Tri-Cities COVID cases remain in lull, but statewide concerns reported

The Benton Franklin Health District reported no recent deaths due to complications of COVID-19 in its weekly update Friday.

It does have some deaths it is checking, but they had not been confirmed as caused by COVID, said Nichole Ostergaard, spokeswoman for the local health district.

There have been 18 deaths of Tri-Cities area residents due to COVID reported so far this month.

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

Deaths of Benton and Franklin county residents since the start of the pandemic total 306, including 207 Benton County residents and 99 Franklin County residents.

Local public health officials verify that the deaths are due to COVID complications by checking for a positive test result and that virus was named as a primary cause of death on the death certificate.

It reports any deaths it confirms were caused by COVID each Friday.

Hospital patients being treated in Benton and Franklin counties for serious cases of COVID-19 have dropped from 29 patients at the end of February to 17 on Friday.

Local COVID hospital patients had been as low as 12 a week earlier.

The Washington state Department of Health said that although hospital admission rates have dropped since the first of the year, it is starting to see declines flatten among the age group must likely to die from COVID complications, people 80 and older.

It also has seen the decline in hospital admissions flatten in people ages 40 to 49. The age group has a lower proportion of vaccinated people than older groups.

Tri-Cities COVID cases

The Tri-Cities had 35 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Friday, according to the Benton Franklin Health District.

They bring the average number of new daily cases for the week to 32, a slight increase from the previous two weeks.

The Washington state Department of Health reported Thursday that the state’s progress in fighting COVID-19 since January is slowing.

“I am increasingly concerned about the signs we’re seeing in our data,” said Dr. Scott Lindquist, the acting state health officer. “Previous declines have stopped, and disease activity may be increasing.”

Statewide every four people with COVID were infecting about five other people, which will cause the rate of new cases to increase, according to the the latest Washington state COVID situation report.

Benton and Franklin counties had 75 new COVID cases per 100,000 for the past seven days.

That compares with a state rate of 72 new COVID cases per 100,000, announced Thursday.

The national rate for the same period was 120 per 100,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fourteen states had rates lower than Washington state. New Jersey had the highest rate in the United States at 327. Hawaii had the lowest at 36.

Two-week case rates for Benton and Franklin are both below 200.

The Washington state Department of Health will check case rates on April 12 to make sure they are below 200 to allow counties to remain in Phase 3 of reopening.

Benton County had a case rate of 121 new cases per 100,000 people for the two weeks ending March 19. Its case rate has varied little this week.

There is a lag in the two weeks considered for the case rate at positive cases are backdated to the date the test sample was collected.

Franklin County, which ended the previous week with a reported case rate of 232, has dropped to 177 new cases per 100,000 over two weeks.

The new cases reported on Friday for the Tri-Cities area included 20 in Benton County and 15 in Franklin County.

They bring the total cases confirmed with positive test results since the start of the pandemic to 26,398. They include 15,112 in Benton County and 11,286 in Franklin County.

Washington state

The Washington state Department of Health reported 1,117 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday and 13 deaths.

Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are 358,606 cases and 5,213 deaths. Those numbers are up from 357,489 cases 5,200 deaths Wednesday. The case total includes 22,059 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 March 6, the date with the most recent complete data, 18 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 were admitted to Washington state hospitals.

Preliminary reports indicate average daily hospital admissions were stable at 34 in mid-March.

Out of the state’s total staffed intensive care unit beds (1,224) approximately 78.6% (962) were occupied by patients Wednesday. Of those staffed ICU beds, 11.4% (139) 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 88,833 cases and 1,460 deaths. Pierce County is second in cases, with 41,512, and second in deaths, with 603.

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 30 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 546,352 deaths from the virus in the United States as of Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has the highest number of reported cases and deaths of any nation.

More than 2.75 million people have died from the disease worldwide. Global cases exceed 125 million.

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

This story was originally published March 26, 2021 at 1:53 PM.