8 more Tri-Cities COVID deaths. And new cases jump

Eight more people have died in the Tri-Cities area due to complications of COVID-19, according to the Benton Franklin Health District.

The youngest was a man in his 40s.

The recent deaths bring the deaths announced this month to 13, for an average of one a day. The health district announces deaths each Friday.

The death toll continues to be generally on pace with reports from December, when 36 COVID deaths were announced, and January, when 32 COVID deaths were announced.

A total of 278 residents in Benton and Franklin counties have died, including 187 from Benton County and 91 of Franklin County.

Nine have been younger than 50.

The deaths reported Friday included one Franklin County woman in her 70s.

The other deaths were Benton County residents, including two women in their 90s; a woman and two men in their 80s; a man in his 50s and a man in his 40s.

Because of a change in privacy laws for death certificates at the start of 2021, the Benton Franklin Health District no longer reports whether those who died had underlying health conditions that put them at risk of a severe case of COVID-19.

COVID cases

The number of new cases reported Friday took a big jump to 113, up from an average of 48 cases per day reported the past three days.

No reason was immediately apparent to public health officials for the one-day spike.

The Friday cases put the new cases for the week — starting with the weekend — at an average of 64 per day.

It is still down from 76 cases a day reported last week and 96 daily the week before.

It puts the number of new cases for the week in the Tri-Cities area at 21 a day per 100,000 people.

That compares to a new case rate of 15.8 daily new cases per 100,000 people in Washington state for the past seven days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The national rate for the same period was 31.4 per 100,000.

Nine states had a lower rate than Washington. South Carolina had the highest rate in the United States at 62. Hawaii had the lowest at 4.8.

The Washington state Department of Health tracks new case trends by looking at two weeks of data per 100,000 people, backdated to when test samples were collected.

Benton County had a new case rate of 340 cases per 100,000 for the two weeks ending Feb. 5. That’s down from 493 reported at the end of January.

Franklin County had a new case rate of 451 cases per 100,000 for the two weeks ending Feb. 5. That’s down from 561 reported at the end of January.

The number of people hospitalized locally for treatment of COVID dropped to 41 on Friday, down from 45 reported Thursday.

January ended with 50 COVID patients at local hospitals.

The 41 patients being treated Friday accounted for just over 10% of the 395 patients at the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals. It almost meets the state goal of fewer than 10% COVID patients.

Washington state

The Washington state Department of Health reported 1,490 new cases of COVID-19 and 30 deaths on Thursday.

Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are 326,159 cases and 4,633 deaths. Those numbers are up from 324,669 cases and 4,603 deaths Wednesday. The case total includes 16,486 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 Jan. 23, the date with the most recent complete data, 61 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 were admitted to Washington state hospitals.

Preliminary reports indicate average daily hospital admissions were 72 in early February.

Out of the state’s total staffed intensive care unit beds (1,201), approximately 79.9% (960) were occupied by patients Thursday. Of those staffed ICU beds, 12% (144) held suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients.

On Jan. 23, the most recent date with confirmed testing data, 14,090 specimens were collected statewide, with 7% testing positive.

The average positive test rate for the seven days prior was 6.6%. More than 4.8 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

According to DOH data, King County continues to have the highest numbers in Washington, with 81,082 cases and 1,305 deaths. Pierce County is second in cases, with 36,045. Spokane County has the second-highest number of deaths at 519.

The counties with the most cases after Pierce are Spokane, Snohomish, Yakima, Clark, Benton and Franklin counties. If Benton and Franklin counties were considered together, they would rank sixth in cases after Yakima County.

All counties in Washington have cases. Only 12 of the state’s 39 counties have case counts of fewer than 1,000.

There have been more than 27.3 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 475,040 deaths from the virus in the United States as of Thursday evening, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has the highest number of reported cases and deaths of any nation.

More than 2.3 million people have died from the disease worldwide. Global cases exceed 107 million.

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