3 more Tri-Cities COVID deaths. Contagious disease toll highest since the 1950s

Three more recent deaths from complications of COVID-19 were announced on Friday by the Benton Franklin Health District.

It brings the total deaths of Tri-Cities area residents of the disease to 306 since the first COVID death was announced just over a year ago — or about one death attributed to the virus for every 1,000 residents.

“In modern America, 21st Century America, we do not expect to see that,” said Dr. Amy Person, health officer for Benton and Franklin counties, speaking this week on the Tri-City Development Council’s Coffee with Karl webcast.

She had to search through death statistics back to the 1950s in the Tri-Cities area to find a time when an infectious disease took such a heavy toll.

The scourge that took so many lives then was tuberculosis, caused by bacteria.

For this month, the three COVID-19 deaths announced Friday bring the total in the Tri-Cities area to 18, which is still close to one death per day.

But the number of people dying has dropped some in the past month.

In December and January, the reported deaths averaged more than one each day, but they dropped to 22 last month.

Local public health officials verify that the deaths are 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.

They announce recent COVID deaths once a week, on Fridays.

The deaths reported this week include a Benton County woman in her 90s, a Franklin County man in his 70s and a Franklin County man in his 40s.

The Benton Franklin Health District has stopped reporting whether people had an underlying health condition that put them at risk for a severe case of COVID. The state privacy law for death certificates was tightened at the start of the year.

COVID hospital cases

The number of patients hospitalized locally for COVID-19 treatment dropped to 12, as reported by the local health district on Friday.

It’s a dramatic drop from the 74 patients being treated for COVID in Benton and Franklin county hospitals on the last day of 2020.

It’s also fewer than the 18 COVID-19 patients being treated Thursday.

The 12 COVID patients on Friday accounted for just 3% of the 385 patients in the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals.

Tri-Cities COVID cases

The Tri-Cities had 29 more confirmed COVID-19 cases announced on Friday, which was in line with the average number of new daily cases over the past two weeks.

The average number of daily cases for this week — starting with the weekend — was 30.

That’s down slightly from 31 last week and daily averages in the 40s for the preceding three weeks.

The number of new cases per 100,000 people for the week was 69, a number that is dropping closer to the statewide rate.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday that Washington state had 64 new cases per 100,000 in the previous seven days.

Neighboring Idaho had new case rate of 123 and Oregon had a new case rate of 47 for the same seven days.

Just four states had a lower rate than Washington.

The national rate for the same period was 113 cases per 100,000. New Jersey had the highest rate in the United States at 293 and Hawaii the lowest at 27.

Reopening case rates

Washington state looks at total new cases over two weeks to figure a case rate that will be used to determine the reopening phase for counties on April 12.

All counties will move to Phase 3 of reopening on Monday, March 22, but will need to have case rates below 200 on April 12 or will go back to Phase 2 of reopening.

Franklin County is not making much progress toward meeting the new case rate requirement, possibly because it also has the second lowest COVID vaccination rate among counties in the state.

Franklin County’s latest reported case rate was 232 new cases per 100,000 residents in two weeks, which has changed little in reports over the past week.

Public health officials are hoping the county’s new case rate will drop after the agriculture and food processing workers in Franklin County became eligible for the COVID vaccine this past week.

Benton County has a two week case rate of 129, now easily meeting the state requirement to continue in Phase 3 next month.

The new cases announced on Friday included 23 in Benton County and six in Franklin County.

They bring the total cases since the start of the pandemic to 26,174, including 14,980 in Benton Count and 11,194 in Franklin County.

Washington state

The Washington state Department of Health reported 937 new cases of COVID-19 Thursday and 12 deaths from the disease.

Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are 352,907 cases and 5,168 deaths. Those numbers are up from 351,970 cases and 5,156 deaths Wednesday. The case total includes 21,087 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. 27, the date with the most recent complete data, 21 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 were admitted to Washington state hospitals.

Preliminary reports indicate average daily hospital admissions were stable at 33 in early March.

Out of the state’s total staffed intensive care unit beds (1,228) approximately 76.3% (943) were occupied by patients Tuesday. Of those staffed ICU beds, 7.2% (89) held suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients.

Cases by county

According to DOH data, King County continues to have the highest numbers in Washington, with 87,138 cases and 1,449 deaths.

Pierce County is second in cases, with 40,488, and second in deaths, with 593.

All counties in Washington have at least 100 cases. Only 11 of the state’s 39 counties have case counts of fewer than 1,000.

There have been more than 29.6 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 539,320 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 2.68 million people have died from the disease worldwide. Global cases exceed 121 million.

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

This story was originally published March 19, 2021 at 3:31 PM.