(PORT TOWNSEND) One glance at the map provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the country, as we ll as Washington, appear to have very low COVID transmission rates currently.
Upon closer inspection, that truly isn’t the case.
At a meeting yesterday, Jefferson County Commissioner Heidi Eisenhour told those in attendance she knew more people with COVID now than at any point during the pandemic. And the numbers prove her right. Jefferson County currently has 355 new cases per 100,000 people, and that am improvement from last week, when the number was well over 400.
According to CDC definition, it makes Jefferson County at high risk for COVID community transmission, even though the agency’s own map lists it currently as low risk. Directly across the Puget Sound from the Seattle metro area, health officials are urging mask wearing in all indoor locations right now.
How can that be? We’re being told that nationally numbers are low, and state emergency orders expire October 31st.
“I don’t feel like it’s a time to stop having the precautions in place that we do,” Eisenhour said at the meeting.
She may be on to something. Jefferson County health officer Doctor Allison Berry says the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation says we only know of 4% of all COVID cases nationally.
“Washington state’s ascertainment rate is 7%,” Berry said at the meeting. “We’re just barely seeing the tip of the iceberg.”
In other words, there’s plenty of COVID out there not being reported.
How do you prove that? Jefferson County is one of a few counties that makes the effort to tabulate home tests that come out positive. That’s how they’re getting more accurate numbers, yet still, barely half of the COVID that’s likely out there.
As statewide COVID emergency orders are scheduled to expire in just over a week, Jefferson County leaders over on the peninsula are talking about extending COVID precautions long after the end of October.
