Bellingham hospital hits COVID milestone, while Whatcom reaches vaccination mark
For the first time in more than a year and a half, St. Joseph’s hospital in Bellingham reported it was treating no patients for COVID-related symptoms on Friday, April 15.
It matched the feat on Saturday, April 16, though the daily snapshot increased to four COVID-related patients on Sunday, April 17, and five on Monday, April 18.
Friday and Saturday marked the first time the hospital has reported zero COVID-related patients since Sept. 28, 2020 — a stretch of 565 days, according to Bellingham Herald records.
Over the past week, the hospital’s daily snapshot has averaged 1.9 COVID-related patients, which is down from 3.9 one week earlier (April 5-11) and represents 0.7% of the hospital’s 252 total inpatient beds.
Overall, Whatcom County had 229 total new COVID-19 cases (confirmed and probable combined) reported by the Washington State Department of Health COVID-19 Data Dashboard last week. That was up slightly from the 203 total cases reported the week before and upped the county’s pandemic total to 37,658 cases as of Friday.
Whatcom also had five new COVID-related hospitalizations and one new COVID-releated death reported last week, upping its pandemic totals to 1,531 hospitalizations and 293 deaths.
The latest reported death was for a Whatcom County resident who first tested positive for COVID on Feb. 15, The Bellingham Herald’s analysis of the state’s epidemiological data found, making it the 16th COVID-related death epidemiologically linked to February and the 67th so far in 2022. No other information about the person who died, such as their age, vaccination status or hometown, was released.
Other Whatcom COVID numbers
Whatcom County reached a vaccination milestone Friday, as 75% of all residents have now initiated vaccination, the state reported. Additionally, 68.6% of all Whatcom residents have completed vaccination.
The latest report on the state dashboard, which is updated on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, shows Whatcom County has:
▪ 33,095 confirmed cases during the pandemic — up 205 cases from last week. Whatcom had 191 confirmed cases reported the week before.
▪ 4,563 additional probable COVID cases during the pandemic — up 24 cases from last week — resulting from positive antigen tests not confirmed by a molecular test. Whatcom had 12 probable cases reported the week before.
▪ A weekly infection rate of 64 cases per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological data March 31 to April 6 — up from 58 one week earlier (March 24-30).
▪ A weekly COVID-related hospitalization rate of 2.2 patients per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological hospitalization data March 31 to April 6 — up from 1.8 from a week earlier (March 24-30).
▪ 5,600 tests (molecular and antigen combined) completed during the most recently completed epidemiological data March 23-29, with 2.6% of the tests returning a positive result. A week earlier (March 16-22) the state reported 5,933 tests completed and 2.2% returning positive results. The state’s data does not include at-home rapid tests that were not reported. No new data was released last week due to “technical issues,” according to the state dashboard.
▪ 925 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, April 13. That was an increase of 44 omicron cases and no delta cases since last week’s report, though, with just 15% of all confirmed COVID cases in the state sequenced during the month of March, those numbers are likely much higher.
▪ 378,172 vaccinations administered during the pandemic — an increase of 3,146 from last week. Whatcom had 3,459 administered vaccine doses reported the week before.
▪ 88,674 booster vaccine doses administered, meaning 61.3% of Whatcom’s residents eligible to receive a booster dose have done so.
With Spring Break, Whatcom County school districts did not report any COVID-19 cases the week of April 3-9, though 28 have already been reported for the week of April 10-16 by the Bellingham and Ferndale school districts. All seven Whatcom school districts combined to report 26 cases (or approximately 1.2 cases per 1,000 students) the week of March 27 to April 2.
