Another tragic week for COVID deaths in Tri-Cities. Youngest was a woman in her 40s

Eighteen more residents of the Tri-Cities area have died of complications of COVID-19, the Benton Franklin Health District announced Friday. Five of them were under 60.

Deaths are announced once a week, on Fridays.

However, the number of people hospitalized for COVID in Benton and Franklin counties dropped into the 60s on Friday from a high of 127 on Sept. 13.

That could mean the number of weekly deaths also may drop, since high numbers of deaths usually track within weeks of high numbers of people hospitalized.

The 18 deaths reported Friday follow 64 recent deaths announced in September, plus another 22 deaths from a verification backlog from this summer. There were 23 deaths reported in August and 10 in July.

The youngest person to die recently was a Franklin County woman in her 40s.

Deaths of four people in their 50s also were announced on Friday, including a Franklin County woman and three Benton County men in their 50s.

The 12 people who died recently in Benton County also included two women and one man in their 60s; two men in their 70s; a woman and two men in their 80s; and a woman in her 90s.

The six deaths in Franklin County also included a woman in her 70s and a woman and two men in their 80s.

Since the start of the pandemic 476 residents of the two counties have died of complications of COVID-19, including 317 residents of Benton County and 159 residents of Franklin County.

COVID verification

Local public health officials verify that the deaths are due to COVID complications by checking for a positive test result and that a coronavirus infection was named as a primary cause of death on the death certificate.

It can take several weeks for the district to receive and reconcile death information for residents due to the reporting processes of medical facilities and coroners’ offices and the process of issuing and releasing death certificates.

In all, of Washington state, 7,726 deaths due to the coronavirus have been reported since the start of the pandemic.

Of the people who have died statewide, 386 were known to be vaccinated against COVID, according to the latest state report issued Sept. 29 on vaccination breakthrough cases. They ranged in age from 34 to 102.

At least 139 of them were residents of long-term care facilities.

Just one death of a fully vaccinated person is known in the Tri-Cities area, according to county data current through July.

Tri-Cities cases

Over the past week, the Benton Franklin Health District announced 1,222 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, an average of 175 per day.

That’s down from an average of 190 per day the previous week.

The two-week new case rate has dropped some in both counties from the peak of the current wave of cases.

However, the Benton County case rate remains above the peak rate last winter of about 792 new cases per 100,00 people over two weeks.

The most recent case rate reported for Benton County was 837 new cases per 100,000 in two weeks, down from case rates that had recently topped 1,000.

In Franklin County, the most recent case rate reported was 1,058 new cases per 100,000, a drop from recent case rates of more than 1,200.

The number of patients being treated for COVID-19 at the hospitals in Benton and Franklin counties dropped to 64 on Friday, down from 98 a week ago.

The COVID patients on Friday accounted for 17% of the 379 patients at the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals. In mid September, COVID patients accounted for 30% or more of all patients on several days.

This story was originally published October 1, 2021 at 12:58 PM.