The surge of new COVID-19 cases continued unabated this week with Clark County Public Health reporting 604 new cases, a 34 percent jump over the agency’s July 29 report.
Public Health also reported three deaths, bringing Clark County’s death toll from novel coronavirus to 296. The deaths were a woman age 80 or older and a man in his 70s, both with underlying health conditions; and a man age 80 or older. Public Health didn’t know if the man had underlying health conditions.
Public Health reported 477 cases confirmed with molecular PCR testing, for a total of 25,728 cases, and 127 probable cases diagnosed with antigen testing, for a total of 1,815. The new cases work out to about 86 cases per day since the July 29 update; the average for the last week of July was 55 cases per day.
There are currently 653 active cases — those still in a quarantine period — in the county, according to Public Health.
Clark County’s case rate jumped to 120.8 cases per 100,000 residents over 14 days this week. The case rate last dropped below 100 cases per 100,000 population in late June:
- June 22: 134.8 cases per 100,000
- June 30: 95.4 cases per 100,000
- July 8: 67.5 cases per 100,000
- July 15: 53.3 cases per 100,000
- July 22: 50.1 cases per 100,000
- July 28: 74.5 cases per 100,000
- Aug. 5: 120.8 cases per 100,000
One bright spot showed the rate of hospital admissions — measured per 100,000 residents over seven days — dropped to 3.2 from July 29’s rate of 4.6 per 100,000. As of Thursday, 82.9 percent of all hospital beds in the county were occupied; 83.3 percent of ICU beds were occupied. Sixty-three hospital beds in the county were occupied by COVID-19 patients or people awaiting tests.
As of July 31, 479,355 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine had been administered in Clark County, with 63.2 percent of residents age 16 or older having had at least one dose. More than 237,000 residents — 57.6 percent of those age 16 or older — are fully vaccinated.
Statewide, Washington has seen 483,389 cases since the pandemic began in early 2020 and reported 6,145 deaths. More than 8 million doses of a vaccine have been administered in the state and the vaccination rate for those age 12 and older was 69.6 percent as of Monday.
