Whatcom County’s weekly COVID-19 infection rates continue slow decline

COVID-19 infection rates continued to drop in Whatcom County last week, as the state reported 435 new cases within the county.

Whatcom County has now had a total of 42,603 COVID cases during the pandemic, according to the latest report Friday, June 24, by the Washington State Department of Health COVID-19 Data Dashboard, including 37,275 confirmed cases and 5,328 probable cases, resulting from a positive antigen test not confirmed by a molecular test.

The county’s 435 cases were down from the 480 reported by state a week earlier.

Whatcom’s weekly COVID-19 infection rate dropped, though it still remained elevated at 207 new cases per 100,000 residents for the most recently completed epidemiological data from June 9 to 15. That was down from the county’s rate of 267 one week earlier (June 2-8). St. Joseph’s hospital in Bellingham reported it was treating 12 COVID-related patients on Monday, June 27. Over the past week, the hospital’s daily snapshot has averaged 9.9 COVID-related patients per day, which is down from 18.3 one week earlier (June 14-20) and represents 3.9% of the hospital’s 252 inpatient beds.