20 more Thurston residents die of COVID-19 in past week as case count remains high
Thurston County confirmed Monday that 20 residents died and 692 contracted COVID-19 in the past week.
Thirteen women died due to COVID-19: one in her 30s, one in her 40s, two in their 70s, five in their 80s and four in their 90s. Seven men died: one in his 50s, one in his 60s, three in their 70s, one in his 80s and one in his 90s.
The cases and deaths were added from Sept. 27 to Oct. 3, according to the data from Thurston County Public Health and Social Services.
There have been 18,282 cases and 191 deaths in the county from March 2020 to Sunday, per PHSS. The county considers 16,438 cases recovered or recovering as of Monday — meaning 1,844 cases are still active.
For the past nine weeks, weekly case counts have been higher than 600, indicating persistently high levels of disease activity. However, this week’s case count fell from the 743 reported last week.
The current wave of infections reached a peak toward the end of the August, dipped in mid-September and increased yet again over the past two weeks, Health Officer Dimyana Abdelmalek told the Board of County Commissioners Tuesday morning.
“We are seeing a little bit of slowing in our transmission rates here in Thurston (County),” Abdelmalek said. “We are watching that trend extremely closely.”
The county’s two-week case rate increased to 501.7 cases per 100,000 people between Sept. 12-25 after dipping to 460.8 between Sept. 1-14, per the latest complete data from the state Department of Health.
The recent record high case rate was 521.7 between Aug. 11-24, the data show. The county matched that rate between Aug. 18-31, per the data.
Occupancy at Thurston County hospitals remains high but is showing signs of improvement compared to last week, according to PHSS Director Schelli Slaughter.
About 87% of intensive care unit beds and 85% of acute beds were occupied as of Tuesday morning, Slaughter said during a Board of County Commissioners meeting.
Last week, Slaughter said all ICU beds were in use and 96% of acute beds were occupied.
Since the start of the pandemic, PHSS data show 1,176 people with COVID-19 have at some point been hospitalized.
The state reports the county had a hospitalization rate of 17.2 per 100,000 people between Sept. 19-25. This is up from a rate of 11.7 from Sept. 10-16.
There have been no updates to COVID-19 testing data since Sept. 15. PHSS says the state Department of Health paused this data release to increase capacity so it can process an increasing number of tests.
Vaccinations and testing
Just 55.3% of all Thurston residents were fully vaccinated as of Wednesday, Sept. 29 and 60.4% had initiated vaccinations, per state data. The county’s total vaccination percentages have increased by single-digit percentage points in the past week.
State data indicates 71.6% of Thurston residents 16 and older have initiated vaccinations and 65.7% have been fully vaccinated.
As of Sept. 27, 76.4% of the state population 12 and older had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 69.7% had been fully vaccinated. 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, 70.4% of Thurston County residents 12 and older have initiated vaccinations and 64.4% had been fully vaccinated as of Sept. 29.
Thurston County PHSS continues to offer free vaccination events every week. Events are listed on their coronavirus vaccine information website. Residents also can find appointments at local providers such as pharmacies by visiting the state’s Vaccine Locator website. Many supermarket pharmacies are taking walk-ins for vaccines.
Those who have difficulty scheduling appointments online can call the Department of Health vaccine hotline at 888-856-5816 or the Thurston County Public Health and Social Services line at 360-867-2610. Information for Spanish speakers is available at these numbers as well.
There have been no updates to COVID-19 testing data since Sept. 15. PHSS says the state Department of Health paused this data release to increase capacity so it can process an increasing number of tests.
About 25.2% of molecular COVID-19 tests returned positive results between Aug. 24-30, according to the latest state data. This is the highest test positivity rate the state had ever reported for Thurston County.
Testing has been in high demand in recent weeks, PHSS director Schelli Slaughter previously said. PHSS offers testing at various locations throughout the county, but this is limited to people with symptoms or who may have been exposed by a close contact.
People also can get tested at pharmacies such as Rite Aid and Walgreens, but appointments may be limited. Over-the- counter COVID-19 antigen tests also are available at pharmacies.
In the region
▪ Pierce County had confirmed 82,943 total COVID-19 cases with 779 deaths as of Monday.
▪ Grays Harbor County has seen a total of 7,804 confirmed and probable cases, with 111 deaths as of Sunday, according to state data.
▪ Lewis County has had a total of 9,116 confirmed and probable cases with 126 deaths as of Sunday, per state data.
▪ Mason County has reported 3,955 confirmed cases with 55 deaths as of Monday.
In the state, nation and world
The state of Washington has reported a total of 667,834 COVID-19 cases and 7,807 deaths from the beginning of the pandemic to Sunday.
As of Sept. 11, the state’s effective reproductive number over time was estimated at 0.72, indicating the number of infected people had been decreasing, the data show. This metric measures the average number of new people that one COVID-19 positive person infects.
In the U.S., over 43.8 million cases had been reported as of Tuesday with more than 703,700 deaths.
Globally, over 235.5 million people had contracted the virus and more than 4.8 million people had died of COVID-19 as of Tuesday, the data show.
This story was originally published October 5, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
