The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WASHINGTON—Washington State is just shy of reaching a 70% population vaccination rate, but a new wave of COVID-19 has shown just how quickly the virus is spreading among non-vaccinated individuals.

On Tuesday, August 3, the state’s COVID-19 Data Dashboard showed that 69.9% of Washingtonians aged 12 years or older had received their full dose of the COVID-19 vaccination. However, vaccination rates vary between counties and age groups.

“I’m deeply concerned about areas of the state with lower vaccination rates now that a more infectious variant is likely to be the one that reaches th...