Tri-Cities hospitals hit record number of COVID patients. Few ICU beds left in WA state

The number of patients being treated for COVID-19 in hospitals in Benton and Franklin counties hit a new high on Tuesday.

The Benton Franklin Health District reported Tuesday that 115 patients were being treated for COVID-19 at the four hospitals. Most hospitalized COVID patients are unvaccinated, according to public health officials.

The previous high patient count was 114 reported 11 days earlier.

The COVID-19 patients on Tuesday accounted for almost 31% of the patients in the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals.

Last week Kadlec Regional Medical Center, the largest hospital in the Tri-Cities, had more patients needing intensive care than it had beds in its intensive care unit, said Dr. Kevin Pieper, chief medical officer at Kadlec in Richland, speaking on the Kadlec on Call podcast.

The ICU expanded to beds elsewhere in the hospital to provide ICU-level care, he said.

Some patients have waited hours in the emergency department for an ICU bed, he said, an experience that other hospitals across the state of Washington also are reporting.

The last weekend in August anesthesia providers, who usually provide anesthesia for surgery patients, stepped in to work alongside ICU doctors to help with patients on ventilators, Pieper said.

The hospital is putting more people in their 20s and 30s on ventilators than earlier in the pandemic, he said. Ventilators inflate and deflate lungs for patients who cannot do it themselves.

As hospitals across the region are strained by high numbers of COVID-19 patients, Kadlec is getting calls from hospitals that are increasingly farther away looking for care for patients they cannot treat, Pieper said.

Some surgeries are being postponed if a patient may need an ICU bed for recovery. Very few ICU beds are available in Washington, he said.

Tri-Cities COVID cases

The Benton Franklin Health District on Tuesday reported 816 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed with positive test results over the past four days, including Labor Day weekend.

It puts the number of COVID-19 cases reported since the start of the pandemic at 40,195. They include 24,083 cases in Benton County and 16,112 in Franklin County.

New cases for the past four days averaged 204 a day.

The Tri-Cities area had 1,607 new COVID-19 cases confirmed last week for an average of 230 new cases per day.

That is up from an average of 207 new cases per day the last full week of August.

The two-week case rate has dropped in Benton County and is down from the peak number reported Sept. 1 for both counties.

Benton County had 919 new cases per 100,000 people over two weeks, the Benton Franklin Health District reported Tuesday. The county’s case rate had been as high as 972 in late August.

Franklin County’s new case rate remains near its peak, however.

It had 1,043 new cases per 100,000 people over two weeks, the local health district reported Tuesday. It was just below its recent peak case rate of 1,051 reported six days ago.

The county’s case rate in the winter exceeded 1,200.

The combined new case rate for the two counties as reported Tuesday was 959, down from the recent peak case rate of 980 six days ago.

Dr. Amy Person, health officer for Benton and Franklin counties, said last week that the number of new daily cases for the two counties combined appeared to be dropping slightly.

However, the trend might not last due to large gatherings of people, such as the Benton Franklin Fair & Rodeo and Labor Day weekend, she warned.

Public health officials blame the increase in cases on the spread of the more contagious delta variant of the coronavirus, a low vaccination rate in the Tri-Cities area and the reluctance among some to practice protective measures, such as wearing masks indoors in public places.

Health and local government leaders have launched a new campaign, “Any Two Will Do,” asking people to at least take two of three steps to slow the spread of the coronavirus: wear a mask, get vaccinated and limit exposure from large gatherings.

The new campaign came just before the local health district announced a weekly total Friday of 19 deaths due to COVID-19 in the Tri-Cities area.

The total included five death announcements that were delayed, making the most recent deaths the most since 16 deaths were announced in mid January.

This story was originally published September 7, 2021 at 2:04 PM.