BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Whatcom County’s COVID-19 infection and hospitalization rates remain above the state’s metrics for remaining in Phase 3 of the re-opening plan.
Health Department Director Erika Lautenbach told a Tuesday news conference that younger people are being hospitalized.
She said the median age in our region of those hospitalized for COVID-19 went from 67 years old in January to 52, a drop of 15 years.
PeaceHealth St. Joseph Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sudhakar Karlapudi says that all COVID patients they’ve admitted so far have not been vaccinated.
He said the vaccine essentially prevents people from getting the severe form of the disease, and he thinks that has been manifested in Whatcom County based on their experience with the fourth wave and the vaccination status of patients admitted with COVID.
Lautenbach says local infection rates are also being driven by unvaccinated people, with the infection rate almost zero among those who’ve gotten the vaccine.
She says they’re seeing the vaccines live up to their reported effective rate of 95%.
However, the Whatcom County COVID-19 new infection and hospitalization count continues to slowly tick up again, while the number of deaths remains low.
New hospitalizations have been recorded at the rate of 4 per day over the past week, back to a level not seen since the post-holiday surge in January.
The daily average of new first time positive virus tests is up to the mid-40’s each day among county residents, back to the level of early February.
In the past month, COVID was called the cause of of death for 4 persons in Whatcom County.