Whatcom has had one death of a person between 10 and 19, six deaths of people in their 30s and 15 in their 40s.
The county health department has not updated vaccine breakthrough death totals in recent weeks, but between Aug. 22, 2021, and Feb. 12, approximately 61% of deaths were among the county’s unvaccinated residents.
Whatcom’s latest COVID data
Whatcom saw 57 total new COVID cases reported Wednesday, which was enough to push its pandemic total past 37,000.
Meanwhile, St. Joseph hospital in Bellingham reported it was treating six COVID-related patients Thursday, March 24, which was unchanged from Wednesday’s report and down one from Tuesday. Over the past week, the hospital’s daily snapshot of COVID-related patients is 5.3 per day, which represents 2.1% of the 252 inpatient beds at the hospital.
The latest report on the state dashboard, which is updated on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, also shows Whatcom has:
▪ 32,533 confirmed cases during the pandemic — up 47 from the last report.
▪ 4,507 additional 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 57 cases per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological data March 8-14 — down from 80 one week earlier (March 1-7).
▪ 1,510 COVID-related hospitalizations during the pandemic — up eight from the last report.
▪ A weekly COVID-related hospitalization rate of 4.4 new patients per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological hospitalization data March 8-14 — down from 4.8 from a week earlier (March 1-7).
▪ 370,486 vaccinations administered during the pandemic — up 154 from the last report. The state reports 74.7% of Whatcom County’s total population has initiated vaccination and 68.3% has completed it.
▪ 86,999 booster vaccine doses administered and 60.9% of Whatcom’s residents eligible to receive a booster dose have done so.
▪ 845 confirmed omicron variant cases and 2,095 confirmed delta variant cases, according to the weekly SARS-CoV-2 Sequencing and Variants in Washington State released Wednesday. That was an increase of 29 omicron cases and 13 delta case since last week’s report, though with just 8.7% of all confirmed COVID cases in the state sequenced during the month of February, those numbers are likely much higher. The report provided no data concerning the omicron subvariant (BA.2).
