Thurston County saw its highest weekly case count yet. How did your zip code fare?
Some Thurston County zip codes with low vaccination rates saw more COVID-19 cases per capita from Aug. 2-8 than zip codes with higher vaccination rates.
The county added 724 confirmed cases of COVID-19 that week — the highest it’s ever reported. Previously, the most COVID-19 cases PHSS had ever confirmed in a single week was 485 cases the week of Dec. 7-12, 2020.
The county’s three most populous zip codes — 98501, 98503 and 98513 — had the highest case counts in the past week, according to data from Thurston County Public Health and Social Services. These zip codes include southeast Olympia, Tumwater and Lacey.
However, dividing the number of cases by the total population of each zip code reveals there were more cases per capita in some south county zip codes.
Most notably, zip code 98589 had the highest cases per capita, with 37 cases among a population of just 8,265, according to county data. This zip code encompasses the Tenino area, which has the fourth lowest fully vaccinated rate at just 38%.
Zip code 98597, which includes Yelm, had the second highest cases per capita, with 75 cases among a population of 25,711, the data show. This zip code has the lowest fully vaccinated rate at just 31%.
For comparison, zip code 98501 saw the most cases, with 111 among its much larger 44,208 population, per the data. It also has the third highest fully vaccinated rate at 58%.
The zip code with the highest fully vaccinated rate is 98502, which covers west Olympia and parts of Tumwater, with 61%, according to the data. From Aug. 2-8 this zip code saw the second lowest cases per capita, with 64 cases among a population of 34,189.
However, the zip code with lowest cases per capita was 98506, which covers northeast Olympia out to beyond Boston Harbor. This zip code had just 27 cases among a population of 19,711, the data show. It also has the second highest fully vaccinated rate in Thurston County with 59%.
Although some of these counts correlate with vaccination rates, it’s worth cautioning that the trend is not perfect, and more factors may be at play.
For example, zip code 98589 has a higher fully vaccinated rate than 98597 or 98579 yet it has the highest cases per capita.
And there is no vaccination data on zip code 98531 — which is predominantly a Centralia zip code, but reaches to Grand Mound and Bucoda in Thurston County — because the county will not provide data for areas with fewer than 10 vaccinations.
The county’s data is calculated based on data from the Washington State Office of Financial Management and the Washington State Department of Health.
Data from the Department of Defense, Veteran Affairs and the Bureau of Prisons does not automatically get funneled into the DOH’s totals, so they may not be accurately reflected in the data.
What’s for certain is that Thurston County is seeing increasing disease activity as the delta variant makes its way through the population.
Citing this trend, Health Office Dimyana Abdelmalek directed all county residents 5 or older to wear a mask in public indoor spaces, regardless of vaccination status, as Friday, Aug. 13.
“We are in the middle of our fifth wave of COVID-19 both here in Thurston County, echoing this wave that’s being felt across the state and across the county,” Abdelmalek said during a board of health meeting on Tuesday.
She said PHSS is seeing more breakthrough cases among the vaccinated population, but even so, vaccines provide the best protection against the virus.
“We anticipate that going forward we may expect to see more breakthrough cases,” Abdelmalek said. “The vaccines are still performing well, and they are protecting people from severe illness, hospitalization and death.”
