The Washington State Department of Health, like last week or so, appears to be admitting that herd immunity is climbing steadily in Washington state. Not rapidly but steadily week over week. It is part of the overall immunity including vaccinations.

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Friday the DOH released some new data, and the herd immunity was kind of 'buried' mid report.

According to the DOH:

  • "On April 16, the best model-based estimate of overall population immunity was 31.9%. Estimated immunity from vaccination (about 19.3% of the population) is clearly higher than immunity from previous infection (about 12.6%). These estimates include the time it takes to develop immunity after completing vaccination."

The DOH appeared to more concerned however, with whether case counts will continue to flatten as they appeared to do in early April into May. They said case counts varied from county to county more in this report than in the previous one.

They also said the vast majority of the cases in the state  are "now associated with variants of concern."  Again according to WSDOH:

"As of May 6, the report estimates over 80% of all cases in the state were likely due to the B.1.1.7 variant and about 10% were due to the P.1 variant."

The B variant is the one from England, circa about September 2020, while the P.1 is from Brazil, circa December 2020 according to the CDC.

According to various medical sources, the current vaccines are said to be effective against these newer variants.

WSDOH also claims the bulk of increases in hospitalizations has come from non-vaccinated persons, especially those over 65.

 

Here are some tips for self-care during the pandemic:

 

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