COVID-19 hospitalizations at Central Washington Hospital have declined this week but remain very high. And the COVID-19 patient count in the intensive care unit reached 15 Tuesday, the most since the beginning of the pandemic.
The total COVID-19 count has dropped, going from 56 patients Friday to 51 on Tuesday, according to the Confluence Health COVID-19 webpage. Seven of the 51 hospitalized patients were fully vaccinated.
“We are seeing some people with the vaccine hospitalized, but they’re usually stabilized fairly quickly and then sent home after that if they don’t have other comorbidities or complicated issues that are keeping them in the hospital,” Luke Davies, Chelan-Douglas Health administrator, said Monday at the monthly board of health meeting.
“The delta variant is still very active within our two-county area,” Davies said at the board meeting. “When we look at all of North-Central Washington, including Okanogan and Grant counties, you can see there’s still a significant increase. We’re not necessarily seeing relief yet for our health care workers.”
Case counts in North-Central Washington remain high but have begun to drop in some places. As of Monday, the Chelan-Douglas health district reported a 14-day COVID-19 rate of:
- Chelan County, 844.8 cases per 100,000 people. On Sept. 12, the rate was 976.7 per 100,000. Cases in the county continue on a downward trend.
- Douglas County, 921.1 cases per 100,000. On Sept. 12, the rate was 1,072 per 100,000. The rate in the county had been increasing a bit but has started trending downward.
- Okanogan County, 1,166 cases per 100,000. On Sunday, the rate reached 1,113 per 100,000, according to Okanogan County Public Health data.
- Grant County,, 1,145 per 100,000 on Monday, up from 1,121 cases per 100,000 on Friday, according to Grant County Health District data.