101 new Tri-Cities COVID cases over the holiday weekend. Strike team sent to Yakima Valley
The Tri-Cities area has had 101 new cases of COVID-19 since Friday, according to the Benton Franklin Health District.
It has reported no new deaths since Friday. The total stands at 78.
However, death certificates are not released on weekends and holidays. The local health district checks death certificates to make sure that a death was caused by COVID-19 before adding it to its statistics.
New cases for Saturday, Sunday and Monday totaled 72, or an average of 24 a day. On Tuesday new known daily cases totaled 29.
Daily totals for the weekend were not released, but cases averaged slightly below a 2% increase a day. That is in line with increases of about 1% to 3% reported daily for the last three weeks.
Some larger increases on the first few days of the month were the result of testing Tyson Fresh Meats employees, many of whom commute from the Tri-Cities to the Wallula beef processing plant.
New known cases continue to be too high for Benton and Franklin counties to be allowed by the state to let more businesses reopen, including hair salons and dine-in restaurants at 50% capacity.
Among the criteria set by the state is no more than 20 cases in two weeks in Benton County and no more than 9 cases in Franklin County. Both counties have exceeded that limit just since Friday.
Hospitalized patients
Since Friday there have been 22 more cases linked to Tri-Cities area retirement and long-term care homes.
They include 16 more residents diagnosed with COVID-19 for a total of 201 since the start of the outbreak in Benton and Franklin counties. The remaining six are staff at the homes, bringing the total to 130.
More testing is being done in long-term care homes to meet new federal and state directions.
More healthcare workers also have been infected with the new coronavirus, with eight more cases reported since Friday for a total of 206 since the start of the outbreak. They include workers caring for patients at hospitals, clinics and nursing homes.
Total local cases include 889 in Benton County and 649 in Franklin counties, with more than 80% of those cases confirmed through testing.
No test results were available for the remainder, but they had symptoms and close contact with confirmed cases.
The number of people hospitalized Monday in the two counties with suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 was 37, down two from Friday. There have been as many as 40 people hospitalized at once this month.
The patients on Monday accounted for about 14% of hospitalized patients in Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser. Information about their condition or how many were being treated in intensive care units has not been made public.
Yakima County outbreak
Yakima County has had 91 deaths from complications of COVID-19, which is 13 more than Benton and Franklin counties combined, according to the Washington state Department of Health.
The department responded by sending a “strike team” with 10 infection specialists to support the Yakima Health District two weeks ago. Eight are state employees and two are Centers for Disease Control employees.
They are working with the local health district to help address multiple outbreaks at nursing and adult family homes, including arranging for testing.
“Our priority, our focus, is to make sure we are able to prevent the spread of infection in places where people are in close quarters,” said Dr. Scott Lindquist, who is leading the team.
The team also has assessed outbreaks at a meat-packing plant, a fruit-packing plant and a jail in Yakima County.
They offered infection control guidance to the facilities and visited seasonal farm worker housing and packing plants to provide masks and ensure testing plans are in place.
This story was originally published May 26, 2020 at 2:18 PM.