Tri-Cities COVID cases top WA state. 8 counties west of Cascades recommend masks again

Public health officials in Washington state counties with lower rates of new COVID-19 cases than Benton and Franklin counties are recommending that even people who are vaccinated wear face masks in public indoor spaces.

Franklin County now has the highest one-week new case rate in Washington, according to data compiled by the Brown University School of Public Health.

It is followed by Benton County, with Walla Walla County in third place and Spokane County in fourth place. Umatilla County, just across the state line, has the highest new case rate in Oregon.

The highly transmissible delta variant is being blamed for a fifth wave of COVID-19 infections across the Northwest.

Dr. Amy Person, health officer for Benton and Franklin counties, has not at this time made any new recommendations for wearing masks in public.

But the health officer for Washington state’s largest county, King, recommended Monday that all residents “wear facial coverings when in indoor public settings where the vaccination status of those around you is unknown.”

Those include settings like grocery and other retail stores, restaurants and theaters.

Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, the King County public health officer, was joined in the recommendation by the health officers of Pierce, Snohomish, Kitsap, Clallam, Jefferson, San Juan and Grays Harbor counties. All are west of the Cascade Mountains.

“This step will help reduce the risk of COVID-19 to the public, including customers and workers, help stem the increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in many parts of the state, and decrease the spread of the highly contagious delta variant,” the health officers said in a joint announcement.

According to Brown School of Public Health, Franklin, Benton, Walla Walla and Spokane counties are followed in new case rates by Columbia and Yakima counties.

King County ranks 25th among the state’s 39 counties for its new case rate, according to Brown School of Public Health.

It put the daily new cases per 100,000 people over seven days at 24 in King County, compared to 40 in Franklin County and 39 in Benton County. Umatilla County had a rate of 45.

The Benton Franklin Health District posted Tuesday that the two-week new case rates for both Benton and Franklin counties had jumped above 300.

Franklin County had 369 new cases per 100,000 people for the last two weeks for which complete data was available.

Benton County’s new case rate was 303.

High weekend case counts

On Tuesday, the Benton Franklin Health District reported 133 new confirmed cases of COVID-19.

That followed a report Monday of 326 new COVID-19 cases in the Tri-Cities area over the past three days, for an average of 109 per day.

Last week, excluding Thursday and Friday counts that could not be verified, new cases averaged 80 per day, starting with the weekend. That was up from 59 per day the week before and 46 the week before that.

On Thursday, the Washington state Department of Health reported some duplicate cases that were later removed from the data.

New cases announced on Monday included 201 new cases in Benton County and 125 in Franklin County, and cases announced Tuesday included 88 in Benton County and 45 in Franklin County

They bring total cases in the Tri-Cities area confirmed by positive test results since the start of the pandemic to 31,599, including 18,429 in Benton County and 13,170 in Franklin County.

Although the recent numbers are still below the late fall and winter peak of the pandemic in the Tri-Cities area, new daily cases are higher than they have been earlier this summer or spring.

The number of people reported hospitalized in Benton and Franklin counties for treatment of COVID-19 as of Tuesday was 51.

Last week the health district reported daily COVID-19 patient counts in hospitals of 46 or 47 most days with a one-day spike to 54.

The COVID patients reported Tuesday accounted for 12% of all patients in the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals.

Franklin, Douglas and Walla Walla counties have the highest seven-day COVID-19 hospitalization rates in the state, with Benton County next, according to the Washington state Department of Health.

This story was originally published July 26, 2021 at 3:28 PM.