As the number of cases of COVID-19 has increased in the last few weeks, Snohomish County officials are not hesitant to continue the resumption, but are concerned that the process will need to be taken one step further.
The deciding factor was whether incidents in the county began to rise rapidly and hospitals began to fill with COVID-19 patients, as it happened in other parts of the United States, says Snohomish County administration Dave Summers. Said at a news briefing on Tuesday. In that case, the county may return to Phase 1 of the state’s 4-phase Safe Start Resumption Program rather than proceeding to Phase 3.
“A week or so ago, I would have thought it was unlikely,” Somers said. “I don’t feel that way anymore. I think returning to Phase 1 is clearly one of the options that is right in front of us.”
For four of the last 10 days, the county has more infections per day than for 6 weeks.
During the week of June 23-29, the county recorded 180 cases. There were another 168 last week and 110 last week.
The “honeymoon” period from late May to early June has passed, said Dr. Chris Spitters, Health Officer at Snohomish Health District.
“These are unprecedented numbers this quarter, clearly showing an increase in case numbers and an increase in infections,” Speters said at a briefing on Tuesday.
According to state updates, the number of people diagnosed with COVID-19 daily in King and Pierce counties is also increasing rapidly. Status report..
Increasing testing has made trend analysis more difficult in King County. This is not the case in Snohomish and Pierce because the test volumes have changed little. This suggests that the rise is associated with increased transmission across the Puget Sound area.
Between June 2 and 16, Snohomish County had 23.6 infections per 100,000. However, in the two weeks leading up to June 27, there were 39 infections per 100,000 people.
This puts Snohomish County far above the criteria for continued resumption.
The county commissioner, John Wisman, hoped that the county would typically have fewer than 25 new infections per 100,000 in the past two weeks when deciding whether the county could move on to the next phase. I will. (Magic number Initially 10 per 100,000, So Recommended According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it was later eased to 25.
Another source of alerts: Some of these new infections are among those who are in close contact with COVID-19 patients, but many newly diagnosed people are unaware of the sick and I’m not involved in the job of infecting people at high risk of getting a virus, Spitters said.
“Of course, that’s the biggest concern, because there are cases we don’t know about,” he said.
According to Snohomish Health District, the county’s health care system is still in good shape, which is another important factor in moving to a new stage.
During the last period of available data, June 2-20, approximately 4% of county hospital beds are used by patients suspected of having COVID-19 and 64% of the beds are totally occupied. Was being done. The Department of Health’s goal for the county to move to the next phase of resumption is for COVID-19 patients to fill less than 10% of the beds and less than 80% of the beds overall.
Mr Spitters said he agreed with Somers that if the numbers didn’t turn in the right direction, Snohomish County might be moving backwards rather than forwards in the resumption process.
“We need to try to help everyone flatten that curve.” If we couldn’t do it and it escaped like March, we would You’ll have no choice.”
