Whatcom returns to CDC’s ‘low’ COVID community level, but 2 regions would still be ‘high’

After one week at “medium,” Whatcom County returned to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “low” COVID-19 community level last week.

For the first time since the CDC began ranking the COVID threat level in each county, Whatcom received a “medium” ranking on May 5. But as of the latest CDC rankings released Thursday, May 12, the county was back in the “low” range. However, The Bellingham Herald’s analysis of the latest location data released Thursday by the Whatcom County Health Department found that if the CDC boiled data down to the same school district regions that the county uses, two regions within Whatcom would received “high” community level grades.

The region covered by the Blaine School District found itself in the “high” rankings for a third straight week, while the Bellingham region joined it for the first time. On the positive side, the Ferndale and Mount Baker regions, which a week earlier were in the “high” and “medium” rankings, respectively, returned to the “low” range along with Whatcom’s other three regions.