(Image from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
We’re looking specifically at King County after a briefing Thursday from County Health Officer, Doctor Jeff Duchin, who sings a tune that feels like a throwback to the past two summers:
–A sustained high level of COVID transmission since April in all parts of the county and across all age groups – and likely underreported with so many more of us home testing. Keep in mind, this is when we’ll start seeing any effects of July 4th travel and gatherings.
–Hospitalizations tripling since April – up to 21 a day now in King County.
— COVID deaths at a rate of 3 a day, which Duchin says has been steady for a month.
–Duchin says with 82% of those eligible vaccinated in King County, that’s helped curb the growth of hospitalization and death numbers – but he says booster rates are low, and boosters are a key part of maintaining your protection.
–Hospitals are still stressed, with numbers higher than the peak of the flu season, only they’ve been sustained for two months while hospitals remain short-staffed and are also dealing with people who put off their care early in the pandemic.
–And what’s going around is mostly the BA.5 subvariant with some BA.4, which are more infectious and can evade your immunity from an omicron infection or the vaccines, although Duchin points out you’ll likely experience less severe outcomes if you’re vaccinated and boosted.
The big question is will this mean a return to an indoor mask mandate in King County?
King County Public Health officials ARE talking about whether to the indoor mask mandate, but Doctor Duchin says it’s not an easy question to answer. “If we were seeing the level of severity of illness that we saw before people were as well-vaccinated as they are now,” Duchin says, “I think we would be moving more quickly to such measures as a mask mandate. We’re taking into account the unpredictable nature of the evolution of these variants, the relatively lesser impact on hospitalizations and deaths and severe outcomes.”
Doctor Duchin hopes we’ll all remember that this is a virus that’ll be with us, we’d make sure we’re vaccinated and boosted and we’d voluntarily mask up and protect ourselves. Duchin says we still need those layered protections, but he says the single most important thing you can do to protect yourself is to be fully-vaccinated and stay up-to-date on your boosters.
