With the Snohomish Health District’s recent shift from daily to weekly data reporting, we will be supplementing our regular reports with additional data from the Washington Department of Heath to round out tracking of COVID-19 metrics in our area.

The health district has announced that it will be posting updates on Fridays in a new format, and we will summarize this information in a weekly COVID report to you. The Department of Health updates its data throughout the week.

We will be monitoring the Department of Health site daily and keep you abreast of any critical changes as reopening moves forward, as well as provide a regular overview of the state data with a particular focus on comparing Snohomish County metrics with those at the state level.

Monday’s report is the first in this vein, utilizing the June 13 state Department of Health data and charts.  The two illustrations below show the overall numbers for Snohomish County and the state as a whole:

Drilling down into the numbers, Snohomish County’s daily active count is dropping faster than that of the state, as the following two bar charts illustrate:

This is reflected and enforced by the cumulative case count comparison. The key indicator here is the shape of the curve: Note that after a rapid rise in late March, the curve for Snohomish County has been steadily flattening since mid-April, while the curve for the state continues to climb steadily over that same period.

The COVID-related daily deaths bar charts do not offer as straightforward a comparison, largely because the numbers at the county level are so small that a daily aberration of two or three deaths has a great effect on the relative size of the bars.

A better comparison of death data is offered by the line charts tracking cumulative deaths, which reflect a similar pattern at both the state and county levels.

Another critical aspect of the COVID dynamics in Washington State is illustrated by the two charts comparing cumulative cases and deaths by age group. Note that while the majority of infections are among those in the 20-39 and 40-59 age groups, the COVID-related deaths are heavily skewed to the older demographics. While the 80-plus age groups shows only 8%  of the cases, more than half the deaths occur in this demographic.

A comparison of daily hospitalizations also shows Snohomish County making better-than-average progress, with a steeper drop from the highs of mid-March than the state overall.

Testing activity has been picking up at the state level (note the grey bars for the most recent June dates), while Snohomish County has been maintaining a relatively constant level of testing for the past 30 days.

For more information and to view these charts interactively, go to the Washington Department of Health COVID Data Dashboard here.

Look for our report summarizing local data from the Snohomish Health District later in the week.

— By Larry Vogel