New DOH report highlights outbreak data for COVID-19 across the state

OLYMPIA - A new report from the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) helps illustrate which types of businesses and facilities experience the most COVID-19 outbreak activity. These data are aggregated from all counties that report data to DOH, and the report contains both healthcare and non-healthcare related data.

As of August 1:

• A total of 411 non-healthcare associated COVID-19 outbreaks have been reported
• 459 long-term care facility (LTCF) COVID-19 outbreaks have been reported in settings including nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and adult family homes.
• A total of 53 non-long-term care healthcare associated COVID-19 outbreaks have been reported in settings including hospitals, outpatient settings (dental clinics, etc.), behavioral health facilities, supported living facilities, home healthcare, dialysis centers, and independent senior living facilities

These outbreak data are not collected by DOH directly. Local health jurisdictions (LHJ) use information from case interviews and other means, such as voluntarily reports from businesses and facilities, to identify clusters of cases. The LHJ then conducts an outbreak investigation. If an outbreak is confirmed by an LHJ, they report it to DOH, and DOH records it into the Washington Disease Reporting System (WDRS). The LHJ will continue leading the investigation until it is complete.

Non-healthcare settings are a type of congregate settings where COVID-19 outbreaks can occur. Examples of non-healthcare congregate settings include food processing facilities, prisons, restaurants, and homeless shelters. These are the non-healthcare settings with the most outbreaks total as of 8/2/2020:

Healthcare settings are broken down by both long-term care and non-long-term care, and their outbreak details can be viewed in the report.

At this time, DOH is releasing state-level outbreak data only. The numbers we’re sharing represent outbreaks, not people impacted. DOH plans to update this report weekly here, on our COVID-19 homepage under our dashboard.