The Grays Harbor County Public Health and Social Services department reported a combined total of 42 new positive COVID-19 cases in the county over Wednesday and Thursday, but active cases have seen a sharp decline.

“It’s not a typo,” said the department’s Public Information Officer Nick Falley regarding a drop in the county’s active cases by nearly 100.

On Thursday, the county reported 10 new cases and 287 active cases.

On Friday, 32 new cases were reported with 189 active cases.

According to the county public health website, the department “considers a case or contact to be “active” while they are still under isolation or quarantine. Cases with improved symptoms are no longer active 10 days after their first symptoms began (or from their test date if they did not develop symptoms).”

The sharp drop is attributed to multiple individuals that were part of a recent substantial spike in late November and were tested at the same time and were then cleared from isolation recently.

The total COVID-related deaths in the county remained at 17 as of Friday afternoon, but that number may increase after the Washington State Department of Corrections issued a statement Thursday evening stating an inmate had died due to COVID-19.

According to Falley, the health department is reviewing that report and will update its information once a death certificate is received by County Health Officer Dr. John Bauscher.

According to the state’s Phase and Risk Assessment website, 90.9% of adult staffed acute care hospital beds and 87% of adult ICU staffed hospital beds were occupied in the West region — which includes Grays Harbor County — as of Wednesday.

Of those statistics, 12.4% (1,166) of the acute beds and 24.5% (62) of the ICU beds were occupied by “suspected and confirmed” COVID patients.

As for Pacific County, as of Monday, the county had counted 479 cases with 10 hospitalizations and three deaths since the pandemic started.