SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash. — Between Saturday Nov. 28 and Friday Dec. 4 there were 18 COVID-19 related deaths reported in Spokane County.
That number could change in the future, because it sometimes takes the health district a few days to figure out exactly when someone died, and log that information into their system. Regardless, 18 deaths in one week is a tragic number.
And it is one of the biggest death tolls of any week this year.
There were only four other weeks with more deaths in Spokane County. One was last week when 22 people died. The deadliest week of 2020 was the first week of August, with 24 deaths. The week before that had 19 deaths, and the week after had 20.
Generally, there was a big mid-summer spike in COVID-related deaths followed by a decrease. But since mid fall, the death toll has been rising again, and at this rate it could very well exceed the mid-summer spike and stay there.
The increase in deaths makes sense when you look at the total number of weekly cases. The mid-summer spike of cases was less than half of what we're seeing now.
So why do cases go up so much faster than deaths do?
There are a few likely factors.
For one, testing has gone up. More testing means we know about more cases in general.
Two, getting tested earlier means people can receive treatment faster.
And three, we know more about this virus now than before, making treatment more effective.
If you look a the data as a ratio of deaths compared to case numbers, you can see the highest percentage of people died right as the pandemic began, when testing was less frequent and treatments were just emerging.
Now that ratio is fairly low. But the ratio doesn't help much when case numbers are still skyrocketing.