Whatcom County health reports Thursday that 19 residents now being tested for coronavirus
Whatcom County has 19 tests for novel coronavirus with results pending, as of noon Thursday, March 12, according to the Whatcom County Heath Department.
Eighteen earlier tests returned with negative results.
The number of people with pending results was down from the 21 people in Whatcom County who were being tested as of Wednesday, March 11.
Those being tested have symptoms and are in isolation pending their test results.
The Whatcom County Health Department said the number of results that are pending represents people who meet the state Department of Health’s current criteria for priority testing.
Because testing remains limited for now, priority groups include health care workers, close contacts of people with confirmed COVID-19, patients who have severe or worsening respiratory illness, and people who are at high risk for severe illness.
Pending results don’t represent the total number of Whatcom County residents who have been tested because some tests are sent to commercial labs by doctors without consultation with the health department, officials said.
For now, it takes about 48 to 72 hours for test results to come back from the state public health lab in Shoreline, which is where samples approved for testing through the Whatcom County Health Department are being sent.
Whatcom County’s first confirmed case was announced on Tuesday, March 10, and Whatcom County government declared a public health emergency to, in part, help slow the spread of COVID-19.
There has been no confirmed case in Whatcom County since then.
Whatcom COVID-19 case
As for the woman in her 60s who was the first confirmed case of novel coronavirus in Whatcom County, public health officials here said on Thursday that they don’t yet know how she contracted the respiratory illness.
Melissa Morin, spokeswoman for the Whatcom County Health Department, said a team of nurses is still investigating the case.
Once someone has been confirmed for COVID-19 — or any other communicable disease — the team talks to the ill person to determine where they went in the community, where they traveled to, whether they were a close contact of another confirmed case and who else they might have exposed to the virus.
“It really is an investigation. They talk all that through with them to try to understand where they could have been exposed,” Morin said.
A close contact is someone who is within six feet of an ill person for 10 minutes or more.
What’s known so far is that the woman hadn’t traveled internationally. For now, public health officials don’t believe she was the close contact of another confirmed case, Morin said.
She received medical care at PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham until her condition improved and she was discharged. Since that time she has been self-isolating at home.
“As we see this beginning to spread in our region, we’re going to see more community-acquired cases for which we can’t necessarily pinpoint exact exposure for that particular individual,” Morin said. “That’s what happens in outbreaks.”
More than 127,000 cases of the disease have been confirmed worldwide, with more than 4,700 deaths as of Thursday morning, March 12, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has more than 1,323 confirmed cases with at least 38 deaths, most of them in Washington state.
So far, COVID-19 has spread to at least 42 states in the U.S. and the District of Columbia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Washington State Department of Health website reported 31 deaths and 457 confirmed cases in the state as of Thursday afternoon, March 12. Twenty-seven people have died of COVID-19 in King County, three in Snohomish County, and one in Grant County. So far, confirmed cases have been found in Clark, Grant, Grays Harbor, Island, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, Kittitas, Pierce, Skagit, Snohomish, Thurston and Whatcom counties. The list now also includes cases that are unassigned to counties.
About coronavirus
COVID-19, which stands for coronavirus disease 2019, is the name of the illness that first appeared in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, before spreading to other countries, including the U.S. It is caused by a virus named SARS-CoV-2.
The disease is spread through contact between people within six feet of each other — what’s referred to as close contact — especially through coughing and sneezing that expels respiratory droplets that land in the mouths or noses of people nearby.
The CDC says it’s possible to catch COVID-19 by touching something that has the virus on it, and then touching your own face, “but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”
Symptoms — cough, fever, difficulty breathing — may occur two days to two weeks after exposure. Although most of the cases have been mild, the disease is especially dangerous for the elderly and others with weaker immune systems.
Stay informed
▪ https://whatcomcounty.us/ncov. Email general questions about COVID-19 in Whatcom County to covid@co.whatcom.wa.us.
▪ doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus. Call a hotline at 1-800-525-0127 and then press # for questions about what is happening in Washington state, how the virus spreads, and what to do if you have symptoms.
▪ cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html.
▪ cob.org/services/safety/emergencies/Pages/covid-19.aspx
This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 12:00 PM.
