Daily Tri-Cities COVID cases continue climb. More patients hospitalized

The Tri-Cities is averaging 128 COVID-19 cases per day so far this week, a little above last week’s average day.

The Tri-Cities had 121 confirmed cases per day last week, up from 86 the previous week and 59 the week before that.

Since Friday, the end of the reporting week for the Benton Franklin Health District, it has announced 642 new confirmed cases in the Tri-Cities.

Total cases announced Monday of this week, including the weekend, were incomplete, leading to high numbers of new cases announced on Tuesday — 288 cases in Benton County and 186 in Franklin County.

Public health officials blame the more easily transmitted delta variant of the coronavirus for the increase in cases in recent weeks.

However, they also are watching for cases spread at the Water Follies boat races in late July.

As of Tuesday morning, no Tri-Cities area cases had yet been linked to transmission of the coronavirus at the event a little more than a week before.

However, people interviewed by Tri-Cities public health contact tracers tracking the spread of the virus will not always admit where they have been, say public health officials.

Contact tracers who notify people who may have been exposed do not reveal names of those with COVID-19 they may have been in contact with or even where the possible contact occurred, said Nikki Ostergaard, spokeswoman for the local health district.

The case rate for the Tri-Cities area is now in the 400s for both Benton county and 500s for Franklin County. Case rates have not been that high since January.

On Friday both counties still had two-week case rates in the 300s.

Benton County had a case rate announced Tuesday of 463new cases per 100,000 people over two weeks. Franklin County had a case rate of 527 new cases per 100,000 people over two weeks.

More hospital patients

The number of people hospitalized locally for COVID-19 increased to 64 on Monday and Tuesday, up from 51 a week ago.

They account for nearly 17% of all patients at the hospitals in Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser.

Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland, the largest hospital in Benton and Franklin counties, has an intensive care unit that has been at capacity recently due to COVID-19 patients in addition to its usual patient load of people with other serious illnesses or trauma.

More than 99% of ICU COVID-19 patients were not vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to hospital officials.

Across Washington state 58% of all residents and 62% of those old enough to be vaccinated have received the COVID-19 vaccine.

That drops to 44% of all residents of Benton County and 48% of those 12 and older. Vaccines are not approved for younger children.

In Franklin County, 37% of all residents have been vaccinated and 41% of those 12 and older.

The Tri-Cities area has now had 32,732 cases of COVID-19 confirmed with positive test results, including 19,116 in Benton County and 13,516 in Franklin County.

Deaths due to complications of COVID-19 have totaled 346.

This story was originally published August 3, 2021 at 12:58 PM.