Whatcom County Health and Community Services is providing a report on respiratory virus activity in our multi-county North Sound region to support the consensus statement on universal masking in healthcare that was recently generated by several large regional healthcare organizations and coordinated by the Northwest Healthcare Response Network.
A collaborative group identified percent (%) of ED visits with a diagnosis of COVID-19, Flu and RSV as the best available indicator of widespread community transmission of viral respiratory disease. Widespread disease activity is present when thresholds are crossed:
- 3% of ED visits with COVID-19 OR
- 1% of ED visits with Flu OR
- 0.3% of ED visits with RSV
When any of these respective thresholds is crossed OR if a county reaches the CDC medium level for Hospital Admissions, participating healthcare facilities plan to require universal masking in their facilities, which would continue until below the respective threshold for two weeks.
View the report here. Reports will be sent out weekly until a web dashboard is available.
Please note, we have just entered the 2023-2024 respiratory virus season, which means current levels are represented on the report as an orange dot as this is our first data point this season.
Contact Whatcom County Health and Community Services at 360-778-6100- 360-778-6100 Main Call Line – available M-F 8:30am to 4:30pm.
- Afterhours Answering Service – available after 4:30pm and weekends, call 360-778-6100 and press 2 to be connected to the on-call manager or health officer.
- 360-778-6150 Communicable Disease Report Line – 24 hours a day 7 days a week
- 360-778-6103 Confidential Communicable Disease Fax – 24 hours a day 7 days a week
- 509 Girard Street, Bellingham WA 98225