Clark County Public Health confirmed seven new COVID-19 cases Wednesday morning.
The county has confirmed 313 cases and 16 deaths; the county has not reported any new deaths this week. At least 3,056 people have been tested in Clark County.
There are 20 people hospitalized for the coronavirus, according to data from Tuesday. Four people are in an intensive care unit. Those numbers have dipped slightly over the past week.
There are now 62 local cases associated with long-term care facilities. Thirty-five cases are associated with assisted/independent living facilities, 13 with skilled nursing facilities, and 14 with adult family homes. The patients are a mixture of staff and residents.
On Tuesday, The Columbian reported 65 health care workers in the county had contracted the virus. The health care workers did not necessarily contract the coronavirus at work, according to public health.
Close to 40 percent of the county’s cases are either health care workers or staff or residents at long-term care facilities. Those two groups have been prioritized for testing, given their levels of risk.
Clark County Public Health Officer Dr. Alan Melnick said The Vancouver Clinic is conducting testing of all staff and residents in long-term care facilities with confirmed cases.
According to state Department of Health statistics, at least 24 percent of Washington’s confirmed cases have resulted in hospitalization. That percentage could be even greater; in about 30 percent of cases hospitalization status is unknown.
Just more than 40 percent of those hospitalizations are to people between 60 and 79. Another 25 percent of people hospitalized are between the ages of 40 and 59; 24 percent are older than 80; 10 percent are between 20 and 39 and less than 1 percent are 19 and younger.
White people make up nearly 60 percent of the hospitalizations, while about 21 percent of hospitalizations have been to the Latino population, according to the data. Health disparities around COVID-19 in Washington have emerged for the Latino population. About 28 percent of the state’s cases are Latino, even though Latinos only comprise 13 percent of Washington’s population.
Health officials have said the disparity exists for a number of reasons, including barriers to health insurance for the Latino community, and the fact that Latinos make up a large chunk of the United States’ essential workforce that is still providing in-person service during the pandemic.
For more information, visit Clark County’s novel coronavirus webpage, or the state Department of Health’s webpage.
