Don’t believe COVID testing myths circulating in Tri-Cities, doctor says

Having readily available testing is one reason the number of new daily COVID-19 cases in the Tri-Cities now has dropped by more than 50% since the start of July.

That’s what Dr. Amy Person, health officer for Benton and Franklin counties, told the board of the Benton Franklin Health District at its Wednesday meeting.

“Our situation this month looks very different from last month and in a positive way,” she said.

Jason Zaccaria, health district administrator, said that as new cases are dropping talks are going well with state officials who will make the decision on whether the Tri-Cities can open up more.

He said he is optimistic that an announcement for the Tri-Cities area related to reopening will be made soon.

Dr. Person used the health district meeting to dispel testing myths.

“We’ve heard concerns in the past that if we test more that will just make our disease rates go up,” Dr. Person said. “That could not be further from the truth.”

Having adequate testing in the Tri-Cities area with the help of National Guard drive-thru sites has allowed cases to be identified early, she said.

Not only can the infected person self isolate and prevent the spread of the disease outside of their home, their close contacts who may have been infected also can be contacted and asked to quarantine until it’s clear they have not been infected, she said.

The result, along with more people wearing face coverings in public, has been reduced transmission, she said.

Franklin County Commissioner Clint Didier, a member of the health district board, argued that the Pasco drive-thru testing site should not be expanded because case numbers are dropping.

The Tri-Cities has had free drive-thru testing at the Toyota Center in Kennewick and the HAPO Center, formerly TRAC, in Pasco, for about a month with the National Guard working with local and state public agencies to offer the testing.

With the Kennewick National Guard team sent elsewhere in the state this week, the HAPO Center testing capacity has been doubled to test up to 2,500 people a week.

As of a week ago, the latest numbers available, 41,400 COVID-19 tests had been done of residents of the two counties.

“There are many more open counties across Washington state that actually have run many more tests than we have in Benton and Franklin counties because we did not have some of these resources like the National Guard early on in the pandemic,” Dr. Person said.

Those counties with higher levels of testing have had lower disease rates, she said. In some cases counties with more people have had four or five times fewer cases, she said.

Testing rumor

She also addressed a rumor pubic health officials are hearing that people have filled out paperwork to be tested for COVID-19 but then left before being tested. Later they received a positive test result in the mail, officials were told.

“That is a situation that would absolutely not happen at our community testing sites,” she said.

The HAPO testing site, and previously the Toyota site, is set up so that there is not a delay between personal information being collected and the test sample being collected from a person, she said. Many private testing sites use a similar system.

The health district has reached out to people spreading the story about a false test result, but has run into dead ends with people saying they’d heard the story from someone who had heard the story from someone who had heard the story, she said.

Anyone with direct information is asked to contact the health district.

“I also hope that people will not choose to further spread falsehoods about the health district,” Dr. Person said.

Spreading untrue rumors does not help the district with its work to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus and help the community to open up businesses, allow students to return to class and allow non-household gatherings, she said.

Flu vs. coronavirus

Also at the health district meeting, Didier said that he was concerned that businesses were shut down because of the coronavirus, when influenza has a higher death rate.

However, the Washington state Department of Health says that 109 deaths have been caused by influenza in the state since the start of the flu season last fall.

It reports 3 deaths in Benton County and 1 in Franklin County attributed to influenza since last fall.

The state of Washington reports 1,822 deaths caused by complications of COVID-19 and the Benton Franklin Health District says 154 have died locally.

School update

If daily COVID-19 cases continue to decrease at the same pace, many students will be back in school this fall, Dr. Person said.

The largest school districts in the area plan to start the school year online, but some small, rural school districts and private schools may start the school year with in-school classes.

With the rate of cases lower in Benton County that in Franklin County, students in Benton County could start to return to class sooner than those in Franklin County, Dr. Person said at a Thursday media briefing.

Labor Day caution

The biggest hurdle will be getting past the Labor Day holiday without a surge in new cases, she said.

Cases increased about two weeks after the Memorial Day holiday because people gathered in groups, held backyard barbecues and were not careful with masks and social distancing as they celebrated that and other holidays such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and the Fourth of July.

There are more ways for families to have fun than earlier in the pandemic, she said.

They include the new Carpool Cinema, with the first one at 8:30 p.m. Friday at the Tri-City Youth Soccer Association Parking Lot, 6160 Burden Blvd., Pasco

Buy tickets in advance by registering at www.pascoparksandrec.com. The full schedule is posted at bit.ly/InfoCarpoolCinema.

Farmers markets have also opened, she pointed out.

But people need to continue to take precautions to avoid spreading the coronavirus when they are in public, even if they have no symptoms, she said. That includes wearing masks and not gathering, even with friends or neighbors, but continuing to do activities only with other household members.

New COVID cases

The number of new confirmed COVID cases reported on Thursday in the Tri-Cities area was 29, continuing the overall downward trend for a seventh week.

There were no new deaths reported on Thursday, making just one new death from complications of the coronavirus reported in seven days. The death of a Benton County man was reported on Wednesday, bringing total deaths in the two counties to 154.

The new cases reported on Thursday include 18 in Benton County and 11 in Franklin County, which has about half as many people.

It drops the total cases in Benton County over the last 14 days to 300. In the previous two-week period there were 606 cases.

It drops the total cases in Franklin County over the last 14 days to 348. In the previous two-week period there were 491.

The number of patients being hospitalized for COVID-19 locally remained in the 30s on Thursday.

The Benton Franklin Health District reported 34 patients being treated for COVID — either with positive test results or awaiting test results — in hospitals in Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser. They account for about 12% of all patients in the four hospitals.

This story was originally published August 20, 2020 at 2:12 PM.