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Current COVID-19 infection rates in the northern Olympic Peninsula reflect the surge seen during the Thanksgiving 2020 holiday season, and authorities are struggling to track contact tracing.
“At this point, it feels like the dam is breaking,” said Dr. Allison Berry, health officer for Jefferson and Clallam counties.
Due to the high number of cases, local contract tracers have to rely on state help, Berry said.
“We have a lot of outbreaks all over the county, mostly in the workplace at this point, so it’s not just travel related anymore,” she said.
“It is straining our public health system at this point.
“We do not have adequate contact tracing capacity for all the cases that arise,” she continued.
“We are prioritizing high-risk cases – cases in health facilities, cases in assembly places – and the rest of the cases are sent to the state,” she continued.
“We are reaching the limit of the ability of contract tracing to control infection. ”
Clallam County confirmed 15 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, while Jefferson County added nine new cases, according to county public health data.
Clallam County’s case rate rose to 209 cases per 100,000 population in the past two weeks on Thursday. This is approaching the highest case rate the county has seen – 216 cases per 100,000 – which was recorded in November, Berry said.
Jefferson County reached 147.34 cases per 100,000 in the previous two weeks on Saturday, the second highest case rate it has reported since the start of the pandemic, Berry said.
Jefferson County’s highest case rate, 156 per 100,000, was also recorded last November during the holiday season surge, Berry said.
Community-based mitigation measures such as wearing masks, limiting indoor interactions and social distancing are needed in addition to contact tracing to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, Berry said.
“We will continue to fight it,” Berry said. “We are not giving up. While our staff are frantically searching for contacts as we speak, we are reaching the limit of our capabilities. ”
There are currently discussions between the state and health workers about what other mitigation measures they might impose, but no plan has yet been developed, Berry said.
The majority of new infections are in unvaccinated residents, with about 8% of cases since mid-January being groundbreaking cases in Clallam County and 6% being breakthroughs in Jefferson, Berry said.
A revolutionary case is infection with COVID-19 in a person who received a final dose of the vaccine more than weeks before.
Berry urged all residents 12 and older who have not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19 and can be, to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
Data compiled by the state Department of Health shows that in Jefferson County, 75.1% of residents aged 12 and older have started to be vaccinated, 71.9% are fully vaccinated, and 69, 1% of the total population has started immunization, and 66.2% are fully immunized, according to the state’s Scoreboard.
Clallam County vaccinated 65.3% of residents 12 and older with at least one dose, with 60.8% fully vaccinated, while 58% of the total population started vaccinations with 54% fully vaccinated, according to the state dashboard.
2021 has already more than doubled 2020 for more confirmed COVID-19 cases in both counties, with Clallam County having 1,759 COVID-19 cases in total since the start of the pandemic, and on January 1 the total number number of cases was 756, says Berry.
Jefferson County had a total of 534 cases as of Thursday, after starting the year with 229 confirmed cases, Berry said.
“Things get pretty serious pretty quickly,” Berry said. “We’re really going to need the whole community to come together to get this under control.
“We can do it. We’ve done it before, but we’re going to need the community to take this seriously.
Seventeen people have died from COVID-19 in Clallam County and four have died in Jefferson County.
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Jefferson County reporter Zach Jablonski can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 5, or at [email protected]
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