Tri-Cities COVID cases at highest level yet. Science and health experts sound warning

The Tri-Cities had a week with the two highest daily numbers of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 yet, three months after the first death from complications of the disease was reported in the Tri-Cities.

The week had scientists and health officials sounding an alarm over increasing infection transmission and the rising number of hospital patients.

On Friday the number of confirmed cases reported for the two counties was 107, surpassed only by Tuesday when there were 114 new cases.

That’s up from counts of confirmed cases that numbered daily in the 10s and 20s in April and increased to the 30s and 40s for many days in May, according to public health officials.

So far, 96 Tri-Citians have died from complications of COVID-19. The most recent death was reported on Friday — a Franklin County man in his 50s with underlying health conditions.

The number of patients hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 reached a peak of 76 on Thursday, a number that nearly doubled in recent weeks, said Dr. Amy Person, health officer for Benton and Franklin counties.

Last week, intensive care units at the three Tri-City hospitals were near capacity at times, with at least one person who was in a Tri-Cities accident flown by life-flight to Spokane because an ICU bed was not available locally.

“While hospitals are not overwhelmed yet, if the rate continues, we will exceed capacity quickly,” said Annie Goodwin, spokeswoman for the Benton Franklin Health District.

The Yakima Health District reported that Virginia Mason Memorial, Yakima’s only hospital, ran out of intensive care and other beds late in the week. The county had 61 patients hospitalized with confirmed cases of COVID-19, even after transferring at least 17 patients out of the county.

Statewide, 242 patients were hospitalized at the end of the week with confirmed COVID cases.

On Saturday Gov. Jay Inslee said he was mandating masks be worn in public in Yakima County and may extend the order to other counties as well.

COVID transmission up

The transmission of the coronavirus will continue to increase slowly but surely in the Tri-Cities area if nothing changes, said Niket Thakkar, senior research scientist at the Institute for Disease Modeling in Seattle.

“We expect cases to grow if things continue and we expect mortality to grow,” he said.

But the scientific community is seeing more and more that staying home and physical distancing, face masks and eye protection when people are out contribute to decreases in transmission, he said.

“This is one of those situations where ... doubling down is what it is going to take,” he said.

Tri-City health and community leaders were briefed by the institute’s COVID-19 modeling team, and the Tri-City Development Council then arranged a public webcast Friday with Thakkar that is posted on the TRIDEC Facebook page.

The independent research center estimated that at the end of May every person with COVID-19 in Benton and Franklin counties was infecting an average of 1.3 other people.

“The goal is really less than one,” Thakkar said. That would shrink the number of new infections.

In early March the institute estimated that each person in Eastern Washington was passing the infection onto almost three other people “which is a rapidly growing problem because those three people pass it on to three more people, those people pass it onto more people and suddenly we have an exponentially growing process,” he said.

But through the month there was a steep decline in the number of cases transmitted until by the end of March each person in Eastern Washington was transmitting the illness to fewer than one other person.

It appears that physical distancing and similar measures worked then in Benton and Franklin counties, Thakkar said.

“They have already averted a serious amount of COVID-19 burden and mortality,” he said.

The rate began to slowing increase in May, with each person infected estimated to pass on the coronavirus to a little more than one person by early to mid month.

Estimated current cases

In Benton and Franklin counties testing has remained relatively constant, with the exception of testing workers at the Wallula Tyson beef processing plant. But cases have increased, showing a growing problem that warrants attention, he said.

With fewer than 100 deaths over three months, it’s difficult to see a trend in deaths, he said. But the coronavirus appears to be 20 times more lethal than influenza, he said.

Just four influenza deaths were reported in the flu season that started last fall in Benton and Franklin counties, six people died the previous season and 20 people died in the severe flu season of 2017-18.

In most cases, people who show up at hospitals and clinics with symptoms that could indicate flu or coronavirus are first given an influenza test to rule that out as a cause.

The Institute for Disease Modeling estimates that about 1 percent of the people in Benton and Franklin counties are currently infected with the coronavirus or about 3,000, which is far above the confirmed cases detected in limited testing.

“With 1 in 100 people currently infected with COVID-19 as our best estimate, lots of activities are pretty risky in terms of crowds of even moderate size currently,” he said.

Cases by city

The number of cases confirmed by testing in the Tri-Cities since March total 2,452.

Previously, the local health district released case information by city only once a week, but has started releasing the information weekdays.

In Pasco, the second-largest, the number of confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic topped 1,000 on Friday. The health district reported 979 cases on Thursday, increasing to 1,025 on Friday.

That’s close to 14 cases per 1,000 people.

In Kennewick, the largest town, confirmed cases increased from 738 on Thursday to 772. That’s nine cases per 1,000 people.

Richland had nine new cases for a total of 260, which is about four cases per 1,000 people.

Testing is now more widely available.

Testing available

Earlier this spring, the laboratory testing capacity and supplies for collecting and transporting samples to a laboratory were so limited in the Tri-Cities area that only the very sickest people could be tested.

Now more labs are doing testing and supplies are more readily available.

Free drive-thru testing by members of the Washington National Guard started Wednesday at the Toyota Center in Kennewick and the HAPO Center, formerly TRAC, in Pasco. The first test results from the 162 people tested that day were not expected by the start of the weekend.

Testing is expected to ramp up to cover 240 people a day total at both sites.

It is available Tuesday through Saturday, but only by appointment. Call 211 or 877-211-5445 to make an appointment for up to two people per car.

Anyone can sign up for testing, but those who may have been exposed to the coronavirus or who have symptoms are particularly urged to take advantage of the free testing.

As cases have increased, the Benton Franklin Health District has been unable to contact each person who tests positive within 24 hours as it was typically doing earlier.

The increase in testing due to drive-thru service will further increase the caseload for staff.

State help for Tri-Cities

The local district announced Friday that the Washington state Department of Health will step in to help contact people newly diagnosed with COVID-19 and those they might have exposed.

“We requested help from DOH with contact tracing to allow us to get caught up, train new staff and volunteers, and allow more staff to focus on outreach and outbreak mitigation,” said Rick Dawson, a senior manager for the local health district.

Now district employees and trained volunteers conduct “contact tracing” by telephone, interviewing each person who tests positive to try to determine how they may have been exposed to the coronavirus and to determine who they might have infected.

Those people are then contacted and asked to self-quarantine for two weeks to make sure they do not expose others if they have been infected. People can infect others before symptoms develop and in some cases when they don’t develop any symptoms.

The state has set a reopening target requiring 90% of people who test positive to be contacted within 24 hours and 80% of their close contacts within 48 hours.

Assistance from the state agency should help Benton and Franklin counties to meet state reopening targets for contact tracing, Dawson said.

Contact tracing is not new to the Tri-Cities, just the scale at which it must be done is new.

People who test positive for illnesses like measles, mumps, legionella and E. coli have long been contacted by telephone to help determine how they might have been exposed to the illness and who they might have exposed.

This story was originally published June 20, 2020 at 12:41 PM.