King County's Daily COVID Counts Fall To Double Digits

SEATTLE — Case counts and hospitalizations continue to tumble in King County, thanks to strong overall vaccination rates and steady gains among younger age groups. Dr. Jeff Duchin, King County's health officer, hosted a news briefing Friday to discuss the latest trends as Washington nears reopening later this month. He also included a customary COVID-19 forecast which, for many, looks almost as bright as the summer days ahead.

"Today's forecast is for increasing sunshine in many areas, with some potentially stormy weather in others," Duchin said. "If you're vaccinated, you'll see mostly sunny skies. Although if you're unvaccinated, it's likely you'll get rained on and possibly experience some thunder and lightning."

Countywide, the health officer said recent daily case counts had fallen into the double digits, averaging 79 each day over the last week — down 81 percent from late April. Over the same timeframe, hospitalizations have fallen by three-quarters. The latest metrics have fallen enough to downgrade King County's overall transmission risk to "moderate," as classified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Still, Duchin cautioned, the metrics remain higher than this time last year, and the risk for unvaccinated people is substantially higher.

"Today, when so many of us are protected through vaccination, we're much less vulnerable to large surges in hospitalizations and death that we saw earlier in the outbreak," he said. "But COVID-19 can still cause plenty of trouble among the unvaccinated. Today, 95 percent of all COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths are occurring in people who are not fully vaccinated."

The heightened risk is due to several variants of concern circulating in King County and across the nation, including the delta variant, which has proven to be even more contagious than other strains, with potentially more severe symptoms, and more effective at infecting people that have only received their first dose of Pfizer or Moderna.

"I want to be clear that our vaccines offer excellent protection against delta and the other current variants of concern, but the complete series is required," Duchin said. "So, waiting to be vaccinated until delta takes over as the most prevalent variant is not a good idea."

Earlier this week, King County became the largest in the nation to cross the 70 percent full vaccination threshold for residents 16 and older. However, Duchin notes disparities in vaccination rates continue in some communities and regions, including parts of south and southeast King County, where the disease burden continues to be highest.

"We've still got more work to do," he said. "Our goal is to reach a minimum of 70 percent fully vaccinated within all racial and ethnic groups, and in all zip codes, and ultimately have as many people as eligible vaccinated in King County as possible."

The health officer also took a moment to recognize Juneteenth, now a federal holiday, and the long history of inequity for communities of color.

"It's an important day to commemorate, and even more important to recognize that the end of chattel slavery was not the end of racism in America," Duchin said. "The COVID-19 outbreak we're discussing today is just one current example of how ongoing, systemic racism has led to a disproportionate impact on Black Americans and other people of color, who here in King County and across the U.S. have suffered the highest rates of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths."

Duchin said Public Health - Seattle & King County continues to work with community organizations to offer more vaccination opportunities in parts of the county that remain below the 70 percent target and continue outreach efforts to educate people about the vaccines' effectiveness and safety.

In crossing the vaccination milestone this week, Duchin also announced that his local indoor mask mandate would be lifted on June 29, providing enough time for the people who most recently completed their vaccination series to achieve full protection.

"When this ends, Washington state and CDC mask guidance will be in effect," he said. "The goal of the King County directive was to further reduce community risk for everyone before transitioning to the new CDC guidance. On that front, I think we were successful. In the month since the local directive was issued, we've had 170,000 people aged 16 and older who completed their vaccine series, and another 130,000 first doses were administered to people of all ages."

Over that same timeframe, Duchin said case rates dropped by 66 percent, and hospitalizations declined by 70 percent.

In his closing remarks Friday, the health officer welcomed the vast improvement seen since Washington's fourth wave and said there were plenty of reasons for optimism — and a little caution, too.

He said in part:

"We are in a much better place today than at any time since the pandemic started, thanks to these highly effective vaccines and to everyone that's come to be vaccinated. That's the way we will return to healthier lives and a healthier economy. But it's important to understand that COVID isn't over. COVID-19 has been suppressed but not eliminated. More contagious variants are spreading and we need to take them seriously. As we move into summer and fall, we also need to keep in mind that there's uncertainty around the impact of changing behaviors, and increasing activities associated with reopening Washington, about the new variants of concern, and the duration of protection from vaccination, and other things we still don't understand completely about how the virus spreads. So, I recommend going forward with both optimism and caution and humility about predicting the future. We continue to depend on one another for community protection. The bottom line remains that the more people are vaccinated, the less COVID-19 will circulate and the safer we will all be."