9 people, 50 or younger, added to Thurston County COVID-19 tally Tuesday
Nine more Thurston County residents have been diagnosed with COVID-19, county Public Health and Social Services announced Tuesday.
All of the latest cases are in people in their 40s or younger, county data show. The nine residents are:
- A boy age 9 or younger;
- A girl between the ages of 10 and 19;
- A man in his 20s;
- Two women in their 30s; and
- Two women and two men in their 40s.
At a county commission work session Tuesday, Thurston County Health Officer Dr. Dimyana Abdelmalek shared trends she’s seeing as she reviews cases. Travel, she said, is “contributing significantly” to cases here — she specifically mentioned that people had traveled outside the state and within the state to areas that have been hit harder by COVID-19 than Thurston.
She said it continues to be true that the illness commonly clusters within households: When one person living in a house contracts the coronavirus, so do others. It also is spreading within family and friend groups through informal gatherings, she said.
Gatherings in all Phase 3 counties, including Thurston, were limited to 10 people as of Monday — with the exception of spiritual services, weddings and funerals — as part of rollbacks introduced by Gov. Jay Inslee because statewide case counts have been on the rise.
Abdelmalek reiterated that people who have symptoms of COVID-19 or who have had close contact with someone with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 should be tested. A “close contact” is defined as being within 6 feet of someone for 15 or more minutes. After getting tested, Abdelmalek said, people should stay home until they get results.
County data shows the percentage of tests coming back positive in recent days is still increasing.
The cumulative percentage of tests that have come back positive rose to 2.4 percent July 17 and stayed there through July 19, the latest date that data is available. Between July 10 and 16, 4.4 percent of tests came back positive, according to The Olympian’s previous reporting. Between July 13 and 19, 4.9 percent of tests were positive.
“In our area, cases do continue to rise and we are reaching out and counting on our public to help us work towards mitigating the spread,” Abdelmalek said Tuesday.
The newest cases push the county’s total to 504 since the first local diagnosis was reported March 11. The total number of people who are considered “recovered” or “recovering” on Tuesday rose by five, to 308.
Of the 504 residents diagnosed, 43 have been hospitalized at some point in their illness and five have died. According to the county’s most recent in-depth report, released Tuesday, 60 percent of residents hospitalized reported an underlying health condition while all who died had an underlying condition.
An updated ZIP code map
The more in-depth report released Tuesday includes statistics current through Sunday, July 19, the last day in a week that saw Thurston County’s biggest one-week tally of new cases yet, with 107.
The updated ZIP code map included in Tuesday’s report shows the following increases over the week prior:
21 new cases in 98503;
- 18 new cases in 98501;
14 new cases in 98513 and 98512;
13 new cases in 98516;
- 9 new cases in 98502;
7 new cases in 98597;
- 4 new cases in 98579 and 98506;
2 new cases in 98589; and
- 1 new case in 98576.
The county also confirmed there was an increase in cases in the ZIP code 98531, meaning residents in every ZIP code in the county have recently been diagnosed. The exact number of cases in 98531 isn’t reflected on the map because there have been fewer than 10 confirmed in that area total, according to the county’s report.
The total increase reflected on the map may not line up with the increase reflected in weekly cases countywide, according to spokesperson Magen Johnson. For one, the county does not include mail-only addresses in the map, and sometimes a person’s ZIP code is collected after their case has already been reported in county numbers.
“The data process for this table is fluid and, as we constantly get new residential ZIP code information, we add it into the table,” Johnson told The Olympian. “It’s not always going to reflect the exact increase in our numbers, but it will be relatively close.”
In the region
- Pierce County confirmed 86 new cases of COVID-19 and one new death. The county has 3,912 cases total and 104 deaths. The latest death was a man in his 80s from East Pierce County with underlying health conditions.
- Lewis County did not announce any new cases Tuesday, leaving its total at 131 cases and three deaths.
- Mason County reported five new cases, bringing their total to 92 cases with one death. The latest cases were in a girl between 19 or younger, two women in their 30s, and a man and woman in their 40s.
- Grays Harbor County has reported 65 cases with one death.
Around the state, nation and world
- Washington State’s Department of Health was reporting 48,575 cases of COVID-19 in the state and 1,465 deaths on Tuesday.
- The U.S. had recorded 3.9 million cases of COVID-19 and 141,883 deaths as of Tuesday, data from Johns Hopkins University show.
- Globally, countries have reported more than 14.8 million cases of COVID-19 and more than 615,000 deaths as of Tuesday.
This story was originally published July 21, 2020 at 6:02 PM.
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