Weekly Case Update

Since the last update on Fri­day Sep­tem­ber 3rd, there have been twen­ty-two new con­firmed cas­es in San Juan Coun­ty. Cur­rent total case count is now 288.

Of these twen­ty-two new cas­es, ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tions indi­cate that eight appear to have occurred in ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed indi­vid­u­als. The num­ber con­tin­ue to show clear­ly that being vac­ci­nat­ed reduces the like­li­hood of infec­tion (because the vast major­i­ty of island res­i­dents are vac­ci­nat­ed, we would expect many more cas­es in vac­ci­nat­ed indi­vid­u­als if the vac­cine did not pro­tect against infection).

There are approx­i­mate­ly twelve unvac­ci­nat­ed close con­tacts of pos­i­tive cas­es who are cur­rent­ly in two-week quar­an­tine. Note that vac­ci­nat­ed close con­tacts do NOT need to quar­an­tine and this num­ber would be far high­er if not for the high vac­ci­na­tion rate in San Juan County.

There has been one addi­tion­al hos­pi­tal­iza­tion since the last report, how­ev­er all San Juan Coun­ty res­i­dents have been dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal as of this time.

• Lopez Island: There is one new case on Lopez Island since the last update. There is one pos­i­tive case under active mon­i­tor­ing on Lopez Island.
• Orcas Island: There are nine new cas­es on Orcas Island since the last update. There are eight pos­i­tive cas­es under active mon­i­tor­ing on Orcas Island.
• San Juan Island: There are eight new cas­es on San Juan Island since the last update. There are four pos­i­tive cas­es under active mon­i­tor­ing on San Juan Island.
• Shaw Island: There are two new cas­es on Shaw Island since the last update. There are two pos­i­tive cas­es under active mon­i­tor­ing on Shaw Island.
• Out­er Islands: There are two new cas­es in the out­er islands since the last update. There are two pos­i­tive cas­es under active mon­i­tor­ing in the out­er islands. Note that spe­cif­ic out­er island will not be named to help main­tain patient pri­va­cy giv­en the small res­i­dent pop­u­la­tion on the out­er islands. 

Over­all Situation:
Cas­es num­bers remain stub­born­ly high. If you are unvac­ci­nat­ed and are inter­act­ing with oth­ers indoors and unmasked, there is a high like­li­hood that you will become infect­ed at some point. Once infect­ed, you will almost cer­tain­ly infect those you live or inter­act close­ly with, whether they are vac­ci­nat­ed or not.  This is the nature of the delta variant.

If you are vac­ci­nat­ed, your chances of being infect­ed are much low­er than if you were not vac­ci­nat­ed. You should still be thought­ful about your inter­ac­tions with oth­ers indoors, espe­cial­ly any­one who has cho­sen to remain unvac­ci­nat­ed. Hope­ful­ly those you live with who can be vac­ci­nat­ed have done so.  If you do become infect­ed, your chances of becom­ing seri­ous­ly ill are much less than if you were not vac­ci­nat­ed- but know that there is still a risk, and vac­ci­nat­ed islanders have become ill and expe­ri­enced seri­ous symptoms.

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