New COVID cases continue to drop in Tri-Cities, but more younger people hospitalized

The number of new daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 continues to drop in the Tri-Cities area, but the number of people hospitalized for treatment of the disease has not.

The Tri-Cities had just 25 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Tuesday, the Benton Franklin Health District reported.

It brings total cases for the week so far, starting with the weekend, to an average of 26 per day.

That’s down from an average of 30 case per day last week and 39 the week before that. However, the number of new daily cases tends to rise through the work week as more test results are reported.

The number of new recent cases per 100,000 people in the Tri-Cities area is lower than the Washington state average, but higher than the national average.

For the past seven days, Washington has had an increasing new case rate of 99 per 100,000 people. For the same seven days the Benton and Franklin county case rate was 70 new cases per 100,000 people.

The national rate for the same period was 64 per 100,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Tuesday the local health district reported that 27 people were hospitalized in the Tri-Cities area for treatment of COVID-19.

That’s up from the 25 patients reported at the first of May and up from the 22 patients reported at the first of April and also the first of March. On one day in early April just eight patients were being treated for COVID-19 in local hospitals.

The 27 COVID-19 patients reported on Tuesday amounted to 7% of the 388 patients at the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals.

Public health officials say COVID hospital patients tend to be middle age or younger now that many of the elderly in the Tri-Cities area have been vaccinated.

As of Monday, 61,478 people in Benton County and 21,676 in Franklin County had been fully vaccinated.

That comes to 23% of the Franklin County population and 30% of the Benton County population. However, only people ages 12 and older may now receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

The number of people who had at least an initial dose of the vaccine was 73,395 in Benton County and 26,501 in Franklin County.

The 25 new confirmed cases reported Tuesday included 14 in Benton County and 11 in Franklin County, for a total of 16,419 cases since the start start of the pandemic in Benton County and 12,130 in Franklin County.

Since the start of the pandemic 322 Tri-Cities area residents, including 217 in Benton County and 105 in Franklin County, have died from complications of COVID-19.

Washington state

The Washington state Department of Health reported 717 new COVID-19 cases and 18 deaths Monday.

Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are 423,382 and 5,640 deaths. Those numbers are up from 422,665 cases and 5,622 deaths as of Saturday. The case total includes 32,752 infections listed as probable and total case counts may include up to 100 duplicates.

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

King County, with the state’s highest population, continues to have the highest numbers in Washington, with 107,366 cases and 1,546 deaths.

Pierce County, second in population, is second in cases, with 52,749, ans has the second-highest number of deaths, at 667.

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 32.9 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 586,330 deaths from the virus in the United States as of Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has the highest total number of reported cases and deaths of any nation.

More than 3.3 million people have died from the disease worldwide. Global cases exceed 163 million.

Lauren Kirschman of The (Tacoma) News Tribune contributed to this report.