When speaking to the Clallam County commissioners on Tuesday, Dr. Allison Berry, health officer for Clallam and Jefferson counties, stressed a key point as the COVID-19 pandemic shifts to an endemic form.
“The biggest thing you can do to make COVID-19 like a cold or the flu is to get vaccinated,” Berry said.
“That’s really what’s going to put COVID-19 behind us. Getting vaccinated and getting boosted. Getting boosted is really particularly important if you are 65 and older.”
Another Clallam County man was reported Tuesday as having died from COVID-19. He was in his 70s and unvaccinated, Berry said.
The death brought Clallam’s total from the virus since the pandemic began to 105.
“The virus is still very much with us,” Berry said. “It’s still circulating and it still can pose a significant risk, especially to those who are unvaccinated or who are severely ill or immunosuppressed.”
The North Olympic Peninsula is set to lift its mandate for proof of vaccination for those who want to eat and drink indoors in bars and restaurants on Friday. The statewide masking mandate is to be lifted on Saturday.
Health officers across the state agree that lifting the mandate is reasonable, but they still strongly recommend wearing face masks.
“We want to continue to recommend masking until we get to a safer case threshold,” Berry said.
One of the key benchmarks for lifting the proof-of-vaccination mandate as well as the masking mandate is for case rates to reach as low as, or fewer than, 200 cases per 100,000 population, which the Peninsula is well on its way to reaching.
“We do appear to be on track to lift the proof-of-vaccination requirement on Friday based on our COVID-19 case rates,” Berry said. “If we do get below 200 per 100,000 cases on Wednesday, we would like to see that persist for at least 24 hours before we would go forward with lifting the mandate on Thursday,” Berry said.
Clallam County’s case rate was updated Tuesday to 221 per 100,000, with one new confirmed case, bringing its total since the pandemic began from 10,833 on Monday to 10,834 on Tuesday.
Jefferson County also reported one new case of COVID-19, bringing its total since the pandemic began to 3,104. Jefferson’s case rate is updated weekly on Fridays; the latest was 385 cases per 100,000.
Case rates are a reflection of cases reported during a two-week period. They are computed using a formula based on 100,000 population even for counties that do not have 100,000 people living in them.
Jefferson County on Tuesday reported 33 people in isolation with active cases, down from 68 people on Friday.
Clallam County does not report that metric but does report a daily average over a two-week period.
On its COVID-19 dashboard, Clallam County said on Tuesday that the average daily number of cases was 12, down from 17 on Friday.
Berry also spoke to superintendents of Peninsula schools about the upcoming week.
“Masks will not be required going forward next week, though still recommended until we get to the case rate of fewer than 100 cases per 100,000,” Berry said.
“There is a lot of work going into helping that transition be smooth for our kids, and we know there are a lot of questions about what school is going to look like.”
The Peninsula has some of the highest rates of vaccination in the state at 69 percent of Clallam County and 76 percent of Jefferson County.
“Despite complex political differences, we continue to have some of the highest rates of vaccination in the state,” Berry said.
“We are the fourth highest in the state, and we have one of the highest rates of booster uptake in the state too, and that’s a big part of what is moving us to this safer stage in the endemic phase of the COVID-19,” she added.
Berry again asked people to be compassionate and understanding of people and businesses who continue to use masks even when the mandate is lifted. She pointed out that such measures are taken to protect employees, friends and family who may be vulnerable to more severe COVID-19.
“Some people are going to be really excited to take their masks off; some folks will not,” she said.
“If you see someone in public who is continuing to mask, they are either doing it because we still recommend it or because they are high risk or someone in their household is,” Berry said.
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Reporter Ken Park can be reached at kpark@peninsuladailynews.com.
