Grim record set for Tri-Cities. 23 COVID deaths reported this week

The Tri-Cities had its deadliest week yet of recent deaths due to complications of COVID-19.

On Friday the Benton Franklin Health District announced 23 recent deaths, eight of them in people younger than 60.

The only week more deadly was in late September, when 22 deaths were reported, not counting an earlier weekly report that included a backlog of unreported deaths from the summer.

The Benton Franklin Health District reports deaths once a week, on Fridays.

The overwhelming majority of deaths this year have been in unvaccinated people, with just 7% of deaths in vaccinated people, said Dr. Amy Person, health officer for Benton and Franklin counties, at a news briefing Thursday.

This year 16 fully vaccinated Tri-Cities area residents have died from January through September. The other 194 deaths during the same time period were in unvaccinated people.

Health officials say no one has died from the vaccine in Benton or Franklin counties.

The most recent deaths included 16 residents of Benton County, from their 40s through their 90s.

Those who died were two men in their 40s; three men and a woman in their 50s; two men and a woman in their 60s; one man and four women in their 70s; a man in his 80s and a man in his 90s.

The youngest person to die was a Franklin County woman in her 30s.

Other Franklin County deaths included a woman in her 40s; two men and a woman in their 60s; a woman in her 70s and a man in his 80s.

Tri-Cities deaths top 500

With the latest deaths announced by the Tri-Cities based health district, the total since the start of the pandemic tops 500.

Some 517 residents of the Tri-Cities area have died of complications of COVID-19, including 348 from Benton County and 169 from Franklin County.

There have been 60 deaths announced so far this month, counting the deaths announced on Oct. 1, the first Friday of the month.

There were 64 recent deaths reported in September, not including a summer backlog of 22 deaths reported that month .

There were 23 deaths reported in August and 10 in July.

Local public health officials verify that 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 coroner offices and the process of issuing and releasing death certificates.

In all, of Washington state, 8,198 deaths due to the coronavirus have been reported since the start of the pandemic. They include 226 deaths reported over the past week.

Of the people who have died statewide, 493 were known to be vaccinated against COVID, according to the latest state Washington state Department of Health report issued Oct. 13 on vaccination breakthrough cases. They ranged in age from 34 to 102, with a median age of 79.

At least 178 of them were residents or staff of long-term care facilities.

A recent report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded that COVID-19 vaccinations had reduced deaths among people 65 and older across the nation by about 39,000 and led to 107,00 fewer hospitalizations between January and May 2021.

Tri-Cities COVID cases

The number of new COVID cases and hospitalizations in the Tri-Cities area has continued to decline.

Daily new cases remain higher than at the peak of the summer 2020 wave of new cases, but below the peak of the winter 2021 wave of new cases.

Deaths verified as caused by COVID-19 lag hospitalization and new case reports, and may not decline significantly yet for a couple of weeks, according to public health officials.

Over the past week, the Benton Franklin Health District has reported 738 confirmed new cases, or an average of 105 new cases per day.

That is down from an average of 127 new COVID-19 cases per day last week and 175 the week before.

New case rates are the lowest reported since the first week of August.

Benton and Franklin counties combined had 637 new cases per 100,000 people reported over the last two weeks. Benton County’s rate was 609 and Franklin County’s rate was 698.

Hospitals in Benton and Franklin counties reported on Friday that they were treating 53 patients for COVID-19, fewer than half as many as a month ago.

The 53 patients accounted for 13% of all patients in the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals.

This story was originally published October 15, 2021 at 3:28 PM.