Thurston County confirms 723 new COVID-19 cases in past week
Thurston County confirmed 723 COVID-19 cases in the past week, which is just one case shy of the record set the previous week.
No new deaths were reported in the past week, but three deaths were added on Monday. Three men, one in his 40s, one in his 60s and another in his 70s, died from COVID-19, according to Thurston County Public Health and Social Services.
The previous week, PHSS reported 724 cases but a portion of those cases from a data backlog from the Washington State Department of Health. The Olympia has reached out to PHSS to confirm if backlogs are factored into the most recent count.
Either way, the high case count comes as disease activity continues to rise in Thurston County. In response, Health Officer Dimyana Abdelmalek has directed county residents 5 and older to wear masks in public indoor settings, regardless of vaccination status.
State data shows the county had a case rate of 360.1 per 100,000 people between July 26 and Aug. 8 — the highest it’s ever been in Thurston County.
The latest case rate is up from the most recent low of 75.9 cases per 100,000 people from June 21 to July 4, according to state data.
Prior to the current wave of disease transmission, the record the state reported for Thurston County was 314.1 cases per 100,000 people from Jan. 2-15.
Thurston County’s case rate is still lower than most of its immediate neighbors, except for Mason County which has a case rate of 254.4 from July 26 to Aug. 8.
Most notably, Lewis County’s case rate reached 695.3 over the same period, exceeding a previous record of 685.4 from Nov. 28 to Dec. 11.
For the past seven days, Washington state as a whole has had an increasing case rate of 186.4 per 100,000 people. The national rate for the same period was 228.7 per 100,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Meanwhile, state data show a record 10.7% of molecular COVID-19 tests in Thurston County returned positive results between July 26 and Aug. 1. The previous record prior to this wave comes from April 20-26 when the county saw 8.8% of tests return positive results, per the data.
Since the first COVID-19 case was recorded in March 2020, the county has reported 13,334 cases and 105 deaths, Monday data shows.
The county is currently investigating 12 ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks at congregate care settings, the data show. In total, the county has reported 74 such outbreaks since the beginning of the pandemic.
Hospitalizations exceed adequate capacity
Hospitalizations due to COVID-19 rose by 57 over the past week, according to county data, bringing the total number of hospitalizations to 805 since March 2020.
Hospital capacity has been strained in recent weeks. In the state’s west region, which includes Thurston County, the number of occupied beds was exceeding adequate capacity as of Sunday. The west region also includes Grays Harbor, Lewis, north Pacific and Pierce counties.
State data show 85.1% of 1,680 adult staffed acute care beds are occupied by patients while adequate capacity is defined as less than 80%. COVID-19 cases account for 15.9% of those adult staffed acute care beds.
As for intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 87% of 253 beds were occupied as of Sunday, the data show, and 23.3% of those are occupied by suspected and confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Vaccination trends
Despite the record-breaking trends, state data indicate just a slim majority of Thurston County residents have been fully vaccinated as of Saturday.
Just 50.6% of the total county population has been fully vaccinated and 55.3% have initiated vaccinations, per the data. The county’s total vaccination percentages have increased by less than a single-digit percentage point in the past week, continuing a sluggish trend.
For those 16 and older, state data indicates 60.2% have been fully vaccinated and 65.7% have initiated vaccinations. So, the county continues to fall short of its goal of initiating vaccinations in at least 70% of this population.
On Aug. 10, the state announced 70.7% of the population 12 and older had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. This percentage includes aggregate data from the Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs, both of which are not entirely reflected in the state’s data dashboard.
For comparison, 64.4% of Thurston County residents 12 and older have initiated vaccinations and 58.9% had been fully vaccinated as of Saturday.
In the region
▪ Pierce County has confirmed 57,753 total COVID-19 cases with 639 deaths as of Thursday.
▪ Grays Harbor County has seen a total of 5,213 confirmed and probable cases, with 83 deaths as of Sunday, according to state data.
▪ Lewis County Public Health & Social Services has seen a total of 6,339 confirmed and probable cases with 85 deaths as of Sunday, per state data.
▪ Mason County has reported 2,718 confirmed cases with 39 deaths as of Friday.
In the state, nation and world
The state of Washington reported a total of 514,884 COVID-19 cases and 6,248 deaths as of Monday.
In the U.S., more than 36.9 million cases had been reported as of Monday with more than 622,300 deaths.
Globally, 207.8 million people had contracted the virus and nearly 4.4 million people had died of COVID-19 as of Monday, the data show.
