King County continues to battle high coronavirus infections and hospitalizations, with new records emerging every week as the omicron variant continues to surge through the region. But health officials and researchers predicted this week a peak could be approaching.
As of Friday morning, King County was reporting a “record-breaking” average of 3,323 coronavirus infections, 34 hospitalizations and two deaths per day, said Dr. Jeff Duchin, the county’s public health officer. The current seven-day average case rate is more than four times the county’s previous peak in November 2020, he added.
Youth rates are generally lower, with highest case rates among those ages 18 to 35.
People who are unvaccinated continue to be at the highest risk of becoming infected and seriously ill, he said. For the past month, those who are unvaccinated are about two-and-a-half times more likely of getting infected and 13 times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 than those who have received shots, according to data from Public Health – Seattle & King County.
Vaccinated people continue to be most protected from severe illness and death.
Duchin’s message Friday was clear — along with getting vaccinated and boosted, residents should do their best to limit indoor activities and avoid crowded and poorly ventilated indoor spaces. He also encouraged people to use high-quality, well-fitted respirators and masks.
“With omicron, even vaccinated and boosted people tend to become infected and spread the infection to others, so we can’t rely on vaccination alone when transmission levels are this high,” he said. “We need to use the same multiple layers of protection we’ve used in the past.”
Hospitalizations are up about fivefold since mid-December, and as of Friday, King County hospitals were caring for about 400 COVID patients, the highest number the county’s seen to date. The previous peak came in early August with about 331 daily hospitalizations.
Hospitalizations are currently hitting those ages 40 to 69 and over 70 the hardest, while youth hospitalization rates remain lower, Duchin said.
The county reports 33 deaths in the past two weeks, compared to 17 during the prior two weeks, but Duchin said officials are still waiting to see how death trends might be affected.
“The current hospitalization rate of 10.7 per 100,000 over seven days is close to the winter 2020 peak, and we expect hospitalizations to continue to rise and health care system stress to continue to increase for several weeks after cases peak, ” he said.
Omicron’s peak nears?
Some researchers have predicted the rise in omicron cases could peak in mid-January, Duchin said, but “we can’t know with certainty.”
Earlier this week, Seattle computational biologist Trevor Bedford, a Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center scientist who’s been tracking the virus since the start of the pandemic, noted on Twitter that in many states, including Washington, omicron cases were steadily doubling in early December before surpassing the delta variant in mid- to late-December.
Since then, as prevalence has increased, the variant has slightly slowed its spread — though cases haven’t yet peaked — Bedford wrote.
“At a certain point, there’s going to be so many people infected that this virus is going to have a hard time finding new people to infect and things are going to start slowing down,” Duchin said. ” … I would expect because of how many people became infected so rapidly that, in fact, we would see a more rapid decline than we saw with variants that were less infectious.”
While we can draw some conclusions about what to expect from omicron’s spread in other countries, particularly in the U.K., Duchin emphasized again how “unpredictable this disease is, and how fraught any sort of prediction about COVID-19 is.”
Meanwhile, rapid tests and testing appointments remain in high demand in King County and throughout the state, though some help is on the way.
Starting Monday, Duchin said the first shipment of 100,000 rapid tests from manufacturers will begin being distributed in King County, directed first to long-term care centers, emergency medical service providers, health care facilities and other centers with urgent needs.
Community health centers and testing sites will also receive kits, he said.
The county also expects to receive up to 10,000 rapid tests a week from the state Department of Health, and has requested support from federal agencies to staff testing sites.
“The people of King County have done such a remarkable job of limiting COVID-19 throughout this pandemic,” Duchin said. ” … Now, with omicron, we need to use multiple layers of protection again.”