End Washington’s COVID mask mandate? Not so fast, says Tri-Cities doctor

As some other states are moving rapidly to open up and dropping requirements to wear masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tri-Cities area health officer is urging caution.

“We are seeing a significant improvement in our disease activity, a significant improvement in our hospitalizations from COVID-19, and that is not something that is just occurring by chance,” said Dr. Amy Person, health officer for Benton and Franklin counties at a Thursday news media briefing.

The drop is not because of luck or the natural course of the disease, but the result of wearing masks, limiting gatherings, social distancing and getting more people vaccinated, she said.

“Continuing these practices is what is going to allow us to move to a point where we can have more businesses open and open to a larger degree,” she said. “So let’s focus on moving that forward before we think about taking our masks off.”

States that have dropped or plan to drop requirements for masks include Montana, Texas, Iowa, Alabama and Mississippi.

Tri-Cities cases

The number of new COVID-19 cases in the Tri-Cities area has been declining since a post winter holiday peak, just as they have across the nation.

But the local drop in the rate of new cases has slowed some, even as rates were still much higher than public health officials want to see, Dr. Person said.

Public health officials also are concerned that the drop in new cases may be plateauing in Franklin County.

On Thursday the Benton Franklin Health District reported 29 new cases, fewer than half the 61 new cases announced on Wednesday.

The majority of the new cases — 17 cases — were reported in Franklin County, even though it has fewer than half as many people as Benton County.

The cases announced Thursday bring the average number of new cases per day so far this week — starting with the weekend — to nearly 44 per day, up from 43 per day on average last week.

Benton and Franklin counties have had dropping case numbers in other recent weeks, with average daily new case numbers in previous weeks of 46, 64, 76 and 94.

The Tri-Cities area has had just under 15 new cases per 100,000 people on average per day over the last seven days.

That compares to a statewide rate of 11 new cases per 100,000 on average over seven days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday.

The national rate for the same period was 19 per 100,000, with four states having lower rates than Washington.

New Jersey had the highest rate in the United States at 38 and Hawaii had the lowest at 3.

Tri-Cities hospital patients

The number of patients being treated in Benton and Franklin county hospitals for COVID-19 dropped to 15 on Thursday, down from 22 at the start of March, 49 at the start of February and 62 at the start of January.

The patients being treated for COVID on Thursday accounted for just under 4% of all patients in the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals.

A single recent COVID-19 death in the Tri-Cities area was reported last week, bringing the total to 287, after the area had about a death each day reported from December through mid February.

The Benton Franklin Health District reports deaths once a week, on Fridays.

The new COVID cases reported on Thursday bring the total for the two counties to 25,701, including 14,704 cases in Benton County and 10,997 cases in Franklin County.

Washington state

More than 5,000 people in Washington state have now died from COVID-19 as the state Department of Health reported 799 new cases of the disease and 24 new deaths Wednesday.

Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are 342,236 cases and 5,012 deaths. Those numbers are up from 341,437 cases and 4,988 deaths Tuesday. The case total includes 19,113 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 Feb. 12, the date with the most recent complete data, 53 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 were admitted to Washington state hospitals.

Preliminary reports indicate that average daily hospital admissions were trending downward to 43 in late-February.

Out of the state’s total staffed intensive care unit beds (1,201), approximately 79.1% (950) were occupied by patients Tuesday. Of those staffed ICU beds, 10.1% (121) held suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients.

On Feb. 12, the most recent date with confirmed testing data, 16,320 specimens were collected statewide, with a downward-trending 4.3% testing positive.

The average positive test rate for the seven days prior was 4%. More than 5.3 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 84,488 cases and 1,406 deaths. Pierce County is second in cases, with 38,611. Spokane County has the second-highest number of deaths, at 570.

Following Pierce for number of cases are Spokane, Snohomish, Yakima, Clark, Benton and Franklin counties. If Benton and Franklin counties were considered together, they would rank sixth, 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 28.7 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 519,039 deaths from the virus in the United States as of Wednesday evening, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has the highest number of reported cases and deaths of any nation.

More than 2.5 million people have died from the disease worldwide. Global cases exceed 115 million.

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

This story was originally published March 4, 2021 at 2:38 PM.