Thurston County confirms fourth COVID-19 outbreak at jail
Two staff and four incarcerated individuals have tested positive for COVID-19 in another outbreak at the Thurston County Correctional Facility, according to Public Health and Social Services.
PHSS started testing staff and inmates soon after being notified of the first case on July 21, wrote county spokesperson Magen Johnson. Those who have tested positive were isolated and close contacts were quarantined, she added.
Staff conducted another round of testing on June 28, but found no additional cases, Johnson shared on Tuesday. Most of the cases were in unvaccinated individuals, she added.
This is the fourth outbreak at the county jail since August 2020. The last outbreak, which occurred in June, resulted in five staff and no inmates testing positive for COVID-19, according to Johnson. No deaths were associated with that outbreak.
Sheriff John Snaza acknowledged the most recent outbreak on Friday. He told The Olympian two vaccinated deputies tested positive, but they returned to work after isolating for at least 10 days.
As for the four inmates who tested positive, Snaza said his staff had informed him that there are “no complaints and they were doing fine.”
Snaza said all new inmates are tested for COVID-19 and offered a vaccine if they haven’t been vaccinated before. He said his medical staff informed him that about 44% of inmates have gotten vaccinated.
PHSS is currently investigating three COVID-19 outbreaks at congregate care settings in Thurston County, including the one at the jail, according to a weekly report published Tuesday. The other two are at an assisted living facility and a community housing facility.
In all, there have been 65 COVID-19 facility outbreaks in Thurston County since March 2020. PHSS closes outbreaks if the setting has seen no new cases for 28 days, The Olympian previously reported.
Cases in vaccinated versus unvaccinated individuals
A state report published on July 28 indicates 97.4% of new COVID-19 cases between February and June were in those people who are not fully vaccinated.
Meanwhile, 96% of hospitalizations and 94.3% of deaths related to COVID-19 cases were in those not fully vaccinated, per the report.
When asked if Thurston County’s Public Health and Social Services department tracks cases by vaccination status on a local level, Johnson pointed to the state data and said it mirrored the situation in Thurston County.
There have been 4,241 so-called breakthrough cases — where a fully vaccinated person contracts COVID-19 — between Jan. 17 and July 24, according to another state report. Over 4 million people had been fully vaccinated across Washington state as of Saturday, making breakthrough cases exceedingly rare.
The state does not breakdown the number of breakthrough cases by geography because officials wish to protect individual’s privacy, according to the report. Given the small number of breakthrough cases, the report says a geographic breakdown would make it easy to identify individual patients.
