Evergreen Reporter

Washington finds itself at 310 deaths per million making it 9th in the country when it comes to COVID-related deaths, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

The project found that when it comes to COVID-19 data, people have been looking at decontextualized data, which is causing hysteria like children staying out of school and businesses shutting down. 

Washington’s deaths and hospitalizations have not followed the same path as case increases and, instead, the state has stayed below  60 people per million in hospitals, which isn’t anywhere near increased case numbers. 

“Washington has a death rate that is less than 1/4 that of Massachusetts, and 1/6 that of New York, despite having the U.S. first outbreak,” the commentary states. “Washington state's hospitalizations have never exceeded 60/million, and deaths/day/million have never exceeded 4. Currently, Washington's death rate is lower than that of Massachusetts, and almost inline with that of New York. Though, like its neighbor Oregon, it seems that it may be a victim of "crushing the curve" as virtually none of the school districts in more populous Western Washington have any intention of resuming in-person instruction. Washington has an unemployment rate above the national average, at 7.8%.”

 Since Sept. 15, there has been a significant increase in testing for COVID-19 at 55 percent, which has also led to an increase in positive cases, leading many to assume the country is heading into a third wave of infections and deaths.

 Emily Burns with The Pragmatist writes that it’s important to put the new numbers into context so that people will make wise decisions regarding what to do about the pandemic. She writes that in May, cases were tracked at nearly the same as hospitalizations. She notes that deaths and hospitalizations are more reliable data when tracking than cases are.

 With COVID-19 testing up 70 percent since the second wave, Burns points out that the surge in testing is responsible for the increased number of new cases seen across the nation, not an increased infection rate many have been led to believe.