By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – At Friday morning’s EOC Covid briefing we learned that the virus has claimed a sixth death in our county. A man in his 50s contracted the virus while travelling. His illness was complicated by pre-existing conditions and Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry says he passed away at home.
Aside from that unhappy news, the overall numbers look pretty positive with a total of 1,011 cases so far, 32 per 100K in the past 2 weeks, and a positivity rate of 2.2%. There have been no hospitalizations in over 3 weeks, and over 30% of the population has received at least a first dose, or about 38,000 people.
There are still about 400 slots open for this weekend’s events in Port Angeles. Next week’s events in Sequim also have some openings, and where in the county you live is no longer an issue when you register.
As we reported earlier, the eligibility requirements now include teachers, school staff and childcare workers of any age.
And in case you missed it, the Gov. announced that beginning March 22 we will move on to the 1B2 tier, and Dr. Berry says she’s confident there will plenty of vaccine available at that time.
Dr. Berry says she expects to get about 400 of the newly-approved Johnson and Johnson 1-dose vaccines next week, and the plan is to use those primarily for outreach situations rather than during mass vaccination events. Outreach would include folks living outside or in other situations where getting a second dose would be difficult or unlikely.