Coronavirus In Pierce County: Week In Review

PIERCE COUNTY, WA — We're coming up on just one month until Washington state removes all remaining COVID-19 restrictions, and while we are in the home stretch, Pierce County is still going to have to work hard the next few weeks to address higher than normal case counts and lower than average vaccination rates.

The good news: the vaccination rate is improving. As of the Tacoma - Pierce County Health Department's latest update to their vaccination dashboard, the county averaged roughly 5,500 vaccine doses administered each day last week. That's above the county's self-imposed goal of 5,000 vaccinations per day, and a stark improvement over mid-May when that rate hovered closer to 4,000.

As of last Saturday, a total 678,016 vaccine doses have been administered to Pierce County residents. 42.8 percent of Pierce County women have been vaccinated, as have 36.3 percent of men.

The bad news: there's been a slight uptick in daily case counts this week. It's far too early to make any dire proclamations or assumptions, but this week the county reported several hundred more new COVID-19 cases (1,399 this week, versus 937 the week prior), an increase local health leaders are sure to be keeping an eye on.

Case count concerns are one reason TPCHD officials continue their push to address vaccine hesitancy. Earlier this week they put out a call asking vaccinated residents to become advocates, and speak to their neighbors about why they chose to take the shot.

"You never know who is going to be the person to get through to someone on the fence about the vaccine," writes TPCHD Health Promotion Technician Elodia Andres Cornelio. "And it doesn't even need to be anything as formal as a Health Department blog post. Just a conversation you have with your friends and loved ones can mean the difference between whether they get vaccinated or not."

One high profile Pierce County resident who answered the call for advocacy was Mariners reporter Ryan Divish, who shared his experience suffering from COVID-19.

“I isolated with my parents in my childhood home for 13 days,” Divish said. “Not something I’d recommend. I had really bad headaches. Imagine the worst hangover of your life, and there’s nothing you can do to get rid of it. That’s what I had for 4 days.”

Divish says his father got it even worse, one reason he was so eager to become immunized.

“My dad lost about 30 pounds,” Divish said. “He had headaches every day. My uncle was in the hospital on oxygen. One of my dad’s good friends was in there with him. We couldn’t go see them. We couldn’t do anything. That’s not something you want to happen to anybody.”

>> Read Divish's whole story on the Tacoma - Pierce County Health Department's blog.

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.