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County Public Health Report ~ 4/03/23

The following is a recording of the presentation during the Public Health briefings at this week’s Board of County Commissioners meeting made by Jefferson and Clallam County Public Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry. The summary below was provided by Jim Burke, producer of KPTZ’s Tuesday’s Local News.

Jefferson County Public Health’s COVID-19 weekly reports and the transmission risk dial were replaced with state data, yesterday, April 3. Jefferson County Public Health’s Communicable Disease Team will continue to post information about COVID-19 on their website, however that information will now come solely from the Washington State Department of Health. The state’s information will be embedded onto the county’s website here. Residents may report their positive home tests results to the state directly via an online portal here.

Jefferson County Public Health reports the two-week COVID-19 case rate is 134 cases per 100,000 people. Jefferson County Public Health estimates that 1 in 20 COVID-19 cases in Jefferson County were reported to public health last week. No one is currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in Jefferson County. There were no new deaths this week, so the total number of those who have died due to COVID-19 is 37 in Jefferson County.

In Clallam County the case rate is 80 per hundred thousand, and the case ascertainment is also 1 in 20. Two patients are currently hospitalized, and no new deaths to report, so the total number of those who have died due to COVID-19 in Clallam County stands at 166.

Dr. Allison Berry spoke to the Jefferson Board of County Commissioners yesterday and discussed the wind-down of emergency declarations across the country, the state, and Jefferson and Clallam Counties. She said that we are still seeing a downward trend in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths due to COVID-19 nationally, in Washington State, and locally. It is too soon to tell, she said, if we are seeing a seasonal fall off in cases. As we are fully in the endemic phase of the pandemic, she stressed that COVID-19 is here to stay, and time will tell if we have seasonal surges, as we have with the flu.