'We Need To Come Together' Pleads Pierce Health Director

TACOMA, WA — Pierce County residents are going to need to do more to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 warns Tacoma-Pierce County Director of Health Anthony L-T Chen.

In a recent blog post, Pierce County's top health official urged residents to take note of the county's recent explosive growth in new COVID-19 cases, and band together to protect one another:

"We have encountered many crossroads during this pandemic, and we are at another one now. Each new wave of COVID-19 cases brings a choice: Ignore and minimize what we are seeing. Or do what is right.

Each time, we have responded to stem the wave. It is time to pull together again to overcome COVID-19 as a community."

Pierce County is currently seeing what Chen describes as "the longest and strongest sustained case rate increase since the beginning of the pandemic." On Tuesday, the health department reported a record-high 14-day case rate of 556 new cases per 100,000 residents, between Aug. 2 - Aug. 15. Just two weeks before that, on Aug. 10, the department's reported case rate was 287.1. By Friday, it had climbed to 606.

Chen also warns that the hospitalization rate is on track to break its record over the next couple of days.

What's especially unnerving about these high case rates, Chen says, is that recent case counts are including more children and young adults. Over the past two weeks, 9 percent of Pierce County's COVID-19 cases were in children under 10. 21 percent were in people under 20.

While almost all of Washington's 39 counties saw an increase in COVID-19 cases as the rapidly-spreading delta variant made its way into the state, Pierce County is seeing more outbreaks and infections than many of its neighbors, which Chen attributes to the lower vaccination rate.

King County, which reported a 7-day case rate of only 187.1 per 100,000 residents the same day Pierce County hit its record high, has had 70 percent of its eligible population receive at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. In comparison, just over half of eligible Pierce County residents have received their first dose.

"Vaccination is our best tool to protect against COVID-19," writes Chen. "Since Feb. 1, more than 90% of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths statewide are among people unvaccinated."

According to an update from TPCHD Thursday, between Feb. 1 and July 31, 2021 unvaccinated Pierce County residents made up:

• 95.5 percent of new confirmed cases.
• 95.4 percent of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
• 94.4 percent of COVID-19 deaths.

Even if vaccination isn't in the cards, Chen urges residents to continue wearing masks in public, frequently washing hands, staying home if you're sick and getting tested for COVID-19 if you show symptoms.

"We hoped the pandemic was letting up. In June, case rates had dropped to their lowest rates in months. Thousands of people were getting vaccinated, and on June 30, the state reopened," writes Chen. "Like you, we are ready to put COVID-19 behind us. But it is time to pull together—again—to overcome."

>> Read Chen's full post on the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department blog.