Mother’s Day weekend blamed for spike in Tri-Cities area coronavirus cases

The Tri-Cities area is seeing a spike in COVID-19 cases that the Benton Franklin County Health District is tracing back to Mother’s Day weekend exposure.

The number of known new COVID-19 cases in the two counties increased by 44 on Friday.

Most of those people began having symptoms on May 13-15, said Annie Goodwin, spokeswoman for the local health district.

That would have put their exposure to the new coronavirus several days earlier on Mother’s Day weekend, she said.

It was the largest number of cases reported in a day since the results of the Tyson Fresh Meats worker testing were reported over the first three days of May.

That resulted in 47 new cases reported for May 1 and 48 cases for May 3, according to updated information on the district’s website.

This week, 29 new cases were reported on Tuesday, 22 on Wednesday and 14 on Thursday. Over the three-day weekend, new cases averaged 24 a day.

Three outbreaks in the Tri-Cities did not contribute significantly to new cases reported on Friday.

The Benton Franklin Health District has declared the outbreak at the Wallula beef plant south of Pasco is over after no new cases in Tyson workers have been reported for more than two weeks.

In the other Tri-Cities outbreaks, it added just one new case in a resident of a retirement or long-term care home and one new case in a healthcare worker to its tallies on Friday.

The 44 new known cases on Friday were a one-day increase of about 3% for a total of 1,618 cases.

The new cases include 18 in Benton County, all confirmed by testing, and 26 in Franklin County, all but two confirmed by testing. Test results were not available on the remaining two cases, but patients had symptoms and close contact with confirmed cases.

State case limits

The state of Washington is allowing more businesses to reopen, including hair salons and dine-in restaurants at 50% capacity, when counties can lower their rates of new cases, among other requirements.

But the data released Friday show the Tri-Cities area getting further from meeting limits for new cases.

Under requirements that expire Sunday Benton County must have only 20 confirmed cases total over 14 days and Franklin County can only have nine cases, a number that Franklin County more than doubled Friday alone.

However, Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday afternoon that he was moving to new requirements starting June 1 to allow more counties to move to Phase 2 of his “Safe Start” program that allows more businesses to reopen.

That would allow Benton County to have about 50 cases total over two weeks and Franklin County to have just under 25 cases total.

Benton and Franklin counties are currently in Phase 1 of “Safe Start,” and a new option of a modified Phase 1 that would allow some limited additional business openings was discussed by the governor on Friday afternoon.

Counties could apply for a modified Phase 1 approval from the state that would allow outdoor dining and in-store retail at 15% of store capacity.

There were no new deaths reported on Friday, with the total for the two counties remaining at 82 since mid March.

They include 65 deaths in Benton County and 17 deaths in Franklin County. They include three Tyson workers who commuted from the Tri-Cities area to the nearby Walla Walla County plant and 59 residents of senior living or long-term care facilities.

The additional case reported in a resident of a retirement community or long-term care home on Friday brings the total since the start of the pandemic to 203.

The newly diagnosed healthcare worker brings the total to 204 since the start of the pandemic, including workers caring for patients in hospitals, clinics and nursing homes.

Hospitalized cases

The number of people hospitalized with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 dropped by one to 54 on Friday, but remains one of the highest counts of the month.

Patients being treated for COVID-19 account for 18% of the patients in hospitals in Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser.

The Washington state Department of Health reports that 130 Benton County residents with confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 62 Franklin County residents have been hospitalized since the start of the outbreak.

Information about the condition of current patients and how many have been treated in intensive care units has not been made public.

The total number of cases in Benton County as of Friday’s report was 924, including 756 cases confirmed by testing. Franklin County has had 694 cases, including 564 confirmed by testing.

The Benton Franklin Health District says because of limited staff they have not tracked how many cases are active and how many are recovered.

This story was originally published May 29, 2020 at 2:04 PM.