Three residents die of COVID-19 in past week as Thurston County adds 589 cases
Thurston County confirmed Monday three more residents have died of COVID-19 and 589 more tested positive for the virus in the past week as disease activity appears to be slowing.
Three men died due to COVID-19: one in his 50s, one in his 70s and another in his 90s. The cases and deaths were added between Oct. 18-24, according to data from Thurston County Public Health and Social Services.
There have been 20,067 confirmed cases and 209 deaths in the county from March 2020 to Sunday, per PHSS. The county considers 18,772 cases recovered or recovering as of Monday — meaning 1,295 cases remained active.
The county reported a lower-case count for the past week than it did for the previous week when there were 629 reported cases. The weekly case count has not surpassed 700 in October as it repeatedly did from late August through September.
The county’s two-week case rate decreased to 397.3 cases per 100,000 people between Oct. 3-16 after reaching 517.2 from Sept. 15-28, per the latest complete data from the state Department of Health.
The record high case rate in Thurston County is 523.4, reached between Aug. 19 to Sept. 1, the data show.
Regarding outbreaks, the county added one outbreak at a congregate care setting last week but the number of ongoing outbreaks decreased from 15 to 12. To date, there have been 93 such outbreaks.
Eight people were hospitalized with a confirmed case of COVID-19 over the past week, per PHSS. Since the start of the pandemic, the data show 1,281 people with COVID-19 have at some point been hospitalized.
The state reports the county had a hospitalization rate of 10.3 per 100,000 people between Oct. 10-16. This rate contrasts with a recent high of 18.2 which was recorded from Sept. 18-24.
As of Sunday, about 86% of intensive care unit beds were occupied over a seven-day period in the West region, which includes Thurston County and some of its neighbors. The data show 27.2% of ICU beds in the region were occupied by COVID-19 patients.
Hospitals in the region were 90.6% full over a seven-day period ending Sunday, per the data, while COVID-19 patients accounted for about 18%.
From February to August 2021, state data show 82% of cases (6,278) in Thurston County were in unvaccinated individuals. Meanwhile, 14% 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 has previously said.
Vaccinations and tests
Just 57.4% of all Thurston residents were fully vaccinated as of Saturday and 62% had initiated vaccinations, per state data. The county’s vaccination rate increased by about a single-digit percentage point over the past week.
State data indicates 73.5% of Thurston residents 16 and older have initiated vaccinations and 68.2% have been fully vaccinated.
As of Oct. 25, 78.6% of the state population 12 and older had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 72.5% 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, 72.2% of Thurston County residents 12 and older have initiated vaccinations and 66.9% had been fully vaccinated as of Oct. 23.
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. PHSS director Schelli Slaughter previously said she does not expect testing data from the state to be available 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 89,526 total COVID-19 cases with 833 deaths as of Monday.
▪ Grays Harbor County has seen a total of 8,617 confirmed and probable cases, with 128 deaths as of Saturday, according to state data.
▪ Lewis County has had a total of 9,917 confirmed and probable cases with 149 deaths as of Saturday, per state data.
▪ Mason County has reported 4,710 confirmed cases with 64 deaths as of Monday.
In the state, nation and world
The state of Washington has reported a total of 716,315 COVID-19 cases and 8,480 deaths from the beginning of the pandemic to Saturday.
As of Oct. 8, the state estimated its effective reproductive number over time was 0.83, 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 45.6 million cases had been reported as of Tuesday with more than 737,800 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Globally, about 244.3 million people had contracted the virus and over 4.9 million people had died of COVID-19 as of Tuesday, the data show.
This story was originally published October 26, 2021 at 1:24 PM.
