Four more Thurston residents die of COVID-19 in past week as county adds 629 cases
Thurston County confirmed Monday that four residents had died of COVID-19 as the county tallied an additional 629 cases in the past week.
Two women died due to COVID-19: one in her 80s and another in her 90s. Two men died: one in his 50s and another in his 70s.
The cases and deaths were added between Oct. 11-17, according to the data from Thurston County Public Health and Social Services.
There have been 19,478 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 206 deaths in the county from March 2020 to Sunday, per PHSS. The county considers 18,208 cases recovered or recovering as of Monday — meaning 1,270 cases remain active.
The past week’s case count reached 629 compared to 567 recorded the previous week. Prior to last week, the county went nine weeks with weekly case counts higher than 600. With the latest count, the county has surpassed that threshold yet again.
The county’s two-week case rate decreased to 474.6 cases per 100,000 people between Sept. 23 to Oct. 6 after reaching 517.5 from Sept. 15-28, per the latest complete data from the state Department of Health.
The recent record high case rate was 523 between Aug. 18-31, the data show.
The county added four new outbreaks last week and there were 15 ongoing outbreaks at congregate care settings as of Sunday.
Cumulatively, these 15 outbreaks have resulted in 71 cases in staff, 112 cases in residents and 22 deaths, according to a PHSS weekly report. In total, since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 92 such outbreaks.
Hospital occupancy levels within the county have stabilized, according to PHSS Director Schelli Slaughter.
“Our hospital capacity is currently stable and closer to normal levels, which is still extremely high capacity,” she said.
Slaughter said 50 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized and 29 of them were on ventilators as of Tuesday morning, she told the Board of County Commissioners Tuesday morning.
Since the start of the pandemic, PHSS data show 1,247 people with COVID-19 have at some point been hospitalized. The county added 42 hospitalizations in the past week.
The state reports the county had a hospitalization rate of 9.6 per 100,000 people between Sept. 30 to Oct. 6. This rate fell from 18.2 which was recorded from Sept. 18-24.
So far there have been at least 235 breakthrough cases in vaccinated people in October out of 1,460 diagnosed cases reported so far, according to PHSS weekly report. Last month, there were 662 such cases out of 3,087.
From February to August 2021, state data show 82.1% of cases (6,278) in Thurston County were in unvaccinated individuals. Meanwhile, 13.9% of cases (990) were in fully vaccinated individuals, per the data.
PHSS does not share the vaccination status of those who die due to COVID-19 because they do not have access to that data, a county spokesperson previously said.
Vaccinations and tests
Just 56.8% of all Thurston residents were fully vaccinated as of Wednesday and 61.2% had initiated vaccinations, per state data.
State data indicates 72.8% of Thurston residents 16 and older have initiated vaccinations and 67.4% have been fully vaccinated.
As of Oct. 18, 78.1% of the state population 12 and older had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 72% 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, 71.5% of Thurston County residents 12 and older have initiated vaccinations and 66.1% had been fully vaccinated as of Oct. 13.
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.
Slaughter said PHSS does not expect testing data from the state until after Oct. 31.
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 87,410 total COVID-19 cases with 815 deaths as of Monday.
▪ Grays Harbor County has seen a total of 8,301 confirmed and probable cases, with 119 deaths as of Thursday, according to state data.
▪ Lewis County has had a total of 9,621 confirmed and probable cases with 144 deaths as of Thursday, per state data.
▪ Mason County has reported 4,470 confirmed cases with 64 deaths as of Monday.
In the state, nation and world
The state of Washington has reported a total of 695,016 COVID-19 cases and 8,234 deaths from the beginning of the pandemic to Thursday.
As of Sept. 25, the state’s effective reproductive number over time was estimated at 0.86, 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., nearly 45.1 million cases had been reported as of Tuesday with more than 726,500 deaths, according to John Hopkins University data.
Globally, about 241.4 million people had contracted the virus and over 4.9 million people had died of COVID-19 as of Tuesday, the data show.
