Falling cases COVID the “eye of the hurricane”

While COVID-19 cases continue to decline since the holidays, King County health officials warn that the emergence of a variant and maladaptive behavior could quickly bring us all back.

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Dr. Jeff Duchin of Public Health – Seattle and King County says the county has experienced a drop in the number of cases in recent weeks, but the seven-day rate is still above 200 per 100,000. That’s seven times the amount in June and three to four times the amount we saw in September.

“Last week about two people died every day, that decreased from 8 to 9 a day during December,” Duchin said.

He noted that areas of South King County have high case rates compared to other areas of the county. Kent, Auburn, Federal Way, followed by Burien, Tukwila and Sea-Tac have about three times as many cases as downtown Seattle. Hospitalization and mortality rates are also three to four times higher in these areas.

Fewer people look for evidence from the holidays, but Duchin says evidence is an important tool to prevent the spread of COVID to other people.

The variant

As for the variant, Duchin says studies from other countries suggest it doubles every week. He said the small figures in the variant may go unnoticed for a while, but the figures can rise very quickly.

“I think we’re in the eye of a hurricane and I want to remind everyone that we should expect the variant variety to spread here,” Duchin said. “And that will make our outbreak much harder to control.”

He said we need to remember that as we increase our activities, the chance of the virus spreading increases. He recommended using the same strategies we’ve been hearing: masking, washing hands, stretching, and increasing indoor ventilation. But we need to improve our consistency.

“The bottom line is that these variants represent a game changer,” Duchin said. “They’re faster and more dangerous.”

Weekend notice

Duchin congratulated the Seattle Seahawks for being the NFL team for not reporting any positive cases of COVID before warning NFL fans to be careful this weekend as they watched the Super Bowl.

“Ventilation is important,” Duchin said. “The best advice in the Super Bowl is, please don’t meet indoors with non-home members or everyone risks ending up on the COVID-19 injury list. If you look at other people , be sure to open the windows and increase ventilation and wear masks.Eat outside.The outside is always safer than the inside.And remember, just eating and talking puts the virus in the air … half of COVID-19 infection is spread by people who look and feel good. They don’t know they have COVID-19 and they don’t seem to have any symptoms. “

Duchin said that if ventilation is poor, the virus can build up in the room like cigarette smoke. Singing, talking loudly and shouting could add even more viruses to the room.

“Try to limit the animations, especially for Tampa Bay,” Duchin said.

Vaccine statistics

Duchin said the allocation of vaccines to King County remains stable, but it is not enough. Washington state only receives less than a third of what health care providers ask for. This week he has only received 107.00 first doses this week and there is an increased demand for second doses.

In perspective, Duchin explained that this week King County received just over 43,000 doses and half of those were allocated to the first doses. By the end of January, 300 health care providers were enrolled in vaccination programs. This week, only 25% of these providers received a dose allocation.

King County has administered about 300,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine as of Thursday, according to Duchin. Of these, 232,000 people (13% of King County’s population) have received the first dose and 60,000 people have been completely vaccinated with both doses. Of these, approximately two-thirds of eligible Phase 1A county health workers have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

Duchin said he has given at least one dose of the vaccine to nearly 40 percent of King County’s population, who are 75 or older, adding that this age group is 200 to 600 times more likely to be death compared with young people aged 18 to 29 years. . More than a third of those aged 65 to 74 have been vaccinated with at least one dose. This age group has a risk of death at least 90 times higher than those aged 18 to 29 years.

Regarding the distribution of race and ethnicity, Duchin said that those who have received a dose of COVID vaccine are 10% who identify as white, 8% who identify as white. Asians, 5% who identify as black and 4% who identify as Hispanic.

“The impact of this outbreak is so disproportionately hard for people of color,” Duchin said.

Kind County updates a demographic chart to study the breakdown.

Appointments at the two mass vaccination sites the county opened Feb. 1 in Kent and Auburn are reserved until February, according to Duchin. The county also manages eight mobile units to vaccinate high-risk populations, in collaboration with regional fire departments. They hope to get two more mobile units soon.

Check out the latest update from Dr. Duchin on COVID-19 in King County here.