New King County Dashboard Charts COVID Risk By Vaccination Status

SEATTLE — King County public health officials have released a new online tool to help residents visualize COVID-19 case, hospitalization and death trends by vaccination status, and sorted further by age, geography and other demographics. The latest dashboard joins a stable of publicly available metrics, which provide frequent updates on case counts, vaccination rates and other key indicators that help chart the pandemic's complicated evolution.

While King County's case counts appear to have hit a plateau, they are still averaging roughly 600 per day and have yet to achieve a downward trajectory. Hospitals remain at capacity across the region, and death rates have seen a recent uptick. Officials said the new tool makes it easier to see the stark contrast in risks and outcomes for patients, based on whether or not they are fully vaccinated.

An introduction to the tool reads:

"COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at preventing serious illness, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19. However, since no vaccine is 100% protective, as more people are vaccinated we expect to see more cases in this group even when the vaccines continue to work well. These cases are often called 'breakthrough' infections although the vast majority are not serious. For example, if everyone was vaccinated, 100% of cases would be among vaccinated people even though the risk for vaccinated people is much less than for the vaccinated. So, the percent of cases that are vaccinated is not an accurate way to tell how well the vaccines are working. A much better measure of how well the vaccines are working is the relative risk of COVID-19 infection for vaccinated and unvaccinated people. By comparing the risk (rate of disease) among vaccinated people of the same age, we see that the risk for catching COVID-19, of being hospitalized, or of dying is far higher for people who are not fully vaccinated relative to vaccinated people."

The county's age-adjusted calculations show people who are not fully vaccinated were nearly seven times more likely to test positive for COVID-19, 32 times more likely to die, and 49 times more likely to be hospitalized over the last 30 days.

Though all groups have seen a rise in case counts since the latest, delta-driven surge began, the dashboard shows a massive difference in the rate of infections by vaccination status.

Residents can check out the latest metrics via computer or by visiting the mobile version.