5 more people die from COVID in Tri-Cities. New cases were higher this week

Another five residents of the Tri-Cities area have died of COVID-19, the Benton Franklin Health District announced Friday.

They bring the total number of deaths known to have been caused by the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic to 292.

The local health district announces recent deaths once a week, on Fridays.

The deaths announced Friday include three Benton County residents — a woman in her 70s, a man in his 70s and a man in his 60s.

The two Franklin County residents who died were women in their 60s and 90s.

The health district verifies both that there was a positive COVID-19 test result and also that the death certificate lists COVID-19 as a primary cause of death.

The health district no longer says whether those who died had underlying health conditions that put them at risk of a serious case of COVID-19. New death certificate privacy laws took effect in Washington state Jan. 1.

COVID deaths, as announced in December and January, had been averaging at least one per day, but that dropped to 22 deaths announced in February.

Benton County has now had 198 residents die of COVID-19 and Franklin County has had 94 residents die.

COVID hospitalization

The number of patients being treated for COVID-19 at hospitals in Benton and Franklin counties has continued to drop, which bodes well for a likely continued drop in deaths due to the disease.

Just 15 patients were being treated locally for COVID on Friday, down from 16 reported the day before and 43 a month ago.

The 15 patients on Friday accounted for just 3.5% of the 401 patients at the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals.

It is well within the Washington state Department of Health recommendation that COVID patients make up less than 10% of a hospital’s patient census to ensure adequate capacity.

Tri-Cities cases

The Tri-Cities had more new cases this last week than the previous week, reversing the downward trend.

The 49 new COVID cases announced by the local health district on Friday brought the average number of cases for the week — starting with the weekend — to 45 per day.

That’s up from 43 per day on average the last week of February, which had continued a steady, but slowing, decline in new cases. There was an average of 46, 64, 76 and 94 cases per day in the previous weeks.

However, the latest case rates reported continue to show a general decline and are about half the level reported a month ago.

The Washington state Department of Health calculates new case rates based on two weeks of data, which are backdated to when testing for COVID was done.

For the two weeks ending Feb. 26 Benton County had 170 new cases per 100,000 people. That’s down from a case rate of 360 reported about a month ago.

For the same two weeks Franklin County had 221 cases per 100,000. That’s down from a case rate of 459 reported about a month ago.

The new cases announced Friday included 30 Benton County residents and 19 Franklin County residents.

They bring total Tri-Cities area cases confirmed with positive test results since the start of the pandemic to 25,750, including 14,734 in Benton County and 11,016 in Franklin County.

Washington state

The Washington state Department of Health reported 866 new cases of COVID-19 Thursday and 20 deaths from the disease.

Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are 343,090 cases and 5,032 deaths. Those numbers are up from 342,224 cases and 5,012 deaths Wednesday. The case total includes 19,251 cases listed as probable.

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

As of Feb. 13, the date with the most recent complete data, 40 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 were admitted to Washington state hospitals.

Preliminary reports indicate that average daily hospital admissions were trending downward toward 39 in late February.

Out of the state’s total staffed intensive care unit beds (1,212) approximately 81.4% (986) were occupied by patients Wednesday. Of those staffed ICU beds, 8.9% (108) held suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients.

On Feb. 13, the most recent date with confirmed testing data, 5,443 specimens were collected statewide, with a downward-trending 4.2% testing positive.

The average positive test rate for the seven days prior was 3.9%. More than 5.3 million tests have been conducted in Washington.

Cases per county

According to DOH data, King County continues to have the highest numbers in Washington, with 84,714 cases and 1,413 deaths. Pierce County is second in cases, with 38,794. Spokane County has the second-highest number of deaths, at 571.

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 28.8 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 520,080 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 2.5 million people have died from the disease worldwide. Global cases exceed 115 million.

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

This story was originally published March 5, 2021 at 1:59 PM.