Were they vaccinated or not? Public needs to know in COVID hospitalizations and deaths
They say sunshine is the best disinfectant. In the COVID-19 era, the same goes for accurate information from trusted sources. The more we have, the better.
Thankfully, since the pandemic began, it’s a challenge the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department has answered. South Sound residents now have a wealth of data available at the click of a mouse, from 14-day COVID case rates to demographics and information on local outbreaks.
But there are several important things Pierce County residents won’t find on the health department’s website, and their absence is worth noting. Currently, there’s no way for users to compare cases, hospitalizations and deaths among vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. All of these are omissions that should be corrected.
Here’s another way to look at it: On Tuesday, seven new COVID-related deaths were logged in Pierce County — bringing the county’s total to 733. We know the latest deaths included a Key Peninsula man in his 70s and a Lakewood woman in her 30s, but even in the most general, anonymous statistical sense what we don’t know is what percentage were vaccinated. The state makes some of this information available, and we can assume Pierce County’s experience is similar to Washington as a whole — where the vast majority of cases, hospitalizations and deaths are among the unvaccinated — but still: locally, there’s no readily available outcome data for people to compare and contrast.
In Pierce County — where 62.7 percent of the population 12 and older has received at least one vaccination shot, and 55.8 percent is fully vaccinated, according to the state Department of Health — wouldn’t it help our vaccination push if local residents could see for themselves just how effective COVID-19 vaccines have been at preventing the worst possible outcome?
Given how desperate the situation is — with the delta variant raging and cases spiking — perhaps the more appropriate question is: Could it hurt?
According to spokesperson Gabriel Spitzer, this is one reason why Public Health — Seattle & King County recently launched an online dashboard that tracks COVID-19 outcomes by vaccination status. Since Sept. 3, King County residents have been able to go online and find a breakdown of COVID-19 risks for unvaccinated residents compared with vaccinated residents, adjusted for age. The tool — which also helps put the local likelihood of breakthrough cases into perspective — is one of the first of its kind.
How does it help? Spitzer said that comparing the rates among vaccinated and unvaccinated people in the same age range provides a much more accurate picture of how well the vaccines are working. According to the dashboard, over the last 30 days unvaccinated King County residents are 50 times more likely to end up in the hospital with COVID-19, 30 times more likely to die of a COVID-related illness and seven times more likely to test positive.
Spitzer described this data as “numbers people can wrap their brain around” — which is kind of the point.
“This is a really gut level and effective way to get across to people how much the vaccines protect them from the worst effects of COVID-19,” Spitzer said.
This week, Naomi Wilson — the director of data and surveillance for Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department’s COVID response — indicated that the health department is currently developing a similar dashboard. She’s hoping it will be unveiled soon. It just takes time, Wilson said, and it’s complicated. Pierce County’s health department doesn’t have the resources that our neighbors to the north enjoy.
“That’s where we’re headed,” Wilson assured.
It’s welcome news, of course, and a destination we can’t reach soon enough.
If we want Pierce County residents to make smart decisions — like the decision to get vaccinated against COVID-19 — every little bit of accurate information helps.
News Tribune editorials reflect the views of our Editorial Board and are written by interim opinion editor Matt Driscoll. Other board members are: Stephanie Pedersen, News Tribune president and editor; and Jim Walton, community representative. The Editorial Board operates independently from the newsroom and does not influence the work of news reporting and editing staffs. For questions about the board or our editorials, email matt.driscoll@thenewstribune.com
This story was originally published September 16, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
