Tri-Cities COVID cases down for 2nd day. Franklin County hits single digits

New COVID-19 cases in Franklin County dropped Friday below 10 for the first time this week.

The Benton Franklin Health District reported 21 new cases — 15 in Benton County and six in Franklin County.

The announcement brings total Tri-Cities cases since the outset of the pandemic last spring up to 9,822, with 543 reported in the last 14 days.

Benton County has had 5,100 total cases while Franklin County has seen 4,722.

Local health officials only reported one death this week. That was on Thursday, a Benton County woman in her 60s who did not have underlying conditions.

The risk of a severe case of COVID-19 increases if people are 60 or older or have underlying health conditions, such as heart disease, lung disease, obesity or diabetes.

Total deaths since the start of the pandemic in Benton and Franklin counties now total 188. They include 127 Benton County residents who have died and 61 residents of Franklin County.

The local health district requires a positive test for COVID-19 and then checks the death certificate to be certain that COVID was the cause of death before including it in its tally of deaths.

On Friday, there was no change in the 22 patients hospitalized and either are confirmed to have COVID-19 or have COVID-like illnesses.

They account for just under 7% of all patients at hospitals in Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser.

Washington state

The number of COVID-19 cases has passed the 100,000 mark in Washington, the state Department of Health reported, with 651 new cases and three deaths reported Thursday.

Since mid-September, the state’s seven-day average case count has been increasing as Washington sees its third wave of coronavirus infections. The average has gone from a low of 351 on Sept. 12 to 589 on Oct. 9.

The seven-day average death total has dropped since peaking in the second wave on July 23.

Pierce County reported 79 cases Thursday and no new deaths. Pierce County has a total of 185 deaths likely caused by COVID-19 as of Thursday, according to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.

Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are at 100,525 cases and 2,289 deaths, up from 99,874 cases 2,286 deaths Wednesday. Washington’s population is estimated at about 7.6 million, according to U.S. Census figures from July 2019.

Twenty-one people with confirmed COVID-19 cases were admitted to Washington state hospitals on Oct. 3, the most recent date with complete data. Average daily hospitalizations peaked in early April at 78.

On Oct. 11, the most recent date with complete data, 5,523 specimens were collected statewide, with 4.2% testing positive. The average positive test rate for the seven days prior was 3.3%. More than 2.2 million tests have been conducted in Washington.

The test numbers reflect only polymerase chain reaction tests, which are administered while the virus is presumably still active in the body.

King County continues to have the highest numbers in Washington, with 25,712 cases and 798 deaths. Yakima County is second, with 11,759 cases and 270 deaths. Pierce is third with cases at 9,547, according to the state’s tally.

All counties in Washington have cases. Eight counties have case counts of fewer than 100.

For the past seven days, Washington had a case rate of 8.3-per-100,000-people. The national rate for the same period is 18 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. North Dakota has the highest rate in the United States at 101.5. Vermont is the lowest at 1.6.

There have been more than 8.3 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 222,896 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 1.1 million people have died from the disease worldwide. Global cases exceed 41 million.

COVID-19 vaccine

Trump says COVID-19 vaccine is coming ‘within weeks.’ Experts say that’s not possible

During the second and last debate before the Nov. 3 election, President Donald Trump insisted — again — that a coronavirus vaccine will be ready “within weeks.”

But according to scientific experts, there’s no way that’s happening, at least not with a vaccine that has proven safe and effective through appropriately timed clinical trials.

“There is absolutely *NO* vaccine coming in just ‘a few weeks,’” epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington D.C., and chief health economist for Microclinic International, said on Twitter during the presidential debate.

“If for some hellish reason Trump WH tries to rush a vaccine tomorrow or this coming week — it would be reckless and against all scientific standards for establishing efficacy and safety,” he continued.

The process to develop, test and distribute a vaccine, no matter the disease involved, usually takes years to accomplish. But Trump said he doesn’t think his own health officials, who have presented a different timeline, are “counting on the military the way I do.”

“We have Operation Warp Speed, the military is going to distribute the vaccine,” Trump said during the debate.

When debate host Kristen Welker of NBC asked the president if his claims on the vaccine timelines were a “guarantee,” Trump said, “no.”

“It’s not a guarantee but it will be by the end of the year,” he responded.

Operation Warp Speed, a public–private partnership initiated by the Trump administration, was designed “to produce and deliver 300 million doses of safe and effective vaccines with the initial doses available by January 2021,” according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

A fact sheet on the initiative says, “rather than eliminating steps from traditional development timelines, steps will proceed simultaneously, such as starting manufacturing of the vaccine at industrial scale well before the demonstration of vaccine efficacy and safety as happens normally.”

“This increases the financial risk, but not the product risk,” the sheet reads.

But experts have a different take.

In the ongoing randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials, participants are randomly assigned to either receive a vaccine candidate or a placebo.

“There is no specified time frame to determine efficacy. What drives the time frame is how frequently disease occurs in those who receive the study vaccine compared to those who receive the placebo vaccine,” William Moss, executive director of Johns Hopkins’ International Vaccine Access Center, told CBS News in September. “During a pandemic this can happen faster than in a non-pandemic situation.”

But if there wasn’t a pandemic, phase 3 trials — the last step before a vaccine is approved for public use — could last at least two to three years, Moss added. Only then would manufacturing of the vaccine begin after data review is complete.

Matt Driscoll and Debbie Cockrell contributed to this report.