The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Washington state rose 71% over the past week, reaching a new weekly high of more than 6,800 reported cases, according to GeekWire’s calculations from state Department of Health data.
The increase coincides with continued expansion of COVID-19 testing in the state. Deaths and hospitalizations remain below their prior peaks.
In a new situation report, scientists and Washington state public health officials call the growth in cases an “explosive situation” and “a matter of utmost urgency.”
“Transmission continues to increase or accelerate across most of Washington state and will continue to do so unless concrete steps are taken to stop the spread,” says the report from researchers and scientists from the Institute for Disease Modeling, University of Washington, Microsoft and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
I also could not agree more. https://t.co/yOrj21TWdu
— Governor Jay Inslee (@GovInslee) July 20, 2020
It adds, “Washington State is in the early stages of an exponential statewide outbreak that has zero chance of being reversed without changes to our collective behavior and policies to support that change. If current trends continue, we expect that schools will not be able to reopen safely in the fall. Further transmission control will require enhanced compliance with masking and distancing policies and further restricting gatherings that likely fuel virus spread.”
The latest weekly COVID-19 case count is more than twice the earlier weekly peak of about 3,300 confirmed cases in early April.
Total daily tests now routinely approach or exceed 15,000 per day, about three times the number of tests that were conducted at the time of that prior peak.
The latest weekly numbers show the state’s death toll rising by 20 people, a new weekly low that resulted in part from health officials reducing the cumulative count to adjust for 39 earlier fatalities where further review determined that COVID-19 did not cause or contribute to the deaths.
A total of 348 people were in the hospital this weekend due to COVID-19 or related symptoms, compared to the state’s peak of more than 650 people in the hospital at one point early April.
“Hospitalization rates are just starting to increase in western WA and continue to grow across all age groups in eastern WA,” the state’s situation report says. “As transmission moves from younger adults into older more vulnerable populations, we expect new hospitalizations and eventually deaths to trend up across the state.”
The report included this heat map showing the spread of the disease among people in their 20s, and comparing the trends to those seen in Florida.
“The pattern in Washington mirrors that seen in Florida at a roughly 3 week delay,” the report says. “This is evidence that it is not possible to contain COVID-19 to a single stratum of society when prevalence is growing exponentially.”
With its recent increase, Florida has risen to third among U.S. states with more than 350,000 COVID-19 cases. Washington state, which was believed to be the original epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, is now 21st among states with about 48,601 COVID-19 cases, according to the New York Times.
