6,000 People Have Died From COVID-19 in Washington State

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The number of Washington residents who have died from COVID-19 has now reached 6,000, according to data from the state Department of Health.

About 44% of the state's deaths are among residents, staff and visitors of long-term-care facilities, which have borne the brunt of the deadly virus. As of July 6, 2,666 people associated with the state's nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and adult family homes have died, according to the DOH.

The weekly number of long-term-care deaths, however, has dropped dramatically since widespread vaccinations began in early 2021 at the sites. At its 2021 peak in the first week of January, there were 87 new deaths. Since mid-May, there have been fewer than 10 deaths associated with long-term-care facilities each week, according to DOH.

Washington surpassed its previous milestone of 5,000 deaths on March 3 this year. The country's first COVID-19 death, which took place in King County, was reported on March 1, 2020.

DOH reported 447 new coronavirus cases and three new deaths on Monday.

The update brings the state's totals to 456,709 cases and 6,000 deaths, meaning  1.3% of people diagnosed with COVID-19 in Washington have died, according to the DOH. The data is as of 11:59 p.m. Sunday. Tallies may be higher earlier in the week because new state data isn't reported on Sundays and COVID-related deaths aren't reported on the weekends.



Washington state had the fifth-lowest case count and seventh-lowest death rate in the country, adjusted for population, according to DOH.

In addition, 25,887 people have been hospitalized in the state due to the virus — 929 new hospitalizations. In King County, the state's most populous, state health officials have confirmed a total of 113,621 COVID-19 diagnoses and 1,669 deaths.

Since vaccinations began in mid-December, the state and health-care providers have administered 7,964,881 doses and 51.3% of Washingtonians have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to vaccination data, which the state updates on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Providers are currently giving an average of about 10,865 vaccine shots per day.

The DOH says its daily case reports may also include duplicate test results, results assigned to the wrong county, results that are reported for today, but are actually from a previous day, occasional false positive tests and other data discrepancies.

Because of this, the previous day's total number of cases plus the number of new daily cases does not add up to the new day's total number of cases. State health officials recommend reviewing the dashboard's epidemiologic curves tab for the most accurate representation of the state's COVID-19 spread.