King County Coronavirus Numbers Likely Lagging After Thanksgiving

SEATTLE — The number of coronavirus cases reported each day in King County has dropped below peak levels over the last week, down to the 500s from the 700s, according to public health data. However, officials believe that snapshot may not tell the full story of the current situation.

Dr. Jeff Duchin, health officer for King County, hosted his weekly news briefing Friday, detailing the latest trends seen in the days immediately following the Thanksgiving holiday. While there were some areas of improvement, Duchin said, a few complicating factors may cloud what's really happening.

"Because of the holiday weekend, several of our high volume testing sites were closed or had reduced capacity," Duchin said. "We saw a similar pattern after July 4th and Labor Day weekends, with a dropoff in testing over the holiday and then a resumption. We anticipate having a more accurate understanding of the trends over the next couple of days, as people who either didn't seek testing or didn't have testing available over the past few days seek it out."

Overall, testing levels are down about 25 percent from the pre-Thanksgiving peak, now closer to levels seen earlier in November. Positivity rates, however, remain elevated throughout the county, which could indicate that transmission is higher than what's reflected in the data.

"I think it's possible that we're in the eye of the hurricane right now, and we may see a resumption of our increased trend in a few days," Duchin said. "I hope not, but that's a distinct possibility."

Hospitalization rates 3 times higher than early November

One concerning metric that has not let up is hospitalization rates, which have sustained an upward trend since Thanksgiving with an average of 20 admissions each day — a figure three times higher than early November. According to public health data, at least 329 patients are hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 illnesses in King County as of Friday afternoon.

"Our hospital systems are stretched," Duchin said. "They've activated their emergency response systems, they've begun canceling some surgeries, and these are not trivial changes. These are things like joint replacements, heart valve replacements, even potentially some cancer surgeries, to make sure there's room for the increasing number of COVID-19 patients."

Duchin said most hospitalizations are among patients 40 to 69 years old, but increases are happening across the board, including those 70 and older and younger people between 20 and 39.

Should the strain on the hospital system continue to grow, the effects on the region's health care are likely to worsen.

"I continue to have the highest level of concern that any one of us or our loved ones would not get the lifesaving medical care we expect if we needed it," Duchin said. "We all need to keep in mind, this is a real possibility, and we need to all do what we can to prevent that from happening."

So far, increases in deaths resulting from COVID-19 have remained relatively small, Duchin said, but worrying markers mean that outlook could quickly change.

Apart from hospitalization rates, the number and size of outbreaks in long-term care facilities are growing, where vulnerable populations are at an especially high risk to develop serious or life-threatening complications.

Without federal assistance soon, King County's public health efforts may take a hit

Another urgent area of need is for more federal aid, not only to allow the county to grow its COVID-19 response but to maintain existing operations during the most critical era of the pandemic.

"We're facing funding disappearing at the time that our challenge is rising up to the highest level it's been since the outbreak began," Duchin said. "The failure of Congress to pass a stimulus package is hurting us at a time when we need resources more than ever, so we're actually contemplating having to downsize our COVID-19 response, just at this time as we need to be increasing it."

Without an assurance of funding, Duchin said his department had already begun reassigning some staff to help maintain the current level of service. More funds will be needed to keep up with the need for testing and case investigations, plus new efforts to support vaccine distribution in the coming weeks.

King County hopes for up to 150,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine by the end of December

Washington is finalizing preparations to accept and distribute the first 62,000 doses of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine, assuming it is approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration and an advisory committee next week.

In King County, public health officials were told to expect between 130,000 and 150,000 doses by the end of December, out of the 262,000 sent to the state in the first two shipments. Duchin said that number is close to the estimated number of people in the highest priority group for the vaccine, including health care workers and residents and staff of long-term care facilities. While his office is planning for that, they are also leaving some room for unanticipated hiccups.

"There is a lot of uncertainty in this business, and I would expect there will be some bumps in the road," Duchin said. "I'm optimistic that we'll be able to put together a program that will make the vaccine available for these first high priority groups...very quickly after the vaccine becomes available if everything goes according to plan in late December."

While hopeful news on the horizon is welcome, Duchin cautioned that reaching adequate vaccination levels among the general public is going to take some time.

"It's going to take quite a while to get as many people vaccinated as we would need to actually interrupt the spread of COVID-19 in the community, which is the so-called herd immunity effect," Duchin said. "We will need to remember that this virus is still out there. It's not going to disappear when the vaccine arrives. It's going to take many, many months to get enough people immunized to make a dent in that sort of transmission."

With Thanksgiving behind us, the need for caution continues

With Christmas and New Year's Eve approaching, Duchin said it was just as important to remain vigilant now as it was in the lead-up to Thanksgiving.

"It takes more than just having a safe Thanksgiving celebration to turn this around," Duchin said. "We have to think about every aspect of our lives, what we do every day, and make sure that we consider how to minimize the risk of COVID-19."

That includes everything from avoiding crowded indoor areas, to continuing to limit all nonessential trips and interactions outside the household, consistently using face coverings, maintaining proper hygiene and saying no to gatherings with people who do not live in the home. Those behaviors will need to continue well beyond the holidays.

"The changes that we need to make in our lives, unfortunately, need to be sustained for the next several months. We need to remember all the COVID-19 safety precautions and continue to practice them to the greatest extent possible so that we can get through this crisis that we're in right now," he said.

Another surge added to the third wave could bring a "disaster of unprecedented" magnitude to the state's health care system, Duchin said.

"If people do gather over the Christmas holidays or do decide to have activities that put them in close contact with others, particularly indoors, or increase the amount of activity that they engage in in the community...if any of that increases, we will see a corresponding increase in cases and things inevitably will get worse," Duchin said. "When you're starting with such a high level of disease, when things get worse, they get worse in a big way very quickly."