7,000 Washingtonians Have Now Died Of COVID-19

OLYMPIA, WA — This week, Washington passed another tragic pandemic milestone when on Tuesday the Washington State Department of Health reported its 7,000th COVID-19 fatality.

That update added 56 new COVID-19 deaths and 2,820 new cases, for a total 609,911 cases and 7,037 dead since the pandemic began in Spring 2020. The state's 7,000th death came just two months after its 6,000th: Washington hit 6,000 deaths on July 12, and 5,000 deaths on March 3, 2021, the Associated Press reports.

Unfortunately, more deaths are likely to follow as the state is currently seeing record-breaking case counts and hospitalizations.

"We are at highest rates that we have been in, in this pandemic, both in cases and hospitalizations," said Scott Lindquist, acting chief science officer for the Washington State Department of Health. "We are not over this pandemic, at all, we're at high levels."

At the DOH's weekly COVID briefing Wednesday, Lindquist noted that case counts appeared to be stalling — possibly marking the start of a downward trend — but urged Washingtonians to remain cautious, and seek vaccination if they have not already.

"We're at high rates of disease, we're at high rates of hospitalization, especially if you're unvaccinated," Lindquist said.

According to DOH data, Washington's COVID-19 hospital admission rates were 9 times higher for unvaccinated patients 65 and older than for vaccinated patients 65+. Unvaccinated patients between 35 and 64 were 21 times more likely to be hospitalized, and the hospitalization rate was 30 times higher for unvaccinated patients ages 12 to 34 compared to their vaccinated peers.

Per the latest update to the DOH's COVID-19 data dashboard, as of Monday a total 8,774,782 vaccine doses have been administered in Washington. The state also averaged 13,382 doses administered each day last week.

"The good news is that vaccination rates continue to increase across the state," said Acting Assistant Secretary Michele Roberts.

72.5 percent of Washingtonians 12 and older have now had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and 65.8 percent of the population 12+ is fully vaccinated.

Despite good news on the vaccine front, state health leaders say they remain concerned about the current hospitalization rates. Last week, DOH officials confirmed that it was coordinating efforts to shift resources to hospitals in need, in an effort to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. Wednesday, DOH officials confirmed that effort was ongoing.

"All of our resource hospitals, all of them are over capacity," said Dr. Steve Mitchell, medical director of Harborview Medical Center's emergency department. "Every one of them, and they are spread through the state, east and west side."

Mitchell says those overworked hospitals have been forced to pull staff that don't normally work in critical care into ICUs in order to meet the massive demand.

"When our ICUs and our alternative ICUs are full, what then happens after that? Well, they back up in places like our emergency departments and those same emergency departments are unable to move their patients through into the hospital," Mitchell said. "Meanwhile, the ambulances still keep coming, and our waiting rooms fill up."

As of Wednesday, 1,592 Washingtonians were hospitalized with COVID-19 — enough to fill roughly four Harborview Medical Centers, according to Mitchell. In Eastern Washington, hospitals have the additional challenge of fielding visitors from Idaho, where several hospitals have become overwhelmed with patients and have had to enact "crisis standards of care," rationing health care for those most likely to recover. Washington is still not there yet, but health care leaders say they remain worried.

"The situation is serious, and we want to make sure that we give the right information and give accurate information to everyone," said Secretary of Health Dr. Umair Shah.