The number of people hospitalized with the coronavirus continues to climb in Washington.
The state hospital association says state figures this morning [Monday] showed 1,570 Covid patients admitted to hospitals, up more than 300 from 10 days ago. “We have this sense at the hospital association that the public generally thinks things are more back to normal, that people are going about having parties, going to fairs, Labor Day events," said hospital association CEO Cassie Sauer. "[I have] just real worry that the public perception of where we are does not match what is happening in the hospitals, where people are coming in very ill and having extended stays and dying.”
Sauer spoke Monday at a hospital association briefing.
Dr. Mark Johnson is an infectious disease specialist at Confluence Health in Wenatchee. He says hospitalization figures are not the only way to measure how the virus is thriving in his county.
“Previously, about four weeks ago, we were doing about 140 tests per day and now we’re up to 400 tests per day, just at our Wenatchee site. That doesn’t include our outlying sites. That’s a significant change in what we were seeing. We’re also a big jump in test positivity, going from around 4-5% to going to around 20%," he said.
He says nearly 85% of the Covid patients in his health system’s hospitals are unvaccinated and more than a third of them are younger than 40.