COVID cases in Tri-Cities area top 26,000 in just under a year

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have topped 26,000 just short of a year after the announcement of the first known case of the disease in the Tri-Cities area.

The Tri-Cities area had 89 more cases of COVID-19 confirmed with positive test results, the Benton Franklin Health District said Monday.

Those cases are for the three days since new cases were last announced on Friday and average just under 30 per day.

Last week new cases averaged 31 per day. In the three weeks before that cases averaged in the 40s each day.

The drop in cases comes as the Washington state Department of Health says that 79,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been given in Benton and Franklin counties as of Friday, and 27,000 people are fulling immunized.

Population of the two counties is about 300,000.

Hospitalizations also continue to drop, with 15 patients being treated for COVID-19 at local hospitals as of Monday. It is down from 74 at the end of December.

Older people are most likely to be hospitalized with COVID, and people age 65 and older in Washington state have been eligible to receive the COVID vaccine for about eight weeks.

The 15 patients being treated for COVID-19 as of Friday accounted for about 4% of the 367 patients at the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals.

Benton County had a case rate of 139 new confirmed COVID cases per 100,000 people for the two weeks ending March 8.

There is a lag in the weeks considered for the most recent case rate because positive test results are backdated to the day a person had a test sample collected.

Franklin County had a case rate of 228 new confirmed COVID cases per 100,000 people for the two weeks ending March 8. Its case rate has dropped from 263 at the start of the month.

The county will need to get its case rate below 200 by April 12 to remain in Phase 3 of reopening.

All counties in the state were moved from Phase 2 to Phase 3 of reopening Monday, March 22, but need two week case rates below 200 or they drop back to Phase 2 of reopening.

Benton and Franklin case rates will be considered separately and the state also will consider their numbers of new hospital admissions for COVID patients.

The new cases announced on Monday included 42 in Benton County and 47 in Franklin County, despite Franklin County having slightly fewer than half as many people as Benton County.

Public health official have been concerned that the drop in new cases in Franklin County may have plateaued recently.

Franklin County has had a total of 11,154 confirmed cases of infection with the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic and Benton County has had 14,901 cases.

COVID deaths

The number of people who have died of COVID-19 in the Tri-Cities area now totals 303.

The Benton Franklin Health District reported 11 more recent deaths from the disease last week.

Eight lived in Benton County and three in Franklin County. Their age ranged from their 60s through their 90s.

The total local deaths due to COVID include 206 residents of Benton County and 97 of Franklin County.

Local public health officials verify that deaths were due to COVID-19 complications by checking for a positive COVID test result and that COVID-19 was named as a primary cause of death on the death certificate. Deaths are reported once a week, on Fridays.

So far this month, 15 deaths have been reported.

In December and January reported deaths averaged a little over one each day, but they dropped to 22 last month.