More Tri-Cities people hospitalized with COVID, despite dramatic May drop in new cases

The Tri-Cities has 89 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, the Benton Franklin Health District announced Tuesday.

The totals were for four days, including the holiday weekend.

They averaged 22 per day, which was just below the 23 new cases per day on average last week. The previous week an average of 28 new cases per day were reported.

But the number of people hospitalized for treatment of COVID-19 in Benton and Franklin county hospitals increased to 26, a jump from 17 as of Friday.

They accounted for nearly 7% of all patients at the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals.

The new cases reported community wide on Tuesday included 47 in Benton County and 42 in Franklin County.

They bring the total of cases confirmed with positive test results in the Tri-Cities area since the start of the pandemic to 28,897, including 16,634 in Benton County and 12,263 in Franklin County.

COVID decline in May

Significant progress in reducing new cases of COVID-19 was seen in the last month in the Tri-Cities, as more people were vaccinated against the disease.

The Washington state Department of Health said last week that more than 106,000 people in Benton and Franklin counties had received at least an initial dose of the vaccine and more than 95,00 were fully vaccinated.

In Benton County 49% of people 16 and older have received at least an initial dose of the vaccine and 32% are fully vaccinated. In Franklin County 41% have initiated vaccination with 25% fully vaccinated.

Nine deaths of Tri-Cities area residents from complications of COVID-19 were announced in May, down from 12 in April and 18 in March.

April ended with a two-week case rate reported of 208 cases per 100,000 people in Benton County and 303 in Franklin County.

That dropped to a case rate of 119 in Benton County and 149 in Franklin County on the last day of May.

During the month 847 new cases of COVID-19 were reported, down from close to 1,500 the month before.

The number of people hospitalized locally for COVID-19 also dropped in May, although the trend did not hold for the past weekend.

May started with 25 people being treated for COVID-19 at hospitals in Benton and Franklin County and ended with 17 patients.