Grim month in Tri-Cities for coronavirus deaths, and still no peak. Cases top 1,000

A month ago Bonaventure Senior Living of Richland was struggling with a growing outbreak of COVID-19.

The Tri-Cities area at the time had just 189 cases, a far cry from the more than 1,000 cases reported by Saturday.

The month ended with 50 deaths in the Tri-Cities, with state officials reporting possibly five more.

One of Bonaventure’s residents, a woman in her 80s, had been the first person to die in the Tri-Cities area of complications of the disease caused by the new coronavirus after a visit to King County, the epicenter of the pandemic in Washington state.

By the start of April, Bonaventure had 11 residents or staff members diagnosed with COVID-19.

But by May 1, Bonaventure announced its Richland independent and assisted living center had no more cases and was not waiting for any test results.

“It can be done,” said Jeremiah Gray, director of operations for Oregon-based Bonaventure Senior Living.

It was one hopeful note to end the month of April, despite some bleak statistics for the month and health officials saying cases have yet to peak for the Tri-Cities area.

No peak in cases

On Saturday the Benton Franklin Health District announced the communities have had 1,016 coronavirus cases, 52 of them new since Friday for an increase of 5 percent.

The increase included 17 more Tyson plant workers, as the Benton Franklin Health District starts to verify test results for hundreds of workers who were recently tested at the Tyson Fresh Meats plant at Wallula.

Overall, the Benton Franklin Health District is not getting consistent reports of negative test results, making it impossible to know definitively what the rate of positive results are.

But with the district’s limited information it appears that 16 percent of test results for Benton County residents come back positive and 24 percent of test results for Franklin County residents come back positive, said Rick Dawson, a senior manager for the local health district. The results were from last week before any Tyson results were available.

“That concerns us,” he said Thursday. “We do have active disease transmission going on in our community and we still haven’t reached the apex of that curve and started to flatten or even go down in the number of cases.”

A month ago the number of deaths on April 1 in the Tri-Cities area was seven, all in people in their 70s or older.

Tri-Cities health officials say 50 Tri-Citians have died from COVID-19 and its complications.

And the Washington state Department of Health is reporting an additional five deaths in Franklin County residents as of Saturday afternoon that local health officials are still working to verify.

The Benton and Franklin Health District looks at the causes and contributing causes of death listed on death certificates before it confirms deaths were caused by complication of COVID-19.

One of the most recent deaths was a Franklin County man in his 50s, the first resident of the two counties with no other health problems to die.

All but three others from the the Tri-Cities region who have died were 60 or older, which, like underlying health conditions, is a risk factor for a more severe case of COVID-19.

Nursing home outbreak

On April 1 there were 36 healthcare workers in hospitals, clinics and long-term care centers who had been infected with the new coronavirus. By the end of the month the total number had grown to 145 healthcare workers.

At the start of the month the growing number of outbreaks in retirement homes and assisting living or nursing homes was a major concern for health district officials.

The Tri-Cities had five senior and long-term care homes with 66 cases in residents or staff, and at least two of the deaths reported then were residents of those homes.

By the end of the month there were 250 people linked to the homes — 146 residents and 104 staff — in at least 13 facilities who had been diagnosed with COVID-19.

The 37 deaths in residents of the homes accounted for 74 percent of the total deaths in the Tri-City area since the start of the pandemic.

With the majority of senior living and care centers in Richland and Kennewick, it also helps partially explain why the local health district reports so many more deaths in Benton County, 44, compared to six deaths in Franklin County.

By mid month the attention of public health officials turned to Tyson Fresh Meats south of Pasco near Wallula.

Tyson coronavirus outbreak

Although the plant is in Walla Walla County, the majority of its workers live in the Tri-Cities area.

On about April 1 the first test of a worker there came back positive, and a butcher at the plant who lived in Pasco, Lupe Olivera, died of complications of COVID-19 April 20.

On Saturday the Benton Franklin Health District reported a second death linked to an outbreak at a food processing plant.

As the number of known COVID-19 cases grew among workers at the Tyson plant, the Walla Walla County Department of Community Health ordered all workers to be tested.

Testing of workers began April 24, with the plant shutting down as workers went home to self isolate until they received their test results.

On May 1, Walla Walla County officials announced the results of the first 600 tests. About one in five results were positive for the new coronavirus, for a total of 116 cases.

They were in addition to 130-140 cases, most in Benton and Franklin county residents, found as ill workers were treated throughout March.

The Benton Franklin Health District is now working on verifying results for residents of the Tri-Cities who were tested at the Tyson plant and adding them to its total cases.

Results of 658 more tests done at the plant are pending. Tyson Foods paid for the testing and said it would pay workers while they are waiting for their test results.

After all test results are received, Tyson is expected to make plans to reopen the plant in consultation with local and state public health officials.

It will need to follow guidelines set locally and by the Centers for Disease Control when the plant reopens, many of which it put in place before closing for testing.

This story was originally published May 2, 2020 at 1:53 PM.