COVID-19 case rates increasing in Whatcom County schools, state reports 5 more deaths
COVID-19 case rates in Whatcom County schools more than tripled the week after Spring Break compared to rates before the break, and they have continued to climb.
Though the Mount Baker School District has not yet updated its COVID-19 dashboard with data from the week of April 10-16, the six other school districts in the county reported a total 80 COVID cases that week. Based on student enrollment, that works out to approximately 4.0 cases per 1,000 students, The Bellingham Herald’s analysis found.
That’s the highest rate county schools have seen since they averaged 4.9 cases per 1,000 students the week of Feb. 13-19.
The week before Spring Break (March 27 to April 2), all seven school districts reported 26 total cases, or approximately 1.2 per 1,000 students.
There have been 98 cases reported so far last week, with just the Bellingham and Ferndale school districts reporting, which works out to a rate of 9.5 cases per 1,000 students in those two districts.
The Herald asked the Whatcom County Health Department on Friday, April 22, if the increased numbers in schools was reason for concern or if they had any advice for parents, but has not yet heard back.
Since returning from winter break, the seven districts have reported a total of 3,531 cases, or a weekly rate of approximately 10.7 cases per 1,000 students.
The COVID-19 dashboards on Whatcom County school district websites showed:
▪ Bellingham Public Schools has reported 1,057 total COVID-19 cases in its schools since winter break, or a weekly rate of 12.9 cases per 1,000 students, according to The Herald’s analysis. The district reported 30 cases the week of April 10-16, which was up 21 from two weeks before.
▪ Blaine School District has reported 581 total COVID-19 cases in its schools since winter break, or a weekly rate of 26.7 cases per 1,000 students, according to The Herald’s analysis. The district reported 27 cases the week of April 10-16, which was up 24 from two weeks before.
▪ Lynden School District has reported 407 total COVID-19 cases in its schools since winter break, or a weekly rate of 8.6 cases per 1,000 students, according to The Herald’s analysis. The district reported six cases the week of April-16, which was up five from two weeks before.
▪ Meridian School District has reported 363 COVID-19 cases in its schools since winter break, or a weekly rate of 14.2 cases per 1,000 students, according to The Herald’s analysis. The district reported three cases the week of April 10-16, after it reported no cases two weeks earlier.
▪ Mount Baker School District has reported 297 COVID-19 cases in its schools since winter break, or a weekly rate of 12.3 cases per 1,000 students, according to The Herald’s analysis. The district has not reported any new cases since April 1.
▪ Nooksack Valley School District has reported 349 cases in its schools since winter break, or a weekly rate of 12.6 cases per 1,000 students, according to The Herald’s analysis. The district reported it had no cases the week of April 10-16, matching its report from two weeks earlier.
▪ Ferndale School District reported Monday April 25, that 17 students or staff had positive COVID-19 tests reported to the Whatcom County Health Department, which was up from the eight it reported on April 18.
Whatcom sees 5 COVID deaths
The Washington State Department of Health COVID-19 Data Dashboard reported five deaths of Whatcom County residents related to COVID-19 last week — the county’s highest weekly total since eight deaths were reported the week of March 13-19.
Two of the deaths reported last week were for residents who first tested positive for COVID-19 on April 5 and April 17, The Herald’s analysis of state epidemiological data showed, making them the first COVID-related deaths this month.
The other three deaths reported last week were of Whatcom residents who first tested positive on Dec. 21, Jan. 13 and March 18, The Herald found.
Whatcom County has now had 71 COVID-related deaths epidemiologically linked to 2022, after 164 were linked to all of 2021.
As of Thursday, April 21, the Whatcom County Health Department reported that there had been 36 deaths of unvaccinated residents, 24 deaths of fully vaccinated residents and fewer than 10 deaths of fully vaccinated residents who received a booster. To protect medical privacy, the health department does not report exact data of fewer than 10.
Other Whatcom COVID data
After seeing its number of COVID-related patients increase to a high of seven on Thursday, April 21, St. Joseph’s hospital in Bellingham reported that number has steadily decreased and stood at four patients as of Monday morning, April 25.
Over the past week (April 19-25), the hospital’s daily snapshot averaged 5.6 COVID-related patients, which represents 2.2% of its 252 total inpatient beds. That average is up from 1.9 patients per day a week earlier (April 12-18).
The latest report on the state dashboard, which is updated on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, shows Whatcom County has:
▪ 33,274 confirmed cases during the pandemic — up 179 cases from last week. Whatcom had 205 confirmed cases reported the week before.
▪ 4,603 additional probable COVID cases during the pandemic — up 40 cases from last week — resulting from positive antigen tests not confirmed by a molecular test. Whatcom had 24 probable cases reported the week before.
▪ A weekly infection rate of 95 cases per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological data April 7-13 — up from 64 one week earlier (March 31 to April 6).
▪ 1,539 COVID-related hospitalizations during the pandemic — up eight from last week. Whatcom had five COVID-related hospitalizations reported the week before.
▪ A weekly COVID-related hospitalization rate of 1.8 patients per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological hospitalization data April 7-13 — down from 2.2 from a week earlier (March 31 to April 6).
▪ 3216 tests (molecular and antigen combined) completed during the most recently completed epidemiological data April 6-12, with 7.0% of the tests returning a positive result. A week earlier (March 30 to April 5) the state reported 3,267 tests completed and 3.8% 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.
▪ 928 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 20. That was an increase of three omicron cases and no delta cases since last week’s report, though, with just 18.5% of all confirmed COVID cases in the state sequenced during the month of March, those numbers are likely much higher.
▪ 381,237 vaccinations administered during the pandemic — an increase of 3,065 from last week. Whatcom had 3,146 administered vaccine doses reported the week before. The state reports 75.1% of Whatcom County’s total population has initiated vaccination and 68.7% has completed it.
▪ 89,081 booster vaccine doses administered, meaning 61.4% of Whatcom’s residents eligible to receive a booster dose have done so.
