Pierce County on CDC’s list for high COVID-19 levels

Pierce County on CDC’s list for high COVID transmission

Pierce County, along with several other counties in Washington state, is back on the CDC’s list of places with high COVID cases.

PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. – Pierce County is among several counties in Washington state that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending to mask back up due to high levels of COVID-19.

According to the CDC, the COVID-19 Community Level that is rated “high” means they have had 200 or more new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in the last seven days, or they’ve had more than 20 new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people within a seven-day period.

In Pierce County, officials with the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department said their case rate per 100,000 is lower than what the CDC is reporting. The reason for the discrepancy is because the county uses a different data set and longer lag time for data than the CDC.

The data from both departments show COVID cases within the county are rising.

With the latest data as of Wednesday, Pierce County reported 228 cases while CDC reported 237 cases.

The most recent CDC community levels for the state were calculated on June 30.

In Washington, the following counties are at high risk: Clallam, Grays Harbor, Pacific, Lewis, Thurston, Pierce, Chelan, Douglas, Grant, Walla Walla, Columbia, Asotin, Lincoln, Ferry and Spokane.

That’s an increase from six Washington counties at high risk as of June 23.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.