Graphics tell story of COVID’s unequal toll across WA

For most of the pandemic, coronavirus surges followed a now-familiar pattern.

Cases rose first, then a few weeks later, hospitalizations followed. And after a month or so, deaths rose, too.

But during the most recent wave, fueled by the omicron variant of the coronavirus, something changed. Not only were reinfections and breakthrough infections more common than before, the data also showed the death rate bucked the trend.

Infections and hospitalizations soared, yet the number of deaths remained relatively low. At the peak of the delta wave last summer, the death rate was 12% lower than the hospitalization rate. During omicron, it was 20% lower.

A recent Seattle Times analysis of the state’s COVID-19 death data also found that omicron’s surge hit some parts of the state harder than others, including in Southwestern and Eastern Washington, where factors like levels of immunity, weather, behavioral differences and socioeconomic status, among others, could have played a part in transmission.