2 more COVID deaths in Tri-Cities area, as new cases still rising

Two more Tri-Cities area people have died of COVID-19, both of them in their 70s.

They bring recent COVID-19 deaths reported so far this month by the Benton Franklin Health District to four.

That’s down from 18 deaths reported in March and 22 in February, as more people are vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Both of the people who died most recently were Benton County residents, a man and a woman.

There have been 310 local deaths from complications of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, including 210 in Benton County and 100 in Franklin County.

They include 128 people age 80 or older; 88 in their 70s; 57 in their 60s; 26 in their 50s; seven in their 40s; one each in their 30s and 20s; and two people younger than 20.

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

The health district has not reported whether those who died had underlying health conditions that put them at risk of a severe case of COVID-19 since the first of the year. A new privacy law covering death certificates took effect then.

The local health district reports recent COVID-19 deaths once a week, on Fridays.

Tri-Cities COVID cases

New confirmed cases continue to increase this week, with 61 new cases reported Friday in the Tri-Cities area.

They bring the average number of new cases reported each day this week to 48.

It is a jump from new cases averaging 34 a day last week and 37 the week before.

Tri-Cities public health officials have said they feared an increase in new cases following Easter and spring break, but are hoping the number of new cases will quickly drop again as people return to more careful behavior after celebrations and more people are vaccinated.

For a few weeks, the new case rate as measured over seven days for the Tri-Cities area dropped below the rate for the state of Washington.

But on Friday, Benton and Franklin counties combined had 111 cases per 100,000 during the past seven days.

The Centers for Disease Control reported Thursday that Washington state had an increasing seven-day case rate of 107 per 100,000 people. Twenty-one states were lower.

The national rate for the same period was 146 per 100,000. Michigan had the highest rate in the United States at 551. Arkansas had the lowest at 39.

The number of people hospitalized in Benton and Franklin counties for treatment of COVID dropped by one to 17, the local health district reported on Friday.

The number of local COVID hospital patients has ranged this year from as high as 66 in January to as low as eight earlier this month.

The 17 patients on Friday accounted for 4.1% of the 411 patients in the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals.

The local health district reported the first new COVID-19 cases detected this month in long-term care facility residents and staff on Friday.

The number of cases reported since the start of the pandemic jumped by eight to 840, as of Friday.

The 61 new cases community wide include 37 cases in Benton County and 24 in Franklin County.

They bring total cases confirmed with positive test results in the Tri-Cities area since the start of the pandemic to 27,223, including 15,625 in Benton County and 11,598 in Franklin County.

Washington state

The Washington state Department of Health reported 1,432 new COVID-19 cases and five deaths Thursday — the day all state residents 16 and older became eligible for the vaccine.

Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are 381,725 and 5,362 deaths. Those numbers are up from 380,293 cases and 5,357 deaths Wednesday. The case total includes 26,338 infections listed as probable.

As of April 3, 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 average daily hospital admissions were steady at 48 in early April.

Out of the state’s total staffed intensive care unit beds (1,281) approximately 79.9% (1,023) were occupied by patients Wednesday. Of those staffed ICU beds, 10.9% (140) held suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients.

According to DOH data, King County, with the state’s highest population, continues to have the highest numbers in Washington, with 95,782 cases and 1,491 deaths. Pierce County, second in population, is second in cases, with 45,354, and has the second-highest number of deaths, at 628.

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 31.4 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 565,254 deaths from the virus in the United States as of Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has the highest total number of reported cases and deaths of any nation.

More than 2.98 million people have died from the disease worldwide. Global cases exceed 138 million.

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

This story was originally published April 16, 2021 at 1:53 PM.