During the first week of October, the Pacific County Department of Health released data collected from hospitals where Pacific County residents with COVID are usually sent for treatment if they are sick enough to need hospitalization. Everyone familiar with Willapa Harbor Hospital and Ocean Beach Hospital knows that there is limited bed space and resources for COVID treatment.
"Our local hospitals do hospitalize people and can keep people, but what they can do is sort of limited," said PCDOH Director Katie Lindstrom. "A lot of times people get transferred out [of the county]."
According to the data for the week of September 21, 2021, PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center had a total of 85 patients with COVID-19. The data compared fully vaccinated patients to non-vaccinated patients who were admitted.
PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center
Vaccinated Unvaccinated
ICU 0 3
ICU on ventilator 1 19
Hospitalized 13 49
Total in hospital 14 71
Oregon Health & Sciences University
Vaccinated Unvaccinated
ICU 0 16
ICU on ventilator 1 13
Hospitalized 8 34
Total in hospital 9 63
"A lot of times people say 'why get the vaccine, because you can get COVID just like anybody else?' The data does not really support that," said Lindstrom about getting a COVID vaccination. "Yes you can have a breakthrough case, but your risk of getting COVID in the first place is greatly reduced. Your risk of having severe disease or hospitalization or death is greatly, greatly reduced. I liken it to wearing a seatbelt. If you are in an accident and you're wearing a seatbelt, can you get really hurt or die? Yes, but you are much, much, much less likely to get really hurt or die, than if you weren't wearing a seatbelt."
According to the PCDOH interpretation of the data from the hospitals, vaccines are providing a strong protection against COVID infection and hospitalization. The data report also states, "Since the Delta variant became dominant, fully-vaccinated residents have had 3-4 times lower case rates and 7-13 times lower hospitalization rates than those who were not vaccinated."
After looking at all the data, Lindstrom stated, "It pencil outs to, for every 10,000 residents who are not vaccinated - 55 were hospitalized with COVID-19. For every 10,000 who were fully vaccinated, only 4 were hospitalized for COVID-19. This is a kind of way to show that relative risk when taking into account both age and population."
"Just some really compelling evidence that, while not perfect, it shows that vaccinations are really doing their job in terms of preventing deaths and hospitalizations," she continued. "Again they are not perfect, but they are really doing a great job."
To find out more about the data presented by PCDOH, go online to www.pacificcountycovid19.com/data.html and look for the October 7, 2021 forum slides.