Trend shows Tri-Cities kids could be back in classrooms by late fall. 1 more death reported

Students could return to classrooms later this fall if the number of new COVID-19 cases continues to drop, the Tri-Cities top health official said Thursday.

New cases have fallen by 50 percent since the beginning of July, said Dr. Amy Person with the Benton Franklin Health District during a Thursday news conference.

She said if Tri-Citians keep wearing masks, maintaining their distance and taking other safety measures, students could safely go back to schools.

“It won’t be on Sept. 1, but if we can continue on this path, we will have our kids back in school,” Dr. Person said.

All of the Tri-City school districts decided to start classes online after Person sent a letter saying that she couldn’t recommend in-person classes for most students based on the recent transmission rates.

Since then, the Washington State Department of Health released its guidelines for when students could return to classes. The state said counties should have 75 cases or fewer per 100,000 people during a two-week period for partial reopening.

That needs to drop to 25 or fewer per 100,000 in two weeks for a full return to classes

This week, Benton County has 207 new cases per 100,000 and Franklin has 422 per 100,000 over a two-week stretch.

On top of that, case counts across Eastern Washington are dropping, and the number of people whom each person infects has dropped below one.

“This is the point where we, as a community, have been trying to get to,” Person said.

Deaths will continue to be reported, but she said those numbers are expected to lag behind the case counts.

“I think the biggest hurdle that we’re going to have to get over for this point is going to be the Labor Day holiday,” she said. “We have seen that over the summer starting from Mother’s Day through Fourth of July that generally, one to two weeks after a holiday we do see an increase in our case counts.”

The challenge will be to not repeat the pattern, because it would slow down the progress, she said.

Case counts

On Thursday, Benton County reported 13 new cases which brings its total cases to 3,801 since the beginning of the pandemic.

Franklin County reported 24 new cases bringing it to a total of 3,599 cases.

And one new death was reported. A Franklin County man in his 60s with underlying health conditions died.

To date, 153 Tri-Cities area people have died of COVID-19 complications. There have been 110 in Benton County and 43 in Franklin.

The health district doesn’t list how many cases are active. No information on the number of people tested was available on Thursday.

There are 39 people are hospitalized in the Tri-Cities and Prosser for treatment of COVID-19. They account for about 11 percent of all patients in those hospitals.

Free testing moving

The testing site at the Toyota Center in Kennewick will be shutting down on Saturday after the National Guard team there was reassigned.

To make sure that the community doesn’t lose ground on having testing capacity, a second lane will be opened up at the HAPO Center, formerly TRAC, in Pasco, Dr. Person announced.

The site will be open from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Participants should bring an insurance card, if they have one, but those without insurance will not be denied testing.

The site is open to anyone who believes they need testing.

“We will not see a drop in our testing capacity,” she said.

This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 2:06 PM.