In the Media

There are no winners in a pandemic. That said, if you’ve made it to the summer of 2022 without yet testing positive for the coronavirus, you might feel entitled to some bragging rights. Who’s still in the game at this point? Not Anthony Fauci. Not President Joe Biden, Denzel Washington, Camila Cabello or Lionel Messi. Not your friend who’s even more cautious than you but who finally caught it last week. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that nearly 60% of Americans had contracted the virus at some point — and that was as of the end of February, before the extremely contagious BA. 4 and BA. 5 variants became rampant.

You might suspect that you are special — immunologically superior, a super-dodger. You also might have come up with some bizarre theories about why you’ve lasted longer.

“I must have superhuman immunity or something,” mused Kathi Moss, a 63-year-old pediatric nurse from Southfield, Mich.

Scientists have found no conclusive evidence of innate genetic immunity. “It would be extremely unlikely that any innate immune system properties could protect against all infections,” said Eleanor Murray, an epidemiologist and professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. But Moss’s ability to duck the virus — to her knowledge, we should add; a disclaimer that applies to all these folks, since in theory they could have had asymptomatic cases at some point — does cry out for an explanation. Consider that she’s a pediatric nurse who has been staring COVID in the face (while fully masked) for 2 and one-half years now. And that she rode in a car with her ex-husband, with the windows up, three days before he tested positive. And that a woman at the camp where she works every summer gave Moss a henna tattoo one day and reported a positive coronavirus result the next.

Bellingham and Whatcom County residents will see the warmest temperatures of the year this week as a heat wave bakes the entire West Coast.

This week’s hottest days likely will be Tuesday, July 26, and Wednesday, July 27, with daytime highs around 90 for areas closer to the Salish Sea and into the mid-90s and warmer for inland Whatcom County, the National Weather Service in Seattle said in an online briefing Monday, July 25.

“A heat advisory is in effect for much of the interior and Cascades where highs will reach the 90s (around 10-15 degrees warmer than average),” said meteorologist Jake DeFlitch in the online forecast discussion.

Daytime highs should cool to the mid- to upper 80s later in the week for the Bellingham area, but could remain around 90 in other parts of lowland Whatcom County.

The BA.5 variant of COVID-19 has yet not hit Whatcom County as hard as other parts of the country, but St. Joseph’s hospital in Bellingham is still asking for help from area residents.

“We’re certainly seeing far fewer numbers than the omicron surge and the delta surge from the hospital standpoint,” PeaceHealth Northwest Regional Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sudhakar Karlapudi said in an interview with The Bellingham Herald. “We’re still seeing a few number of cases in the hospital that have COVID, but it’s largely patients that are admitted for other reasons. There are people being admitted for COVID, of course, but a larger proportion are patients who are admitted for other problems that have COVID.”

In a news release sent out this week, the hospital again asked patients to utilize the hospital’s emergency department only for the most emergent or life-threatening conditions, while asking patients seeking care for non-emergent conditions to visit their primary care physicians or an urgent care center before going to the hospital.

Karlapudi told The Herald that the hospital has seen “historically high” patient volumes in recent weeks, but COVID is not the direct cause for that increase. Instead, Karlapudi said the hospital is seeing more patients who have not properly cared for chronic diseases due to COVID-19 and patients with new diagnoses of cancer or other chronic diseases from the past two-plus years.

Jenny Keller is the author of the popular cookbooks "Eat More Dessert" and "Cookie Class," and the owner of the destination bakery Jenny Cookies Bake Shop in Lake Stevens, WA.

Jenny was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and graduated from Western Washington University with a degree in Psychology. Inspired by the PNW’s love of coffee, she started her own espresso business in 2003 which would be the beginning of her entrepreneurial adventure. After her daughter Ally was born, she sold the successful business to settle in as a stay-at-home mom. Not long thereafter, Jenny began hobby baking from home with the main focus being buttercream decorated sugar cookies. Creative baking quickly became a passion and her signature cookies were given a name: Jenny Cookies. The cookies were soon joined by cakes, cupcakes, a variety of desserts, and a growing blog and social media following.

Washington’s hospitals are facing massive financial losses after the first quarter of 2022, placing the state’s health care system in the most precarious situation many hospital leaders say they’ve seen in their lives.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Washington State Hospital Association, hospitals across the state suffered a net loss of about $929 million in the first three months of 2022. While operating revenue increased by 5%, operating expenses increased by 11%, which — combined with nonoperating investment losses — resulted in a total loss of about 13%.

