‘Really impressive’ drop in Tri-Cities COVID cases. Beware contact tracing scam

Just 28 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and no new deaths from the disease were reported in the Tri-Cities area on Wednesday.

That compares to 25 cases Tuesday and an average of 33 cases per day reported the previous three days.

Despite an uptick in cases some days the week before in Benton County, daily new cases have dropped by more than 50% since early July.

“The trends in Benton and Franklin counties are really impressive, I will say,” said Dr. Amy Person, health officer at the Benton Franklin Health District, in a webcast of the Tri-City Development Council on Wednesday. “We have cleared our peak and are progressing downward at a really lovely rate.”

She credits the work of the 300,000 residents of the two counties in wearing masks in public, limiting gatherings to no more than five nonhousehold members, staying home when sick and maintaining social distance.

“They are all new habits, a little harder to get used to, but really how we are taking control of COVID-19, which for a long time really took control of us,” she said.

The number of new cases for the past two weeks in Franklin County has dropped below 200 to 199.

In the previous two-week period in Franklin County there were 347 new cases.

New cases in Benton County dropped from 282 for the two-week period ending on Tuesday to 260 for the two weeks ending Wednesday. New cases are down 33 from the previous two-week period.

The two counties are working toward goals of fewer than 75 cases per 100,000 people in two weeks, which is the recommendation of the Washington state Department of Health to begin allowing some in-person school classes.

For Benton County that means dropping to 150 cases total in two weeks and for Franklin County it would be about 72 cases total in two weeks.

Total cases, hospitalizations

Total cases since the start of the pandemic stand at 4,168 for Benton County and 3,960 for Franklin County.

Total deaths from complications of COVID-19 remain at 157, including 45 in Franklin County and 112 in Benton County. The district is not tracking active versus recovered cases.

The number of people hospitalized locally for treatment of COVID-19 increased from 33 on Tuesday to 36 on Wednesday.

Patient numbers now have dropped into the 30s for a full four weeks.

The patients being treated for COVID-19 on Wednesday accounted for 11% of patients hospitalized in Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser.

Contact tracing scam

Public health officials are warning of scammers posing as contact tracers — the people who call area resident who may have been in close contact with someone newly confirmed to have COVID-19.

Officials are hearing reports of people being asked for credit card information on the pretext that it is needed to send a test kit to their home.

Benton Franklin Health District contact tracers do not ask for credit card information or a Social Security number, said Heather Hill, communicable disease supervisor for the district during the TRIDEC webcast.

“Our job is to find out who you have been with,” she said.

People determined to be in close contact with an infected person will be asked to quarantine at home until is is clear they have not also been infected, which prevents the spread of the disease.

The coronavirus can be spread by people before symptoms develop.

Contact tracing is once again being done by people in the Tri-Cities area, after temporarily being turned over to the Washington state Department of Health as the local district lacked staff to keep up.

It’s now being done by 19 local people, with Benton County providing office space for contact tracers at the Benton County Fairgrounds.

Having people who know the community well has helped to catch some local outbreaks sooner, Hill said.

It also has helped to connect some people who are quarantining or isolating with resources they need, such as grocery delivery.

Washington state

The Washington State Department of Health on Tuesday reported 304 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 16 deaths statewide.

Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are at 74,939 cases and 1,931 deaths.

King County continues to have the highest numbers in Washington, with 19,698 cases and 728 deaths. Yakima County is second, with 10,963 cases and 244 deaths. Pierce is third with cases at 6,830.

They are followed by Snohomish and Spokane counties and then Benton and Franklin counties with the sixth and seventh highest number of cases and deaths in the state, according to state data.

On Tuesday, Washington had a 990-per-100,000-people case rate. The national rate is 1,832 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Louisiana has the highest rate in the United States at 3,195. Vermont is lowest at 260.

More COVID testing

The Tri-Cities area is getting help to make sure that testing for COVID-19 is readily available.

Medical Teams International, a Seattle-based nonprofit that sends medical volunteers to emergencies, is basing teams in Benton, Franklin and Yakima counties.

Soon another nonprofit, Health Commons, could further boost testing capacity, according to the Washington state Department of Health.

Medical Teams International, based on Christian principles, did some pop-up testing in the greater Tri-Cities area from July through early August. It’s mobile clinic traveled among Benton and Franklin towns to offer a day of free testing, often in outlying areas.

Now it is helping out with testing at businesses, including farms and food processing companies, that have outbreaks or other reasons to test many employees.

Their work is in addition to the Washington National Guard, which is working with state and local agencies to offer free drive-thru testing in the Tri-Cities.

They are at the HAPO Center, formerly TRAC, in Pasco from 7 am. to 1 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, where they can collect samples to test from up to 500 people a day. They will be closed on Labor Day.

Health Commons

The Benton Franklin Health District is in talks with Health Commons, a nonprofit that helps coordinate care within the health system to make it easier for people to access.

Seattle Fire, a founding member of Health Commons, has worked with other Seattle-area agencies to test about 5,000 people a day in western Washington.

The Department of Health wants to replicate that success in other areas, starting with Benton, Franklin and Yakima counties.

Local service providers would be trained to operate high-volume testing sites, keeping jobs local while building testing capacity in communities with high levels of COVID-19 cases.

“We hope this approach to testing will be the foundation for a more comprehensive response going forward,” said Dr Charissa Fotina, the state’s leader on COVID-19 testing.

Public health officials say that widely available testing can help identify more people infected with the coronavirus early to help prevent the spread of the virus.

They can self isolate at home and their close contacts can be notified of potential exposures and asked to quarantine at home until it is clear that they are not infected.

Testing also is available at clinics in the Tri-Cities area. The local health district has details posted at bit.ly/TCtestingsites.

Craig Sailor of The (Tacoma) News Tribune contributed to this report.