20-somethings driving Pierce County’s pandemic spread. ‘COVID is everywhere.’
Amid Pierce County’s spike in COVID-19 cases since entering Phase 2 in June, one segment of the population appears to be driving the infections and rate of transmission.
Residents age 20-29 are showing an outsized rate of new infections compared with other segments.
Jessica Gehle works at the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department and is incident commander for the public health portion of the health department’s response with the county Department of Emergency Management. In a phone interview Tuesday, Gehle told The News Tribune that this age group accounts for just over 22 percent of cases while representing just under 14 percent of the county population.
“They by far have the most cases of any age group we’re seeing.”
The spread is from this age group essentially living normal lives amid the pandemic.
“They have barbecues, they go to restaurants, they go on camping trips,” Gehle said. “And what we’re hearing from them and what we’re seeing is it’s really spread all across the county. We have people visiting all different types of businesses, and they are going to these places getting exposed, and then coming back to work or coming back home, and then exposing other people.”
Similar concerns were echoed in late June by the department’s director, Dr. Anthony Chen, when he recommended not moving on to an expanded Phase 2.
At that time, the county’s 14-day case total was 44.1 per 100,000, compared with the Phase 2 target of 25 or fewer cases per 100,000 residents over a 14-day period.
On Tuesday, Pierce County was at 86.7 cases per 100,000.
“We really need young adults to think about, do they really want to be the reason why their friend gets exposed and maybe has to go back to work … and spreads the disease at work and then their friend has to be off work for two weeks,” Gehle said Tuesday.
“These are very real scenarios where they could be a reason why their workplace has to shut down temporarily to do some disinfecting, and disease investigation process.”
Gehle said some restaurants have already faced in-house cases, but she added, they are by far not the the only business sector with issues.
“It’s really all facilities, a wide variety of facilities everything from businesses to restaurants to construction sites to education settings. I mean it really is all across the board. We know that COVID is everywhere,” she said.
She added that “people should assume that when they’re out and about, there’s always the risk of coming in contact with somebody who has COVID and may not know that they have it.”
Gehle said one question posed to infected individuals during case investigations is whether they were wearing masks in public.
The health department says it is not currently keeping a tally on mask wearers vs. those not wearing them in a way that would record a percentage, remaining focused on determining the number of close contacts in its case investigations.
While only 1 percent of cases in the 20-29 age bracket have died from COVID-19, the ripple effect of possibly exposing someone else is harsh, with the majority of the county’s COVID-19 deaths involving those 60 and older.
“We know that while we don’t know all of the details about COVID-19 because it’s relatively new to us. We know that it can be a very long illness, and it can really impact people in a variety of different ways. And some people can get really sick. Some people die from this,” Gehle said.
In a News Tribune interview in June, David Carlson, MultiCare’s senior vice president, provider enterprises and chief physician officer, noted that even pediatric cases had been seen in local hospitals, and that those who do wind up hospitalized are still “very ill,” a factor that’s been consistent throughout the pandemic.
On Tuesday, Gov. Jay Inslee announced a pause on further reopenings and phase advancements in the state through July 28.
On Monday, California, Oregon and New Mexico imposed new restrictions and reinstated shutdowns on indoor activities.
Gehle said rather than shutting down businesses here, youths in particular need to take the lead in stopping the spread.
“What we need is this group of 20-somethings — they’re young adults — they need to know that they have a lot of control, and they can really step up and be leaders so that we don’t have to make those difficult decisions on what types of services do we close.
“Nobody wants to make those decisions.”
This story was originally published July 14, 2020 at 2:58 PM.
