COVID hospitalizations are ‘the highest they’ve ever been’ in Washington
Aug 19, 2021, 11:36 AM
Itegue Fantai prepares to remove soiled linens from a room during her cleaning shift at Harborview Medical Center on August 20, 2020 in Seattle, Washington. Fantai is a member of the hospitals environmental services department. (Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)
(Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)
Washington state has broken a new record for COVID-19 hospitalizations, hitting a benchmark doctors hoped not to see a year and a half into the pandemic.
“COVID hospitalizations are at the highest they’ve ever been in Washington state, which is terrible news to report,” said Cassie Sauer, CEO of the Washington State Hospital Association on Thursday.
“The highest we ever were was in December with about 1,100 patients — right now we are at 1,240 hospitalized patients across Washington state,” Sauer detailed.
Hospital occupancy statewide has been growing since May 2021 due to an unfortunate combination of people who delayed care during the pandemic now needing treatment, a normal increase in summer outdoor injuries, and more people than ever before in the pandemic hospitalized with COVID.
Sauer says the state is working on moving people around, but the best action people can take to help is to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
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The Washington State Department of Health tracks COVID-19 patient occupancy through WA-HEALTH, a hospital data collection system in partnership with the Washington State Hospital Association. A table on the state’s COVID-19 Data Dashboard shows the total number of hospital beds occupied by patients with suspected and confirmed COVID-19, and a subset of patients on ventilators.
Between Aug. 4 and Aug. 17, statewide COVID-19 hospital occupancy jumped from 683 to 1,140. There is a slight lag in data as time is needed to receive WA-HEALTH data from all facilities, conduct quality checks, and report. In that same time frame, the number of suspected and confirmed COVID patients on ventilators in Washington more than doubled — from 67 on Aug. 4 to 146 on Aug. 17.
As mask mandate returns, delta variant now makes up 98% of state’s COVID cases
Now, according to state Secretary of Health Dr. Umair Shah, an estimated 98% of Washington’s recent COVID-19 infections can be traced back to the variant strain, having doubled in prevalence every seven to 10 days since it first appeared. Due to this increasing spread, Gov. Jay Inslee announced a new statewide indoor mask mandate set to take effect Aug. 23 for everyone, regardless of vaccination status.
The KIRO Radio Newsdesk contributed to this report.
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