The latest community COVID risk rating from the CDC puts King County in the Green/Low COVID risk category.

That’s based on the weekly rate of recorded cases, the rate of new hospital admissions, and the percentage of hospital beds occupied by COVID patients. Vashon’s total hospitalizations and deaths have held steady for the past month.

Public health experts have begun using the word plateau to describe what’s happening with COVID nationally, with some signs the seven-day moving average of new daily cases might be easing for the current BA.5-driven COVID wave.

However, COVID-related deaths continue to be significant. Four hundred or more Americans die each day on average — a level that has held since July 12. Most studies agree: Only cancer and heart disease kill more Americans than COVID.

Omicron Booster: Waiting for the Vaccine

Much progress has been made by the Vashon task force towards launching mass public vaccination clinics this fall for the upcoming Omicron-tuned COVID booster. Details on when the clinics will be held and how to get an appointment will be announced soon. As with previous boosters, it must be approved by federal and state government agencies.

If all goes well, the new bivalent booster vaccine will be available in time to begin weekend clinics for adults in early October. So far, the Pfizer and Moderna bivalent vaccines seem to be on track for authorization at the FDA and CDC.

As we have been waiting for the vaccine to receive authorization, the task force has been writing detailed plans and recruiting volunteers for vaccinating as many as 450 people a day, plus thinking ahead to when the vaccine will be available for school-age children.

The Vashon task force includes Vashon Pharmacy, Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), Vashon Emergency Operations Center (EOC), Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), Vashon Island Fire & Rescue (VIFR), and VashonBePrepared. In addition, the vaccine clinics are receiving invaluable support from Vashon Island School District and the Vashon Parks District.

Vashon Vaccination by Age Groups

Even though Vashon is a leading community for vaccination in our region, there are significant gaps in coverage for some age groups.

From the beginning, older island residents have felt most at risk and they have embraced vaccination, achieving nearly universal coverage.

However, the age groups between 18 and 64 years have reached only about 60% coverage and island residents 17 and younger are far below that level.

These gaps represent an increased risk of serious disease during the coming winter. With more people staying inside and school starting, people will be back in close contact indoors, likely resulting in a faster and broader spread of COVID.

Immunity from earlier infections and vaccinations wanes after several months and limits protection against COVID infection. However, the vaccines do confer strong, long-term protection against hospitalization and death from COVID. And, each booster renews a person’s level of immunity.

Shorter COVID Incubation, Paxlovid Rebound, Mask Study

Incubation Periods Getting Shorter and Shorter: One of the challenges of COVID has been the way it mutates from variant to variant. It’s a shapeshifter. That makes it difficult to figure out how to stop the virus.

For example, a study published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, shows that the average time during which the virus multiplies in an exposed person before they experience (and spread) infection has dropped from around five days in the early stages of the pandemic to only 3.4 days with Omicron.

That helps Omicron spread more quickly.

Research into Paxlovid Rebound: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has asked Pfizer to conduct a study on dosing recommendations for the antiviral medicine Paxlovid.

The FDA wants to know if a second five-day course of Paxlovid might help prevent the rebound problem when a patient tests negative after taking the first course of Paxlovid but tests positive again a few days later.

Surgical Masks Not as Effective as Respirator Masks: A study published in JAMA compared COVID protection between surgical and respirator masks. Surgical masks are usually blue rectangles with ear loops, while an N95 mask is one example of a respirator mask.

The study collected data from 2,900 healthcare workers in Sweden. The study subjects wearing respirator masks were 40% less likely to get COVID than their colleagues wearing surgical masks.

School Vaccination Requirements

Now that school has started, most families have already provided their schools with confirmation their kids have the state-required childhood immunizations. However, if you still have questions, here are some helpful online resources.

• Vashon Island School District page for Health Services to contact the school nurse and get other important student health info: bit.ly/VISDhealth.

• Washington MyIR online immunization records — one easy way to get a printout of immunizations to show the school that your child has met requirements or to identify gaps in required immunizations: bit.ly/WAimmunizationRecords.

• Full Washington State Department of Health list of childhood immunizations required for school and childcare: bit.ly/DOHschoolVaccinations. bit.ly/DOHschoolVaccinations.

Latest Vashon COVID Statistics

Source: Public Health — Seattle & King County (PHSKC) and Vashon Emergency Operations Center. New and historic case counts shown here reflect test results from the public health reporting system, which does not regularly capture results from home tests.

7 = New cases reported since the last weekly report (8 new cases in 14 days).

1,115 = Total reported COVID cases for Vashon residents since the pandemic began.

21 = Patients hospitalized since the pandemic began.

5 = Deaths since the pandemic began.

93.2% = Percentage of Vashon residents age 5+ who have completed the primary vaccine series, compared to 86.8% of the King County 5+ population.

68.5% = Percentage of Vashon residents age 5+ who have added a booster shot to their completed primary series.

For King County, the PHSKC dashboard for the last 30 days says people who are not fully vaccinated are two times more likely to get COVID, eight times more likely to be hospitalized from COVID, and 10 times more likely to die of COVID.

For email alerts from VashonBePrepared, sign up at tinyurl.com/4smk364m. For more information, visit VashonBePrepared.org or visit the group’s Facebook page.