Fewer than 20 new COVID cases in Tri-Cities. Heart problems being reported
The Benton Franklin Health District reported 19 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Tri-Cities area on Friday, about the same as the past two days.
On Thursday there were 19 new cases, 20 on Wednesday, 13 on Tuesday and an average of 31 new daily cases over last weekend.
No additional deaths were reported on Friday.
The new cases reported Friday included 11 in Benton County and eight in Franklin County.
They bring the total cases since the start of the pandemic in Benton County to 4,385 and 4,155 in Franklin County.
The number of Tri-Cities area residents who have died from complications of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic is 163. They include 114 people from Benton County and 49 in Franklin County.
The number of locally hospitalized patients being treated for COVID-19 was not released on Friday after the Washington state Department of Health reported problems with its data collection system.
On Thursday, it reported just seven COVID-19 patients at hospitals in Benton and Franklin counties, a number that the Benton Franklin Health District said on Friday was likely incorrect.
The Department of Health was working Friday to find the cause of its hospital data problem.
COVID and the heart
About 50% of autopsies for people severely ill with COVID-19 had the virus in their hearts, according to a study by UW Medicine at the University of Washington.
Any virus can infect heart-muscle cells, but the new coronavirus responsible for the current pandemic has a particularly detrimental effect, according to UW Medicine.
The resulting inflammation when the coronavirus infects the heart has been diagnosed in otherwise healthy college athletes who are thought to be recovered from mild or asymptomatic COVID infections, it said.
“We don’t know how much direct infection of COVID is going to affect future cardiovascular disease,” said April Stempien-Otero, a cardiologist at the UW Medicine Heart Institute in Seattle.
“But we do know that anyone who has high blood pressure, diabetes with heart disease, artery disease — that those patients have twice the rate of death from COVID,” she said.
Washington state
The Washington state Department of Health on Thursday reported 386 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 11 deaths.
Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are at 81,198 cases and 2,031 deaths, up from 80,812 cases and 2,020 deaths Wednesday. Washington’s population is estimated at about 7.6 million, according to U.S. Census figures from July 2019.
Twenty-four people with confirmed COVID-19 cases were admitted to Washington state hospitals on Aug. 29, the most recent date with complete data. Late March had two days with 88 people admitted, the highest numbers to date during the pandemic.
King County continues to have the highest numbers in Washington, with 21,148 cases and 750 deaths. Yakima County is second, with 11,213 cases and 255 deaths. Pierce is third with cases at 7,425 and 192 deaths.
Benton and Franklin counties rank sixth and seventh for cases, following Snohomish and Spokane counties.
All counties in Washington have cases. Eleven counties have case counts of fewer than 100.
On Thursday, Washington had a 1,072-per-100,000-people case rate. The national rate is 1,998, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Louisiana has the highest rate in the United States at 3,431. Vermont is lowest at 272.
There had been more than 6.6 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 197,447 deaths from the virus in the United States as of Thursday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The United States has the highest number of reported cases and deaths of any nation. More than 942,000 people have died from the disease worldwide. Global cases exceed 29 million.
Craig Sailor, The (Tacoma) News Tribune, contributed to this report.
This story was originally published September 18, 2020 at 1:34 PM.