Covid-19 in Whatcom County by school district, February 9

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Whatcom County reached more than 6,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic this week, but case rates continue to drop.

“After a significant decline from a post-holiday peak in mid-January, seven-day case rates have appeared to level off in Whatcom County,” said Whatcom County Health director Erika Lautenbach during a February 4 media briefing. But, she warned, the Covid-19 rates remained higher than neighboring counties in the north region, which will remain in Phase 1 of governor Jay Inslee’s “Roadmap to Recovery” reopening plan until at least Sunday, February 14. The north region didn’t move to the next phase because it had a 69 percent case rate increase – more than triple any other region in the state – and a 16 percent increase in the hospital admission rate. The region met the metrics on percent ICU capacity and percent positivity. 

As of February 8, Whatcom County has had a total of 6,040 confirmed cases of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic and 72 deaths, according to Washington State Department of Health (DOH) data. Seven people have died in the past week and the percent of deaths per total cases is 1.2 percent.

Nearly all school districts saw a drop in case rates, with Nooksack Valley remaining at the same rate of 632 confirmed cases per 100,000 people – the highest in the county. Lynden school district had the second highest rate of new cases in the past two weeks, with 623 confirmed cases per 100,000 people. Blaine had a rate of 296 per 100,000 in that period, which is the third lowest in the county. In total, 304 people have been hospitalized with the virus in Whatcom County.

Whatcom County had a rate of 348.4 newly diagnosed and probable cases per 100,000 people over the past two weeks. In the county, 11.8 percent of adult ICU beds were occupied by Covid-19 patients.

About 18,450 vaccine doses have been administered in the county, which is an increase of 2,686 doses since last week – more than 1,000 fewer doses than administered the previous week. Statewide, there have been 942,166 vaccine doses administered, with 213,530 doses administered in the past week, according to state data. 

About 195,467 people in Washington have received two doses of the vaccine and 741,399 have received only one dose, according to DOH data. However, there are inconsistencies with the data and 5,300 vaccines are not counted as being administered in either the first or second dose.

Washington state has had 307,867 total confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic and 16,158 probable cases (probable cases come from an antigen test but not a molecular test). About 4,558 people in Washington with the virus have died as of February 8 and 18,530 have been hospitalized.

For Whatcom County information, visit whatcomcounty.us/covidvaccine and whatcomcounty.us/coviddata. State information is available at bit.ly/3r2URJj. Vaccine locations can be found at bit.ly/3nZiMqr. For CDC data, visit bit.ly/39Kt4qh.

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