Whatcom health officer says we may be turning corner on COVID-19

COVID-19 case counts in Whatcom County peaked more than two weeks ago, and a Whatcom County health officer didn't make any promises but said he is hopeful the two-year-old pandemic is heading in a good direction.

The state Department of Health's COVID-19 dashboard for Whatcom County shows that the seven-day average of new daily cases peaked at 547 on Jan. 13. Data collected since then is provisional and may contain errors, but the trend line is clearly pointed in the right direction.

“I do think we are hopeful as this trends downward,” health officer Greg Thompson told the Whatcom County Health Board in a virtual meeting Tuesday. “We've got more immunity in our population ... that should hopefully slow the impact of any potential future variants that come.”