Coronavirus In Pierce County: Week In Review

PIERCE COUNTY, WA — This week Washington massively expanded COVID-19 vaccine eligibility and announced plans to grow eligibility even further, both of which will be critical as the state — and Pierce County — are seeing case counts continue to climb, and the specter of a fourth wave of transmissions on the horizon.

As of Friday, Pierce County has a case rate of 170.2 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents over the past 14 days, continuing a trend of growing case counts over the last few weeks. Though that case rate is still much lower than the peak of 550 in December, it's higher than the peak of the second wave of infections, and health officials are increasingly worried it is the beginning of a fourth wave of infections.

That's a bad omen, but there is hope that the nascent fourth wave could be less deadly than the previous three. While case counts are climbing, the state's death rate has continued to decline, which health officials attribute to vaccination efforts protecting the highest-risk community members.

While the Washington State Department of Health is still encouraging everyone to follow COVID-19 safety guidelines by socially distancing, frequently washing their hands and wearing masks or facial coverings in public, they say the vaccination effort will be increasingly crucial to mitigate the damage a fourth wave could cause.

It's fortunate then, that vaccines have just become more available than ever, and will soon be available to every adult in Washington. On Wednesday, the state entered Phases 1B3 and 1B4 of its vaccine distribution plan, making the following groups now eligible for vaccination:

• All people with two or more underlying conditions or co-morbidities, ages 16 and older.
• All people 60 years and older.
• People, staff and volunteers working or living congregate living settings, including jails and prisons, group homes for people with disabilities, domestic violence shelters and homeless shelters.
• Most people working in restaurants, manufacturing and construction industries, with some exceptions.

That same day, Gov. Jay Inslee announced that, starting April 15, every Washingtonian 16 and older would become eligible for vaccination.

"We are confident we can take this step because our dosage allocations have increased," Inslee said. "We've now had roughly 3.3 million doses that have been administered in our state, and more than 1 million Washingtonians are already fully vaccinated."

And as millions more Washingtonians become eligible for vaccination, the state expects to have more doses of the vaccine available as well. The DOH says Washington is expected to receive at least 390,340 doses the week of April 18, a number that is likely to grow as we draw closer.

As of Wednesday, there have been 3,471,343 vaccine doses administered across Washington state. Pierce County represents just over a tenth of those doses, with 349,460 doses administered to county residents. In the last week alone, Pierce County residents received 39,303 COVID-19 vaccine doses

Total coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths in Pierce County:

Editors note: Patch is 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.