118 new Tri-Cities COVID cases reported. Nursing home vaccinations begin

A Benton County woman in her 70s has died from complications of COVID-19, bringing the Tri-Cities total to 231 over nearly 10 months.

The Benton Franklin Health District reported the latest death on Tuesday, adding that the woman had underlying health conditions.

Health officials also corrected their Monday release about the deaths of two Franklin County residents who were in their 80s. While it originally was reported that they were a man and a woman, the district said Tuesday they both were women.

No new deaths were announced Tuesday in Franklin County.

Since the start of the pandemic last spring, the two counties now have had 19,657 positive cases.

That number includes Tuesday’s update of 118 more cases, with 74 in Benton County and 44 in Franklin County.

Benton County has an overall case count of 11,185, and a case rate of 677 per 100,000 people for the two weeks ending Dec. 22.

In Franklin County, 8,472 residents have had positive results, with a case rate of 878 new cases per 100,000 for the same time period.

The Benton Franklin Health District said Tuesday it had been informed by the state that negative test results from Dec. 1-17 are now up-to-date.

However, negative test results from Nov. 21-30 remain incomplete, so officials warn that numbers still “should be interpreted with caution.”

Hospitalizations down

The number of people hospitalized in the Mid-Columbia dropped, both in patients being treated for the coronavirus and those with other ailments.

There are 68 people in the hospitals in Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser with either positive COVID tests or awaiting results.

That number amounts to 17% of the total 397 patients in the four hospitals, and means 86% of licensed hospital beds in the two counties are occupied, according to the health district.

One week after the state announced that it was shipping an additional 5,800 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to Tri-Cities health care providers, the Herald has learned that CVS Pharmacy is starting to give shots to people at Life Care Center in Richland.

It is not known who will be receiving those vaccines, but the state has said priority is to high-risk health care workers.

CVS and Walgreens are the two main pharmacies participating in the federal COVID-19 vaccine program, distributing vaccines to nursing and long-term care facilities across the United States.

In Benton and Franklin counties, 735 residents and staff of long-term care facilities have been diagnosed with the virus. Health district data does not give details on which care centers have been affected.

Washington state

The Washington state Department of Health reported 1,311 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday and 11 deaths since Thursday.

Death data is not up to date due to a processing problem, the DOH said Monday.

Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are at 238,672 cases and 3,195 deaths. The case total includes 9,000 cases listed as probable. Those numbers are up from 237,361 cases Sunday and 3,184 deaths on Thursday. DOH revises previous case and death counts daily.

One hundred forty-six people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 were admitted to Washington state hospitals on Dec. 9, the most recent date with complete data. The numbers marks a record high since the start of the pandemic.

Preliminary reports indicate average daily hospital admissions were 117 in mid-December.

Statistics from last week showed about 13.7% (1,200) of all staffed adult acute care hospital beds were occupied by COVID-19 patients. In the state’s intensive care units, 19.9% (243) of staffed adult beds were occupied by suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients.

Testing

On Dec. 17, the most recent date with confirmed testing data, 22,668 specimens were collected statewide, with 11.4% testing positive.

The average positive test rate for the seven days prior was 19%. More than 3.7 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.

For the past seven days, Washington had a case rate of 23.8 per 100,000 people.

The national rate for the same period is 54.5 per 100,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

California has the highest rate in the United States, at 97. Hawaii is the lowest, at 7.5.

There have been more than 19.2 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 334,695 deaths from the virus in the United States as of Monday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has the highest number of reported cases and deaths of any nation.

More than 1.7 million people have died from the disease worldwide. Global cases exceed 81 million.

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

This story was originally published December 29, 2020 at 2:13 PM.