COVID Cases Drop 20% As King County Looks To Vaccinate More Teens

SEATTLE — King County's progress in tamping down a fourth wave in infections appears to be gaining ground as the county reaches a new vaccination milestone and begins to offer immunizations to more adolescents.

Dr. Jeff Duchin, King County's health officer, hosted his COVID-19 briefing a couple of days early this week, setting aside some time to discuss Wednesday's final recommendations to authorize the Pfizer vaccine for patients 12 to 15 years old.

Duchin's remarks began with plenty of good news, as growing vaccination rates help slow down the recent variant-driven wave.

"Our most recent data suggest we are slowly turning the corner on the recent surge," he said. "We've had a decrease in the 7-day average for cases of approximately 20 percent."

Public health officials said average daily case counts have fallen from around 350 in late April to 250 a day over the last week. King County reported 207 new cases Wednesday.

Duchin said new hospitalizations, which most recently have been primarily among younger and middle-aged adults, dropped 27 percent and he was hopeful the trend would continue as even more people get their first dose.

"Another great piece of news is that yesterday we passed the threshold of 70 percent of King County residents 16 and older with one or more doses of COVID-19 vaccine, and 52 percent of King County residents are fully vaccinated," Duchin said. "This is largely due to high vaccination rates among older adults...and we have increasing numbers of younger adults being vaccinated, and now we'll have adolescents as well."

With the final authorizations in place, King County vaccine providers can immediately begin administering Pfizer doses to younger teens. While teens and pre-teens are less likely to be hospitalized or die from a COVID-19 infection, serious outcomes have occurred, Duchin noted.

"Adolescents and younger children are making up a growing share of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S., accounting for about 20 percent recently," he said. "Although rates of hospitalizations and deaths are relatively low, some adolescents do develop severe illness."

Duchin said that kids ages 12 to 17 have accounted for about 13,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations across the U.S. Though the rate is much lower than adults, he said it's roughly three times higher than an average flu season. In rare cases, younger patients have also developed multisystem inflammatory syndrome, also known as MIS-C.

Aside from the added health protections, Duchin said getting more kids vaccinated will help allow everyone to have a more normal summer, with more activities and fewer restrictions.

"I would anticipate it would make people a whole lot happier going to summer camp if they knew they were protected against COVID-19," Duchin said. "Every person that gets vaccinated contributes to community immunity, decreasing the level of risk that we all face and getting us back to a normal life sooner."

Kids 12 and up are eligible to get vaccinated through any provider equipped with the Pfizer vaccine. Duchin said every King County school district also has plans to host student vaccine clinics before summer break, beginning next week. UW Medicine said Wednesday it had already booked more than 6,000 appointments for patients 12 to 15 years old and would administer the first doses Thursday morning.

Mass vaccination sites in Kent, Auburn, and at Lumen Field, are hosting family days this weekend. The county is also launching a new program to bring in live music and art to more clinics, and transform them into community events.

Duchin noted that, while King County's progress in knocking down the infections is a promising sign, rates will need to come down further before things can get back to normal.

"Multiple factors are involved in falling case counts, but I think the one that is most important and that we're going to depend on as a community over time, for the long haul, is vaccination coverage," he said. "The increasing number of cases seems to have turned around, but we're still at a relatively high level — more cases and hospitalizations, for example, than we saw last summer."

The state's current metrics, which lag up to 10 days behind, still show King County above the Phase 3 thresholds, although the numbers have improved in recent days. The state is scheduled to revaluate the statewide pause in reopenings and rollbacks on May 17 or May 18.

Learn more about getting vaccinated in King County on the public health website.