Newly-Released Federal Data Shows How WA Is Weathering Pandemic

SEATTLE — A new batch of data from the White House is giving a fresh snapshot into how Washington is handling the pandemic, and how the state compares to other states across the country.

Under the previous administration, the White House COVID-19 Team compiled weekly reports tracking pandemic growth in each individual state, but the reports were kept private. On Wednesday, White House COVID-19 Data Director Cyrus Shahpar confirmed over twitter that, going forward, the data would be shared publicly.

Here's a look at how Washington fared on its first State Profile Report.

Note that, while the report was first released Wednesday, the data below represents cases from the 7-day week ending Sunday, Jan 24.

Since near the beginning of the pandemic, Washington state has used a set of key metrics to track pandemic progress including: the rate of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents, test positivity rates, and total lab tests. The White House COVID-19 Team's report uses similar metrics, and for most of them, Washington is performing better than the country at large.

For example, the state has a rate of 161 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000. That's high, (ideally the DOH has said they'd like that rate below 25) but it's less than half the nationwide average of 381 cases per 100,000 Americans. It's also 29 percent fewer cases than the week before, hopefully an early sign that the post-New Year's surge in COVID-19 cases has plateaued.

The death rate fares similarly: there were 211 pandemic-related deaths in Washington last week, a rate of 2.8 deaths per 100,000 Washingtonians. Across America, 21,658 died during the same time, or 6.5 deaths per 100,000 people.

One notable exception is that the Evergreen State is performing fewer than average coronavirus tests. Last week, the state processed 92,102 laboratory tests, 22 percent fewer tests than it had the week before and about a third of the nation's average testing rate.

Also trending poorly is the number of Washington hospitals suffering staff shortages, which grew 12 percent over the past week. Otherwise hospitalization rates remain relatively stable: 10 percent fewer COVID-19 patients were hospitalized over the past week, and 7 percent fewer hospitals are reporting supply shortages.

The report also includes new information on the state's vaccination efforts. Data shows that a total 846,625 doses had been distributed to Washington. 370,231 residents, about 4.9 percent of the state's population, have received their first dose of the vaccine. Another 68,486 have received the second dose, about 0.9 percent of the total population.

State leaders have been looking to speed up vaccination efforts across Washington, and say they expect to receive around 16 percent more doses over the coming few weeks.

Finally, the report ranks all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, based on their number of new cases per every 100,000 residents. In that ranking, Washington comes in 45th, meaning just 7 regions have lower case counts.

All 52 profile reports for all 50 states and Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. can be found here. They will be updated weekly.