“The financial challenges revealed by the survey are really quite grave,” WSHA CEO Cassie Sauer said at a news briefing Thursday. “Hospitals’ ability to sustain all the health care services they provide in the face of a dire financial situation is in question.”

The hospitals that responded to the survey represent about 97% of all inpatient, acute beds statewide. All 52 urban hospitals and health systems, as well as 18 of 34 independent, rural hospitals, reported losses.

If the trend continues, Sauer said, hospitals will likely have to cut certain services or close inpatient units. The biggest concern, she added, is that some health care systems could be forced to close or file for bankruptcy if the financial losses persist.

Although the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be behind us, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still urging communities to be careful of illness as some Washington counties have high numbers of cases. Twelve Washington counties were categorized as “high” COVID-19 community levels on Friday, with the state still having 18,490 current cases.

The counties with the high COVID-19 community levels included Thurston, King, Snohomish, Mason, Spokane, Klickitat, Adams, Grays Harbor, Skagit, Lincoln, Franklin and Benton. Only seven counties are considered to be at a “low” level: Whatcom, Kittitas, Okanogan, Columbia, Garfield, Whitman and Asotin.

A funny thing used to happen to the ODESZA guys. Back in the Washington electronic duo’s early days, before the online buzz blossomed into packed concert halls and Grammy nominations, it wasn’t uncommon for local fans at some of their first shows to be a little confused about the Bellingham-formed, Seattle-based group’s geographic origins.

“It was funny,” Harrison Mills recalled in 2019, “in Seattle, people all thought we were from Australia. We would get asked all the time after our show, ‘Where are you guys from?’ I live six blocks from this venue.”

Yeah, that hasn’t happened in a while.

Over the past decade, ODESZA has grown into an electronic music juggernaut defying categorization — a ticket-selling, dance music force that raised the live performance bar for electronic artists while flourishing outside of the mainstream.

This spring, the college buddies since their Western Washington University days made a splash when they announced “The Last Goodbye,” ODESZA’s first album in five years, arriving July 22. The group’s post-lockdown comeback tour would get a jump-start with a Climate Pledge Arena date, but as tickets were quickly gobbled up, two more shows were added.

Bellingham Public Library has reported a data breach affecting “a limited number” of patrons, part of a recent attack on the Whatcom County Library System, city officials said Thursday, July 21.

“A recent data breach affecting Whatcom County Library System’s computer networks also resulted in the unauthorized downloading of some Bellingham Public Library patron data. No data was downloaded directly from Bellingham Public Library or city of Bellingham computer systems,” said Janice Keller, the city’s communications director. A total of 735 Bellingham Public Library patrons are affected, Keller said in the emailed statement.

“Our library and city teams, in collaboration with Whatcom County Library System, are working swiftly to address this incident and take all necessary and required steps to address it. The investigation into this incident is ongoing,” she said. Bellingham Public Library has some 89,898 total accounts, Keller said. There are about 60,000 active card holders, according to the library website.

From the start of the pandemic, patients and doctors alike have been frustrated by the sizable minority of coronavirus infections that turn into long COVID, a perplexing collection of lingering and often disabling symptoms that persist weeks, months or years after the initial infection subsides.

The condition has been reported in both children and adults; in those who had preexisting conditions and those in robust health; in patients hospitalized with COVID-19; and those who experienced only mild symptoms during their initial infection.

A new study from researchers at the University of Southern California offers some insights into the prevalence of long COVID and suggests some early clues for who might be more likely to develop long-term symptoms.

Several previous studies have identified women as being at greater risk. But the USC study found no relationship in its sample between long COVID and age, gender, race and preexisting health conditions including cancer, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.

It did note a higher risk in patients who had obesity prior to infection. And it also spotted some associations between specific symptoms people experienced during their initial infection and the likelihood of developing long COVID. Patients who reported sore throats, headaches and, intriguingly, hair loss after testing positive were more likely to have lingering symptoms months later.

President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday and is experiencing “very mild symptoms,” the White House said, as new variants of the highly contagious virus challenge the nation’s efforts to get back to normal after two and a half years of pandemic disruptions.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden has begun taking Paxlovid, an antiviral drug designed to reduce the severity of the disease. He was isolating at the White House and “continuing to carry out all of his duties fully,” she said.

Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, said in a letter that Biden had a runny nose and “fatigue, with an occasional dry cough, which started yesterday evening.”

“I really appreciate your inquiries and concerns,” Biden said in a video posted on Twitter. “But I’m doing well, getting a lot of work done.“

Biden, 79, is fully vaccinated, after getting two doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine shortly before taking office, a first booster shot in September and an additional dose March 30.