Coronavirus In Pierce County: Week In Review

PIERCE COUNTY, WA - The vaccine is becoming less of a rare commodity in Pierce County as the state continues to ramp up vaccination efforts.

It's hardly a scientific analysis, but the Tacoma - Pierce County Health Department's vaccine clinics tell the story almost as well as anything else. Their latest clinic registration on Friday took about 25 minutes to fill several hundred appointment slots. That's fast, and it shows that there is still a strong demand for the vaccine across the county, but it's nothing compared to their first clinic, which just weeks ago overwhelmed their whole registration website, filling up a thousand plus appointments in just a handful of minutes.

The hard data supports the anecdote: the latest update to the Tacoma - Pierce County Health Department's dashboard shows that 33,371 Pierce County residents received vaccine doses in the week ending March 6, for a total 218,382 doses administered to Pierce County residents.

And the vaccine should be getting even easier to access in the coming weeks. Not only will Washington state be receiving more allocated doses next week than weeks before, the Federal Retail Pharmacy program is sending 72,000 more doses directly to pharmacies across Washington. The federal government has set up a website to help residents find those doses at vaccinefinder.org/, which allows residents to search by zip code and find vaccines in stock near them.

Coronavirus case counts, meanwhile, continued their downward trend. The latest update to TPCHD's COVID-19 data dashboard shows the county case rate has declined from 168.7 infections per 100,000 residents last week to 153.7 for the past seven days - about where the county was in the first week of November when the third wave was just starting to gain steam.

Other key metrics are also trending in the right direction, including a 14 percent decrease in hospital admissions over the past two weeks, and test positivity remains relatively low at 6 percent.

Last Saturday marked one year since the first Pierce County resident tested positive for COVID-19. This past week also marked one year since the coronavirus was officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Tuesday, Dr. Anthony L-T Chen, director of the Tacoma - Pierce County Health Department, shared some thoughts on how the community has come together to weather the crisis.

"The past year has brought major challenges and changes to our community," writes Chen. "Pierce County has had more than 36,000 confirmed cases and at least 470 deaths caused by the virus. In that time, we have had to stay at home; learn to wear masks; and change how we work, learn, socialize, and do business."

He ends his post expressing optimism that the worst of this pandemic has passed:

"The darkest days of the pandemic tested us in ways we never imagined. But after a year of challenges, our community is more resilient as we look to a future of hope and healing. The past year has been difficult, but the year ahead is looking brighter."

He appears to be right. While there are concerns about the recent appearance of new COVID-19 variants in Washington state, there are a number of positive changes to look forward to in the coming weeks as well.

First, the next phase of vaccinations is set to begin on Wednesday. That makes several more groups eligible for the vaccine, many of them essential workers who work in congregate settings.

Then, just a few days after that, on March 22, all of Washington will enter Phase 3 of the state's "Roadmap to Recovery" program. That will provide a number of benefits, like the return of indoor and outdoor events like graduations and concerts with up to 4oo attendees. Restaurants, gyms, movie theaters and other businesses will also be able to reopen with 50 percent capacity.

"While the pandemic is not over yet, we have started to see signs of hope," Chen said.

Total coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths in Pierce County:

Editors note: Patch is now updating these totals on a weekly, rather than daily, basis. Readers should keep in mind that the increases below represent infections and deaths over a seven-day period.

The above numbers are provided by the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, and some numbers differ from the totals provided separately by the Washington State Department of Health.