COVID-19 Update: Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants may make for a difficult summer

It’s time for anoth­er install­ment of of our spe­cial series COVID-19 Update, bring­ing you the lat­est devel­op­ments on the nov­el coro­n­avirus out­break that pub­lic health author­i­ties here and across the coun­try are work­ing to mitigate.

United States

As of mid-July 2022, the BA.4 and BA.5 Omi­cron vari­ants of the Covid-19 virus, which are almost as infec­tious as stan­dard Measles, are the dom­i­nant vari­ants of the virus with­in the Unit­ed States.  The BA.5 vari­ant in par­tic­u­lar is dri­ving up the num­ber of infec­tions and re-infections.

On Tues­day, July 12th, the Biden admin­is­tra­tion announced a plan which focus­es on edu­cat­ing the pub­lic about the much eas­i­er trans­mis­si­bil­i­ty of the BA.5 vari­ant, increas­ing aware­ness of life­sav­ing treat­ments, and increas­ing access to masks, tests, vac­cines and boost­ers.  This can be con­sid­ered in some respects a fur­ther rein­force­ment of their exist­ing Test to Treat program.

One area where increased aware­ness is nec­es­sary is with regard to Paxlovid, an antivi­ral pill which has become a pri­ma­ry means of treat­ment after being infect­ed (as opposed to vac­cines and boost­ers, which build immu­ni­ty and min­i­mize the impact of the virus if one is infect­ed). While quite effec­tive at reduc­ing the need of hos­pi­tal­iza­tion for those infect­ed with the COVID-19 virus, Paxlovid has been blamed for such issues as a “rebound effect” of symp­toms, which may in fact be a nat­ur­al occur­rence for some peo­ple when deal­ing with the dis­ease, regard­less of whether they have been tak­ing Paxlovid or not. There have also been recent issues regard­ing incor­rect self-admin­is­tra­tion and dis­pens­ing through phar­ma­cists.

Wash­ing­ton

Wash­ing­ton state pub­lic health offi­cials are ask­ing par­ents to keep their chil­dren and teenagers safe from Covid-19 this sum­mer. While the num­ber of cas­es appear to be in decline among both groups, cas­es are often unre­port­ed as gen­er­al­ly milder symp­toms than in the past for most of those infect­ed, and the preva­lence of home test­ing, are both increas­ing­ly commonplace.

Even with few­er report­ed cas­es in gen­er­al, sev­en coun­ties in the state are cur­rent­ly list­ed as “high risk” for COVID-19. Under this risk lev­el, the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion rec­om­mend com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers wear masks in indoor pub­lic set­tings and oth­er pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures such as being ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed against the virus. This list present­ly includes Clark, Grays Har­bor, Thurston, Grant, Adams, Wal­la Wal­la and Spokane counties.

Oregon

Ore­gon is expe­ri­enc­ing a surge in known cas­es of COVID-19, with four­teen coun­ties cur­rent­ly list­ed at “high risk” for COVID-19. This includes Mult­nom­ah, Wash­ing­ton, Clacka­mas, Coos, Cur­ry, Josephine, Jack­son, Kla­math, Lake, Umatil­la, Union, Wal­lowa, Bak­er and Mal­heur counties.

Hos­pi­tals in Ore­gon are declar­ing the first quar­ter of 2022 to be their worst finan­cial quar­ter since the start of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, cit­ing ris­ing costs and full patient loads.

Idaho

As of Tues­day, July 12th, the Ida­ho Depart­ment of Health and Wel­fare will no longer be pro­vid­ing a map of COVID-19 num­bers with­in the state. You can there­after find data on COVID-19 risk in Ida­ho coun­ties through the CDC COVID Data Track­er. Six coun­ties in the state are cur­rent­ly list­ed as “high risk” for COVID-19 by the CDC. These include Ada, Adams, Boise, Elmore, Gem, Payette and Wash­ing­ton counties.

British Colum­bia

In the midst of an ongo­ing third wave of COVID-19 infec­tions, it was announced that new boost­er shots will be avail­able for any­one twelve years of age and old­er by Sep­tem­ber of this year.

The hard, cold numbers (plus vaccinations)

Wash­ing­ton has had 1,692,004 cas­es and 13,362 attrib­ut­able deaths.

The state has the forty-sixth worst infec­tion rate among the fifty states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion in population.

The state has the forty-sev­enth worst death rate among the fifty states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion in population.

16,353,785 tests have been recorded.

• Approx­i­mate num­ber of dos­es of vac­cine admin­is­tered: 15,048,112
• Per­cent­age of eli­gi­ble pop­u­la­tion ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 82%
• Chil­dren between the ages of 12 and 17 ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 74%
• Chil­dren between the ages of 5 and 11 ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 37%

Ore­gon has had 828,442 cas­es and 7,873 attrib­ut­able deaths.

The state has the fifti­eth worst infec­tion rate among the fifty states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion in population.

The state has the forty-fifth worst death rate among the fifty states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion in population.

11,999,720 tests have been recorded.

• Approx­i­mate num­ber of dos­es of vac­cine admin­is­tered: 8,110,542
• Per­cent­age of eli­gi­ble pop­u­la­tion ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 79%
• Chil­dren between the ages of 12 and 17 ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 64%
• Chil­dren between the ages of 5 and 11 ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 33%

Ida­ho has had 468,973 cas­es and 4,993 attrib­ut­able deaths.

The state has the thir­ty-sec­ond worst infec­tion rate among the fifty states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion in population.

The state has the thir­ty-fourth worst death rate among the fifty states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion in population.

3,023,075 tests have been recorded.

• Approx­i­mate num­ber of dos­es of vac­cine admin­is­tered: 2,581,840
• Per­cent­age of eli­gi­ble pop­u­la­tion ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 56%
• Chil­dren between the ages of 12 and 17 ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 53%
• Chil­dren between the ages of 5 and 11 ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed: 19%

British Colum­bia has had 375,357 cas­es and 3,788 attrib­ut­able deaths.

British Colum­bia has the thir­teenth worst infec­tion rate and the sixth worst death rate among the thir­teen Cana­di­an provinces and ter­ri­to­ries per hun­dred thou­sand pop­u­la­tion. (If it were an Amer­i­can state, it would be fifty-third and fifty-third, respec­tive­ly, out of fifty-three.)

• Dos­es of vac­cine dis­trib­uted to the province: 12,910,244
• Dos­es admin­is­tered: 12,074,608 (93.5%)

That does it for this install­ment of COVID-19 Update. Stay safe and well!