SEATTLE — COVID-19 hospitalization and transmission rates are likely to remain at high levels through the fall, despite slight declines since peaks in August, according to new projections by the state Department of Health.
Washingtonians are at a critical moment in terms of how our actions can shape infection, hospitalization and death rates in the coming months, DOH’s latest COVID-19 modeling and surveillance situation report says.
The report found that COVID-19 prevalence — the percent of residents with an active virus infection — is at a new high at 0.94%, or about one in every 106 people in the state. The previous reported high was 0.64% this past August.
Transmission remains high but also has slowed, according to the state’s projections. At the beginning of this month, the effective reproductive number — or Re, which shows how many additional people each positive person will infect — was 1.14, compared to 1.49 at the start of August. A reproductive number above 1 means cases will continue to increase. To decline, the number must stay “well below” 1 for a “substantial amount of time,” the report says.