WA whooping cough outbreak reaches new highs, approaching second-worst year since 1950s

By Daniel Schrager Bellingham Herald

BELLINGHAM – Washington’s whooping cough outbreak is only getting worse.

Between Oct. 13 and 19, the state saw its highest case count in a single week this year – 70 – and that data is incomplete since it can take WSDOH up to four weeks to investigate potential cases. On Thursday, the Washington State Department of Health to issued a warning to the state’s residents about the rising threat of the disease, also known as pertussis.

State cases of whooping cough

Through Nov. 2, the statewide case count this year sat at 1,193, the sixth highest of any state in the U.S.

That’s more than 20 times Washington’s case count at this point last year, and the state’s highest total since it saw 1,383 cases in 2015. If the disease continues to spread at its current pace, it will surpass the 2015 total by December, making 2024 the highest single-year case count since 2012’s total of 4,916.

Prior to a rise that started in the late 1980s and culminated in the 2012 spike, case counts had routinely been in the low triple digits since a steep decline over the 1940s and 1950s. As a result, if this year’s case count surpasses 2015’s, it will be the second-highest case count since 1954.

The high case count, however, doesn’t necessarily mean Washingtonians are catching whooping cough at nearly unprecedented levels. Earlier this year, Seattle and King County’s Chief of Communicable Disease Epidemiology and Immunizations Eric Chow told McClatchy that more comprehensive and accessible testing developed over the COVID-19 pandemic have played a role.

“We’re having better PCR tests, or the molecular tests, that have been rolled into these other comprehensive respiratory panels that have come about more commonly as a result of the pandemic,” Chow said.

According to WSDOH, 28 people in Washington have been hospitalized this year with the disease, including 12 under the age of 1.

Whooping cough cases by county

According to WSDOH, Clark County has seen 434 whooping cough cases this year, the most in the state, followed by King County at 151. Spokane County has seen the third-highest case count at 114 and Pierce County is just behind at 82. Thurston County has had 14 confirmed cases.

While it’s only seen 54 cases, when population is taken into account, Whitman County has the highest rate of infection in the state, at 113 cases per 100,000 people.

Whatcom County has seen 37 cases, the ninth most in the state.

Benton and Franklin counties have five and six cases this year, respectively

Whooping cough symptoms

Pertussis symptoms tend to be similar to those of a common cold.

One key difference is that pertussis patients often have “spasms of severe coughing (paroxysms) ending in a gasp, whoop, or vomiting,” according to WSDOH.

Whooping cough prevention and treatment

A vaccine for whooping cough is widely available, and is the best way to prevent the disease, according to WSDOH.

“The surge in pertussis cases is a stark reminder of how critical vaccinations are in protecting our most vulnerable, especially infants for whom it can be life threatening,” said Tao Sheng Kwan-Gett, pediatrician and chief science officer at WSDOH, stated in a news release.

You could be vaccinated against pertussis without realizing it – the Tdap vaccine, the common immunization against tetanus, protects against pertussis, too.

“People may not realize that it’s actually part of the tetanus vaccine, because frequently we think of the tetanus vaccine as tetanus. But Tdap, which has a small ‘p’ at the end for adults, is a pertussis component,” Chow said.

If you do catch pertussis, it can be treated with antibiotics. Severe cases can lead to hospitalization, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.