16 new COVID deaths reported in Tri-Cities area. The youngest was in his 30s

Sixteen more people in the Tri-Cities area have died of complications of COVID-19, the Benton Franklin Health District reported on Friday.

The youngest was a man in his 30s who lived in Franklin County.

They bring total deaths of Benton and Franklin county residents from the disease to 249.

Due to a new state law that increases security on personal information on death certificates, they are the first deaths reported for 2021.

The 16 deaths announced so far in January match the 16 deaths announced in the first half of December. There were 36 deaths from COVID for the full month of December 2020.

The deaths announced Friday include 10 people from Benton county and six from Franklin County.

The Benton County deaths include one woman and two men in their 50s; a man and a woman in their 60s; a man in his 70s; three men in their 80s and one man in his 90s.

The Franklin County deaths include a man in his 30s; two women and two men in their 70s and a man in his 80s.

The health district did not release information on whether they had underlying health conditions.

The man in his 30s was the third person in the two county area under age 40 to die of complications of COVID-19. The other two were both girls. One was 15 and the other between 10-19, said officials.

Health District confirms deaths were caused by COVID-19 by checking for a positive COVID-19 test result and reviewing death certificates to see if COVID-19 is listed as a primary cause of death.

The local health district does not plan to report on COVID deaths again until Friday, Jan. 22, as it moves to a new weekly reporting schedule due to the Jan. 1 change in the law that limits access to death certificate data.

COVID cases

The local health district reported 150 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Friday.

They bring the average number of cases for the week — starting from last weekend — to 152 per day.

That’s down from the 176 average reported daily last week by the Benton Franklin Health District. In reports the week before — the last week of December — new cases averaged 164 a day.

However, the health district has warned that some data from the start of the month through at least Thursday may be incomplete. In addition, the Kennewick free drive-thru testing site was closed on Tuesday because of the wind storm, which likely reduced the number of new cases confirmed and reported to public health officials.

Daily case data should be “interpreted with caution,” the health district posted on its website.

The new case rate is rising.

It could be a sign of a surge in cases because of gatherings and travel during the Christmas and New Year’s holiday weeks, according to public health officials.

Case rates give a snapshot of a longer period than daily case counts, and they are based on when a person sought testing or when symptoms appeared, rather than when positive case results were reported to public health agencies.

The health district reported the highest case rates so far this month on Friday.

In Benton County the new case rate climbed above 700 for the first time since December to 719 new cases per 100,000 people for the two weeks ending Jan. 8.

In Franklin County 857 new cases per 100,000 were reported for the two weeks ending Jan. 8.

The 150 new COVID cases reported on Friday include 118 in Benton County and 32 in Franklin County.

They bring total confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic to 13,039 in Benton County and 9,456 in Franklin County. Together the two counties have had 22,459 cases.

Hospital cases

Local hospitals are treating 56 patients for COVID-19, a number unchanged since Thursday, the health district said Friday. COVID patient counts have been in the 50s and 60s all month.

The 56 patients as of Friday’s report accounted for 14% of all 407 patients in hospitals in Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser.

The Washington state Department of Health has set a goal of fewer than 10% COVID patients to ensure adequate hospital capacity.

Washington state

The Washington state Department of Health on Thursday reported 2,729 new cases of COVID-19 and 38 deaths.

Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are 283,777 cases and 3,876 deaths. Those numbers are up from 281,048 cases and 3,838 deaths Wednesday. The case total includes 12,1341 cases listed as probable. DOH revises previous case and death counts daily.

Washington’s population is estimated at about 7.6 million, according to U.S. Census figures from July 2019.

As of Dec. 26, the date with the most recent complete data, 92 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 were admitted to Washington state hospitals.

Preliminary reports indicate average daily hospital admissions were 104 in early January.

Out of the state’s total staffed intensive care unit beds (1,198), approximately 82.1% (983) were occupied by patients Thursday. Of those staffed ICU beds, 16.9% (202) held suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients.

For the past seven days, Washington had a case rate of 38.4 per 100,000 people. Seven states were lower.

The national rate for the same period was 73.8 per 100,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Arizona has the highest rate in the United States at 131.6. Hawaii is the lowest at 13.1.

According to the CDC, 225,238 people in Washington (2.9% of the population) have been vaccinated with a first dose and 655,575 doses have been delivered to the state as of Thursday. Currently approved vaccines require two shots for maximum effectiveness.

Currently, Washington state is in phase 1A of vaccinations. That phase includes high-risk health care workers, high-risk first responders and residents and staff of congregate living settings such as nursing homes.

On the national level, 30.6 million doses have been distributed and 11.1 million people have received the first shot of the approved vaccines. The population of the United States is approximately 328 million.

On Jan. 3, the most recent date with confirmed testing data, 7,023 specimens were collected statewide, with 19.3% testing positive.

The average positive test rate for the seven days prior was 16.5%. More than 4.1 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.

Cases by county

King County continues to have the highest numbers in Washington, with 71,646 cases and 1,144 deaths. Pierce County is second in cases, with 30,193. Snohomish County has the second-highest number of deaths at 440.

Following Pierce for numbers of new cases are Spokane, Snohomish, Yakima, Clark, Benton and Franklin counties. If Benton and Franklin counties were considered together, they would rank fifth.

All counties in Washington have cases. Only three counties have case counts of fewer than 100, including Columbia with 92.

There have been more than 23.2 million confirmed coronavirus cases and over 388,000 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 1.9 million people have died from the disease worldwide. Global cases are nearly 93 million.

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