Keeping an eye on BA.2, COVID response team looks back

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Weekly new case counts on Vashon continue at the single-digit level, a major improvement from the Omicron spike of January.

We had a week of zero cases this month although the most recent week had five new cases on Vashon, as recorded in the data dashboard maintained by Public Health — Seattle & King County (PHSKC). The new case count on Vashon has not been this low since August of last year, just before the back-to-back Delta and Omicron variant surges.

It is important to note that many cases probably go unreported because results from the widely available home testing kits are not reported to public health agencies and therefore do not show up in the PHSKC dashboard. Also, there have been lags in recording data and getting it into the dashboard.

COVID monitoring: BA.2 Situation

Experts have been divided on when, or if, we will face a new COVID surge from the next variant. Our team continues to closely monitor the Omicron sub-variant BA.2. It has quickly grown to dominate new COVID cases in multiple locations in Europe and the northeastern U.S. The percentage of new cases attributed to BA.2 has been rising across the United States but it has not yet caused a new COVID spike.

Get Ready. Don’t Panic:

“Our focus should be on preparation, not on panic,” according to U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy. He said the possibility exists there will be a new wave but the country is in a better position now than in the previous two years. “There may be rises and falls in cases in the months ahead, but here’s the key: Our goal is to keep people out of the hospital.” He emphasized that vaccines, booster shots, and COVID-19 treatments will help the country get through new waves. “We’re in mile 18 of a marathon. We can’t quit,” he said. “Because COVID’s not quitting, we can’t quit either. We’ve got to keep our eye on the ball.”

More Infectious than Original Omicron:

“It’s no time at all to declare victory,” added Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to the White House. “This virus has fooled us before… and we don’t want to be caught flat-footed.” Dr. Fauci reported that BA.2 appears to be 50-60% more transmissible than the original Omicron variant (BA.1). The CDC estimates that 35% of new cases in the U.S. are now being caused by the BA.2 subvariant, and it will likely become the dominant COVID variant over the coming weeks.

Soon: No Test to Enter Canada

Starting April 1, fully vaccinated travelers will no longer be required to present a negative COVID test to enter Canada. The new policy will apply to visitors arriving by air, land, or sea. Canada still requires travelers to upload the details of their trip and proof of vaccination to an online system called ArriveCAN, at bit.ly/ArriveCAN-Canada.

After April 1, travelers who are not fully vaccinated must continue to provide negative tests or proof of prior COVID infection. People who are not fully vaccinated may be denied entry to Canada or have to undergo a 14-day quarantine and additional testing.

Looking Back: Two Years of Community Service

March 12 marked the second year of emergency activation for Vashon’s COVID pandemic response. We are currently at the enhanced monitoring level. The VashonBePrepared units participating in the response include the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Team, Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), and the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). Many other island nonprofits and businesses have worked alongside us to aid our island community.

The Double Threat:

When the pandemic hit in early 2020, our community of 11,000 people faced two threats from COVID and our response was designed to address both.

• The pandemic had the potential to devastate our island population — with a much older average age than King County as a whole. With no hospital on the island and limited clinic capacity, residents in many cases had to take a ferry to get care. In the beginning, we lacked COVID testing and we didn’t have vaccines yet.

• Our community faced 25% unemployment and 40% of small businesses were suffering severe revenue losses or even had to shut down in hopes the pandemic would fade.

The Two-Track Response Plan:

The Emergency Operations Center (EOC) team developed a two-track plan to prevent individual disease while also addressing the economic and social impacts of the pandemic. We were activated by Incident Commander Charlie Krimmert, Fire Chief at Vashon Island Fire & Rescue. Here’s a snapshot of our pandemic response activities over the past 24 months.

Our volunteers operated an intensive public health community awareness and education campaign, which included the following components:

• Publishing 200+ widely-read situation reports and newsletters via opt-in email and social media, blending pandemic updates with advice on disease prevention.

• Distributing thousands of handouts with COVID prevention information.

• Producing a year-long series of advice posters featuring the charming VashonBePrepared raccoons, world experts on living with masks.

• Producing most of our public education materials bilingually, in English and Spanish.

• Conducting two televised and Spanish-translated town hall question-and-answer sessions with experts and emergency response leaders, attended by an estimated 1,000 viewers for each broadcast.

The pandemic response team also:

• Funded, publicized, and staffed the Vashon Medical Reserve Corps test-and-trace program, which carried out more than 7,500 PCR tests and conducted trace investigations on 560 COVID index cases.

• Funded, managed and staffed a vaccination campaign in partnership with Vashon Pharmacy. The campaign delivered 19,000+ doses of vaccine. Well over 90% of the eligible population of Vashon has been vaccinated.

• Advised 50+ Vashon businesses, schools, and nonprofits on COVID safety and outbreak management, including site-specific safety plans.

• Conducted mental health education campaigns led by the Community Care Team (CCT), a unit of the MRC. Topics included suicide prevention, building resiliency, and anger management, each with online videos. Training sessions were provided to mental health professionals, responders, educators, and businesses. CCT also ran an emotional support helpline for many of the 24 months.

• Established the Vashon COVID Relief Fund and raised $475,000 in donations. We doubled about two-thirds of the donations by leveraging federal/county reimbursements, which were then also plowed back into community needs.

• Distributed more than $550,000 to local economic relief partners, including the Food Bank, Senior Center, School District Nutrition Program, Youth and Family Services, St. Vincent DePaul, Vashon Chamber of Commerce, and Interfaith Council for Prevention of Homelessness. With support from the Emergency Operations Center, these and other community partners coordinated their efforts to create a safety net for the community.

The public health education program, coupled with testing, contact tracing, and vaccination yielded strong results. Vashon’s cumulative COVID case rate for the two years of the pandemic is half that of King County as a whole, and our death rate is one-third of the county’s rate.

Latest Vashon COVID Statistics

Source: Public Health — Seattle & King County (PHSKC) and Vashon EOC. PHSKC adjusts statistics from time to time as data is refined during its quality control processes. These statistics may not include all recent Vashon cases, due to the lag in posting of data to PHSKC. Some home testing data may also be missing because there is no comprehensive system to collect it. Hospitalizations may include some patients who tested positive for COVID on admission for other reasons.

779 = Total COVID cases for Vashon residents since the pandemic began.

7 = New cases reported since the last weekly report (7 new cases in 14 days).

12 = Patients hospitalized since the pandemic began.

4 = Deaths since the pandemic began.

92.7% = percentage of Vashon residents age 5+ who have been fully vaccinated, compared to 85.0% of the total King County 5+ population.

72.2% = percentage of vaccinated Vashon residents age 12+ with booster shots.

63.0% = percentage of Vashon residents aged 5 to 11 with first doses of vaccine (59.1% have completed the series).

82.1% = percentage of Vashon residents aged 12 to 17 with first doses of vaccine (76.5% have completed the series).

For King County, the PHSKC dashboard for the last 30 days says people who are not fully vaccinated are 1.7 times more likely to get COVID, 16 times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID and 17 times more likely to die of COVID.