78th Thurston County resident dies due to COVID-19, 10 more cases reported Tuesday
A Thurston County man in his 60s has become the 78th person to die from COVID-19 here, the county reported on Tuesday.
This is the second death caused by COVID-19 this month as another death was reported on Monday.
The county also reported 10 additional COVID-19 cases, bringing Thurston’s total case count to 8,389.
Of that total, 481 people have been hospitalized at some point in their illness and 7,879 cases are considered recovered or recovering, according to Thurston County Public Health and Social Services.
Despite about 36% of the county population having received at least one dose of vaccine, COVID-19 activity in Thurston County continues to rise. The latest available state data indicates the county has a rate of 141.9 cases per 100,000 people over the two-week period from March 29 to April 11.
For comparison, state data shows the county had a case rate of 77 per 100,000 people over the two-week period from March 4 to 17.
Thurston County’s test positivity rate also has risen to 4.3% over the one-week period from March 27 to April 2, according to the latest state data, which is over twice the state goal of 2%, which is the level Thurston County saw in March. The rate has not been 4.3% since the first week of February, per the data.
The county also reported a total of 56 outbreaks at congregate care settings, with five of them ongoing and currently under investigation.
As of Sunday, the five ongoing outbreaks included two at adult family homes, one at a nursing home, one at congregate housing setting and another at a supported living facility.
Outbreaks at such settings, where residents have been eligible for a vaccine for weeks, may be due to people coming and going from those facilities, said PHSS department director Schelli Slaughter during a Board of County Commissioners meeting Tuesday.
“Employees and residents at those facilities frequently come in and out and may not yet have the vaccine,” Slaughter said. “So there are still opportunities for COVID-19 to spread in those types of facilities.”
She added there is also the possibility vaccinated individuals may still get COVID-19. However, she said she does not believe the recent outbreaks have been caused by these so-called breakthrough cases.
State data shows more than 172,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Thurston County so far.
A new worrying trend: Slaughter said there have been 13 new hospitalizations in the region, which includes neighboring counties, over the past week.
In the region
▪ Pierce County confirmed 207 new COVID-19 cases and three new deaths on Tuesday, bringing its totals to 42,253 cases and 527 deaths.
▪ Grays Harbor County had reported 3,685 confirmed and probable cases and 61 deaths as of Tuesday.
▪ Lewis County Public Health & Social Services reported six additional cases and two deaths on Tuesday. In all, the county has reported 3,550 cases and 58 deaths.
▪ Mason County had reported three new cases on Tuesday, for a total of 1,924 cases with 29 deaths.
In the state, nation and world
The state Department of Health has reported a total of 388,718 COVID-19 cases and 5,407 deaths as of Tuesday.
In the U.S., over 31.8 million cases had been reported as of Tuesday with more than 568,400 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Globally, over 142.6 million cases had been reported Tuesday with 3.04 million deaths.
This story was originally published April 21, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
