‘Community immunity’ against COVID is rising in Washington

A state epidemiologist says Washington may have reached “herd immunity” and could be close to the tipping point the state has been hoping for in the battle against COVID-19.

“I think we’re really on the cusp of being able to turn this fifth wave down,” Dr. Scott Lindquist said in a Wednesday briefing with the Washington State Department of Health.

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Lindquist noted that COVID-19 rates remain high across the state, with about 1,500 new cases reported each day, but the good news is that rates are dropping in all age groups, slowly and steadily. He believes natural immunity and growing vaccinations rates explain why.

“Our community immunity is rising,” he said, which includes natural immunity or from vaccination.

The state is nearing the 75% mark for fully vaccinated state residents ages 12 and older. As Lindquist pointed out, a large population of kids is now eligible to be vaccinated as well, which will only help increase the state’s community protection against the virus.

Previously, it was hoped that 70% vaccination would be the herd immunity mark, but then the tougher delta variant swept in.

Dr. Umair Shah, the state’s secretary of health, announced that the state reached a milestone this week, now having administered 10 million COVID vaccine doses. That number is only expected to get higher now that kids ages 5-11 are eligible for a pediatric sized dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

Dr. Lindquist says that’s a good thing because the delta variant is still hitting young people hard.

“We’ve had 7,400 cases in Washington state in kids, but the rates in kids are incredibly high — it’s like 390 per 100,000,” he said. “These are rates way higher than we were used to, speaking [of] the general population, early in the pandemic.”

Thankfully, hospitals statewide are seeing fewer COVID cases in most age groups, but they do remain busy. Part of that, Dr. Lindquist says, is because we’re now in a season where we usually see an increase in respiratory viruses.

“A lot of this is due to the start of our respiratory virus season,” he said. “So this year, in addition to COVID, we have to be concerned about things like croup, or RSV, or some of these other common respiratory viruses.”

“I’m in practice today, seeing patient after patient with respiratory virus that is not COVID,” he added.

Vaccination, masks, and distancing from others are still the keys, Lindquist says, to helping us get out of this fifth wave. He recommends you not only get a COVID shot, but a flu shot as well.

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For those not yet vaccinated against COVID-19, remember that new statewide restrictions kick in Monday, Nov. 15, for large events.

“Anyone attending a large event who is 12 or older must show proof of full COVID-19 vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of an event,” explained Lacy Fahrenbach, the state’s deputy secretary for COVID-19 response. “Large events are any ticketed or pre-registered assembly of 10,000 or more people at an outdoor event, or 1,000 or more people at an indoor event.”

The KIRO Radio Newsdesk contributed to this report.

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