COVID hospitalizations now falling throughout WA

COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are falling throughout Washington state as the surge of the omicron variant subsides.

But in a Tuesday morning news briefing, Cassie Sauer, president of the Washington State Hospital Association, said the tail end of the omicron wave will likely persist for at least a few more weeks and hospital leaders remain worried about the recent wave’s lasting effects on their staffers and supply of equipment.

“Better does not mean it’s over. … We really don’t want people to rip off their masks or go to big parties quite yet — COVID activity remains a threat,” Sauer said.

In King County, public health officials are counting about 1,428 infections per day, about a 50% drop from the past seven days, and 30 hospitalizations per day, about a 33% drop since the prior week.

Hospitalizations are also falling statewide. At the beginning of the month, Washington counted 1,958 hospitalizations, compared to about 1,635 this week. As of late January, the state had also counted a seven-day average of about 16,365 infections per day, compared to 19,000 infections per day in mid-January.

“This is the first week in a while we’ve been able to report that kind of decline,” Sauer said. “… As people are discharged from the hospital from COVID or die from COVID, there are fewer people coming in behind them to fill the space.”

Eastern Washington is beginning to mirror the same trend. In Spokane County, for example, about 196 people were hospitalized with COVID a week ago, compared to about 170 Tuesday, Sauer said.

However, deaths are still high, with 25 to 30 per day throughout the state.

Fortunately, Sauer said, hospitals have seen a “major” decrease in the number of staffers who have been out sick with a COVID infection or exposure. About a month ago, more than 800 hospital workers were isolating or quarantining and unable to work. As of Monday, Sauer said, the number had decreased to about 100.

“That is a really good shift and very helpful for hospital capacity,” Sauer said, adding that the decline in cases is allowing hospitals to work through a “backlog of delayed care procedures.”

Despite signs of good news, Sauer said it’s still too early for Washingtonians to let their guard down. People should continue to mask up, avoid crowded gatherings and get vaccinated and boosted, Sauer said.

Hospital workers remain overworked, discharging patients from health care facilities to long-term care centers is still slow moving and personal protective equipment — especially N95 masks — is again in short supply in many hospitals, Sauer said.

She pointed to a proclamation that Gov. Jay Inslee issued last month that requires all hospitals to operate with “conventional levels of PPE,” meaning they’re able to maintain 30 days’ worth of PPE for workers and have enough on hand for a possible surge.

“That is absolutely not where hospitals are now,” Sauer said.

The requirement for conventional use, she said, is “burning through the supplies far too quickly” because it requires hospitals to discard masks after every patient interaction.

Hospital leaders have asked the state for further guidance on operating under conventional use requirements, she said, but in the meantime they are still in desperate need of additional masks — which are generally different from those being distributed for free within the community.

“We are talking about the medical-grade N95 that staff have been fit-tested,” Sauer said. “… Those are hard to find.”

At Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital, for example, all staffers undergo a fit-testing process where they step into an enclosed space, put an N95 mask on, then get sprayed with a sugar spray to see if they can taste it.

“The particle size of the saccharin (sweetener) molecule is large enough that you shouldn’t be able to taste it,” Marty Brueggemann, chief medical officer of Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital, explained during the briefing. “So these are really tight-fitting, validated masks.”

The lack of enough masks could catch the state’s health care systems flat-footed if we see another surge in the near future, Sauer said.

“To say that we are out of this and that we can let our guard down is very premature,” Brueggemann said.