Covid-19 hospitalizations remain high in county

Hospitalizations continue to be greater than the Covid-19 peak in January 2021. PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham had 35 patients on November 8 who had either been admitted for Covid-19 or tested positive for Covid-19 after being admitted for another reason. 

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 853 people have been hospitalized in Whatcom County for Covid-19.

Whatcom County has had 16,921 probable and confirmed Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, according to November 4 Washington State Department of Health data. Three people died of Covid-19 in the past week, increasing the number of deaths to 167. The number of deaths makes up 1 percent of total confirmed Covid-19 cases in Whatcom County.

Covid-19 infection and vaccine data aggregated by school district boundaries was not available by press time.

The Whatcom County health department released a weekly Covid-19 report for October 24-30. The report shows cases remained level during the week ending October 30 but unvaccinated individuals were four times more likely to be infected with Covid-19 than those who were fully vaccinated. 

Out of 35 of the people in the hospital the week ending October 30, 28 were unvaccinated and seven were vaccinated, according to health department data. Preliminary data shows five deaths during the week ending October 30 from two unvaccinated and three vaccinated individuals: An unvaccinated man in his 60s, an unvaccinated woman in her 70s, a vaccinated male in his 60s and two vaccinated men in their 70s.

For more Whatcom County information, visit whatcomcounty.us/covidvaccine and whatcomcounty.us/coviddata. State information is available at bit.ly/3r2URJj.