Vaccines Give Optimism But Case Trends Concerning: Washington DOH

OLYMPIA, WA — As Washington approaches one year since Gov. Jay Inslee enacted the first stay-at-home orders and forges ahead with reopening next week, state health officials hosted a news briefing Thursday sharing "cautious optimism" and a few points of concern.

"We know a lot has transpired over this last year," said Dr. Umair Shah, state Secretary of Health. "Just this past week, we also saw the anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring COVID-19 a pandemic. We've come a long way since then, thanks to vaccines and everyone's hard work to stop the spread of the virus."

In its vaccination efforts, Washington has now surpassed 2.5 million doses given across the state, with significant results seen among older adults with the highest risk of severe COVID-19 complications. To date, more than 66 percent of people 65 and older have received at least one dose, and more than 40 percent are fully vaccinated. The state credits that success as a driving force that has kept hospitalization and death rates on a steady decline.

When Washington moved into Phase 1B2 on Wednesday, 740,000 residents became newly eligible for vaccines, including more essential workers, pregnant people and those with disabilities that place them in higher-risk categories. On Thursday, the governor announced another 2 million Washingtonians would qualify by March 31.

As more people qualify for shots, the central challenge continues to be in the federal supply chain, with Washington receiving an estimated 110,000 fewer doses than providers are requesting each week. However, state officials believe Washington could glimpse the "light at the end of the tunnel" on that problem next month.

"April looks promising," said Michele Roberts, the state's lead vaccine planner. "The federal government says that next month, 30 million doses of vaccine will be available each week across the nation. That means about 600,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine should be coming here to Washington state each week in April."

Such a significant boost in shipments will prove pivotal as eligibility expands further in the weeks ahead, and the state works toward a federal goal to offer vaccines to all groups by the beginning of May.

Find an appointment using the state's new Vaccine Locator tool

While the future for vaccinations appears bright, health officials are still worried about the present coronavirus situation in Washington.

"Obviously it's a race against time with vaccines," Shah said. "Regardless of how quickly vaccines get into the state, and we get them into the arms of Washingtonians, we've gotta continue to remember that we're not out of this pandemic."

Despite significant progress in the wake of the third wave, Shah said that work must continue to prevent a fourth surge of infections before enough of the general population is vaccinated. Though case counts have fallen substantially since the beginning of the year, weekly totals continue to hover near their mid-October levels.

"While we have decreased significantly from the third wave, we are at levels that we were seeing in the fall," Shah said. "We want to see those numbers continue to decline, and that, unfortunately, is not happening as fast as we would like."

Health officials are particularly concerned about a growing pattern of cases among younger people, especially those between 20 and 40 years old. That indicator has served as an early warning sign before previous waves, officials said, when early cases among young adults seeded a larger surge.

"What has happened after this third wave is we're starting to see the slowdown in the decrease of the number of cases, but the baseline is even higher than the first, second, or third," said Dr. Scott Lindquist, state epidemiologist for communicable diseases. "The additional concern is this emergence of the younger-age case rates. Given our opening our phases to Phase 3, higher base rates, this predominance of younger age groups, and the emergence of variants in the state, we're very concerned what this all means."

Lindquist reiterated that the state has not entered a fourth wave, and preventing one is still possible.

"I want to give a very specific message to those that are 20 to 40: You are the age group that is driving the early increase in cases," Lindquist said. "Please be mindful of wearing a mask and social distancing and getting a vaccine when you're eligible. It is clear in our outbreak reports that bars and restaurants are the number one outbreak area."

State and local health officials will be closely monitoring changes in the data as Washington begins its third reopening phase Monday, a sweeping change that boosts capacity inside bars, restaurants, gyms, and movie theaters and allows large sporting events to welcome up to 9,000 spectators.

While the Department of Health plans to evaluate each county every three weeks, Shah said the state could scale back activities at any time if the trends reflect an emerging problem.

"We want to make sure we're doing everything that we can to move forward, but also recognizing that if the data do not show that we can continue to move forward, then we are absolutely ready to take decisive action."