11 more Thurston residents die of COVID-19 in past week as case count trends down
Thurston County confirmed Monday that 11 residents died and 567 contracted COVID-19 in the past week.
Five women died due to COVID-19: one in her 50s, one in her 60s, two in their 70s and one in her 80s. Six men died: three in their 70s, one in his 80s and two in their 90s.
The cases and deaths were added between Oct. 4-10, according to data from Thurston County Public Health and Social Services.
There have been 18,849 cases and 204 deaths in the county from March 2020 to Sunday, per PHSS. The county considers 17,492 cases recovered or recovering as of Monday — meaning 1,357 cases remained active.
The past week’s case count fell to 567 from 692 recorded the previous week. This broke a nine-week trend of case counts that consistently surpassed 600 if not 700 cases.
Though case rates have been trending downward, there is still significant transmission risk, said Health Officer Dimyana Abdelmalek during a Tuesday Board of County Commissioners meeting.
“I’m definitely encouraging folks to continue to take all the appropriate precautions.” Abdelmalek said. “Our weather is changing and so it’s more important now than ever to try to take some of those precautions when we’re out in public.”
Abdelmalek recommends people continue to wear masks, distance themselves from others and avoid crowded areas.
The county’s two-week case rate decreased to 500 cases per 100,000 people between Sept. 19 to Oct. 2 after reaching 511.3 from Sept. 15-28, per the latest complete data from the state Department of Health.
The recent record high case rate was 522.7 between Aug. 18-31, the data show.
Hospital occupancy levels within the county have been high but stable, according to PHSS Director Schelli Slaughter.
About 81% of intensive care unit beds and 97% of acute beds were occupied as of Tuesday morning, Slaughter said during the Tuesday meeting. She added 51 COVID-19 patients have been hospitalized and 26 of were on ventilators.
Last week, Slaughter said 87% of ICU beds were in use and 85% of acute beds were occupied.
Since the start of the pandemic, PHSS data show 1,205 people with COVID-19 have at some point been hospitalized. The county added 29 hospitalizations in the past week.
The state reports the county had a hospitalization rate of 11 per 100,000 people between Sept. 26 to Oct. 2. This rate fell from 18.2 which was recorded from Sept. 18-24.
From February to August 2021, state data show 82.1% of cases (6,278) in Thurston County were in unvaccinated individuals. Meanwhile, just 13.9% of cases (990) were in fully vaccinated individuals, per the data.
On a statewide level, there have been 46,667 identified COVID-19 breakthrough cases from Jan. 17 to Sept. 25, according to an Oct. 6 report.
The state only has more detailed data on about half of those cases. Of that subset, 89% reported symptoms but just 9% were hospitalized, per the report.
Additionally, the report says 442 people with breakthrough cases died due COVID-19 during the surveillance period. These people ranged from 34 to 104 years of age, per the report, but the median age was 79.
At least 258 of those who died were known to have on or more underlying condition, the report says, but such information was not available for 181 of those who died.
PHSS does not share the vaccination status of those who die due to COVID-19. To tally deaths, the county relies on death certificates from the state Department of Health which do not indicate vaccination status, according to county spokesperson Meredith Mathis.
“They have a means of tracking that data at the state level, but as of now we do not have access to that information,” Mathis wrote. “We are currently working on solutions to be able to access that data.”
Vaccinations and tests
Just 56.5% of all Thurston residents were fully vaccinated as of Saturday and 61.2% had initiated vaccinations, per state data. The county’s total vaccination percentages have increased by single-digit percentage points in the past week.
As of Oct. 4, 77.1% of the state population 12 and older had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 70.7% 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, 71.3% of Thurston County residents 12 and older have initiated vaccinations and 65.8% 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.
Slaughter said PHSS does not expect testing data from the state until after Oct. 31.
About 25.2% of molecular COVID-19 tests returned positive results between Aug. 24-30, according to the latest state data. This was 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 85,196 total COVID-19 cases with 799 deaths as of Monday.
▪ Grays Harbor County has seen a total of 8,088 confirmed and probable cases, with 117 deaths as of Sunday, according to state data.
▪ Lewis County has had a total of 9,381 confirmed and probable cases with 137 deaths as of Sunday, per state data.
▪ Mason County has reported 4,248 confirmed cases with 58 deaths as of Monday.
In the state, nation and world
The state of Washington has reported a total of 684,532 COVID-19 cases and 8,064 deaths from the beginning of the pandemic to Sunday.
As of Sept. 18, the state’s effective reproductive number over time was estimated at 0.82, 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 44.5 million cases had been reported as of Tuesday with more than 714,800 deaths.
Globally, over 238.5 million people had contracted the virus and more than 4.8 million people had died of COVID-19 as of Tuesday, the data show.
