Older Kitsap residents still most at risk of dying from COVID-19

The number of daily COVID-19 deaths in Kitsap County has dropped since its peak in January, but every week, residents continue to be hospitalized or die from the virus.

Though tracking the vaccination rates for deceased patients has become muddled because of increasingly complex booster-shot recommendations, one fact remains clear: older residents are still most at risk of dying from COVID-19.

In June, 12 Kitsap residents died of COVID-19, following 11 deaths in May, according to a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. Three more deaths have been reported since July 1.

For those that died in June, the average age of the patient at the time of death was 80.

Dr. Gib Morrow, health officer for the Kitsap Public Health District, said that the health district does not have much data about the most recent batch of COVID-19 deaths because of delays in reporting, so he could not answer whether recent deaths were from primarily immunocompromised patients.

Morrow also said tracking accurate data for vaccination status can be difficult since immunocompromised residents and residents in different age groups have different requirements for boosters. People above 50 are required to have received both booster doses to be considered "fully vaccinated."

"It's a little bit unclear as to when they were vaccinated or to what extent any of them are considered fully up to date at this point," Morrow said. "Those are the issues."

The CDC recommends that immunocompromised residents 12 or older and everyone 50 or older receive a second COVID-19 booster dose four months after receiving their first booster dose.

This fall, new Omicron-based booster doses may become available for Kitsap County residents. On June 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended vaccine producers include Omicron proteins in future vaccine productions to make the boosters more resistant to the Omicron variant. The CDC has not announced who will be eligible for the Omicron-based boosters.

According to Morrow, there were 33 COVID-19 hospitalizations of Kitsap residents for the week ending on June 25. Nine percent of beds at St. Michael were occupied by COVID-19 patients, and the average age of hospitalized residents is 63.

Though these hospitalization numbers are higher than in the past few months, they're much lower than the peaks in January and February, when 70 patients were admitted to the hospital each week on average.

Kitsap County cases stay steady; Washington cases rise

Since April 2022, Kitsap County reports of COVID-19 have fluctuated between 400 to 600 cases each week. On July 5, Kitsap County reported 424 cases for the prior week. The week before that, Kitsap County had reported 484 cases.

Since the pandemic began, the county has recorded 45,006 COVID-19 cases, and 367 residents have died from the virus.

As of July 6, Kitsap County's community transmission level is rated low, according to the CDC. The CDC designates a county as low risk if the county has had less than 200 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 in the last seven days and fewer than 20 new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people in the same seven-day span.

As of July 6, 15 Washington counties are marked as high-risk for COVID-19 transmission, an increase of six counties since June 23. These counties include Clallam, Grays Harbor, Pacific, Lewis, Thurston, Pierce, Chelan, Douglas, Grant, Walla Walla, Columbia, Asotin, Lincoln, Ferry and Spokane Counties.

Washington state ranked 12th among states where coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per-person basis. Last week, coronavirus cases in the United States increased 11.8% from the week before, but cases increased in Washington by 7.5%.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Older Kitsap residents still most at-risk of dying from COVID-19