Data Snapshot
UW Medicine Hospitals:
King County: The county reported 158 new positive cases and 0 new deaths on July 27.
Washington: The state reported 429,337 cases and 6,089 deaths as of July 25.
United States: The CDC reports 34,413,532 cases and 608,528 deaths as of July 26.
Global: WHO reports 194,608,040 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 4,170,155 deaths as of July 27.
Numbers update frequently, please follow links for most up-to-date numbers.
UW Medicine COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Update
Total Vaccine Doses Administered: 353,435
As of July 21, 2021.
UW Medicine in the News
The Telegraph: More coronaviruses have ‘pandemic potential’ than thought, study suggests
Featuring: Jesse Bloom, PhD, Microbiology
“There are more animal coronaviruses with the potential to “spill over” to humans and cause pandemics than scientists previously thought, new research from a leading US institute has suggested. By tracking existing coronaviruses, a team from the University of Washington found that only small mutations could allow many pathogens that currently circulate in bats to jump over to humans. Pre-pandemic, there were six known coronaviruses that spread in people. Four of them cause mild respiratory illness, like the common cold. The other two – Sars and Mers – both emerged this century and are more deadly, but the outbreaks were contained. However, the severity of the current pandemic has focused research on the coronavirus family, in an attempt to uncover if related viruses may pose threats.”
KOMO News: Doctor says more than mandates needed to encourage COVID vaccinations
Featuring: Joshua Liao, MD, MsC, Internal Medicine
“The FDA still classifies the vaccines as experimental, even though its most prominent leaders are publicly encouraging people to take them. It’s a position many people find confusing Dr. Joshua Liao, an associate professor with the University of Washington School of Medicine, said advocating their use while still researching their effects is not as incompatible as some might think. ‘If you weigh the risks and benefits it’s still worth getting,’ Liao said about the current COVID-19 vaccines. ‘At the same time there is something materially different about having full approval.’ Emergency use has never been granted to a vaccine that has been so widely distributed, according to Liao. As such, he said the FDA needs to be thorough in its research before granting formal approval, though he sees ways to speed up the timeline. ‘If we’re talking about logistical things related to working on the weekends, going longer, finding ways to cut the timeline short, without cutting an actual corner in looking at the data, the types of data, the volume of data, we should absolutely do that,’ Liao said.”
KOMO News: Some COVID-19 testing sites seeing recent surge in traffic
Featuring: Patrick Mathias, MD, PhD, Laboratory Medicine
“Data provided by UW Medicine shows approximately 4,600 COVID-19 tests were administered at the community testing site in Bellevue last week, and more than 3,300 COVID-19 tests were administered at the community testing site off of Aurora Avenue North in Seattle. Those are the highest amounts at those respective sites in at least the past month. Doctors say there are likely two reasons for the increases in demand for tests at some sites: More people are experiencing symptoms that could be the result of COVID-19, and – to a lesser extent – people getting tested because they’ve been in close contact with someone who’s tested positive for the virus. ‘It looks like the Delta variant is predominately the – driving some of the increase in infections locally,’ said Dr. Patrick Mathias, Vice Chair of Clinical Operations for the UW Medicine Department of Lab Medicine and Pathology. ‘The most recent data that we have for King County shows that the Delta variant is in more than 70% of positive cases in King County. And that’s very similar data to what we have for Benton and Franklin Counties as well as Yakima County,’ Mathias told KOMO News on Thursday.”
Tweet of the Week
.@NPR fields vaccine questions from teens like, "I just want to know why the vaccine was free, but we don't have any other free stuff in America that's much needed?" #DrBenDanielson @UWMedicine @UW_Pediatrics takes that question. #equity https://t.co/zjvO7Uk7hd
— UW Medicine Newsroom (@uwmnewsroom) July 26, 2021
