10 more COVID deaths in Tri-Cities area. More have died this year than all of 2020

Ten more residents of the Tri-Cities area have died of COVID-19, the youngest a Franklin County woman in her 30s.

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

All but three of the recent deaths were in people younger than 70.

In Benton County, three women and one man in their 60s, a woman in her 70s and a woman in her 90s died.

In Franklin County, in addition to the woman in her 30s, a man in his 50s, a man in his 60s and a man in his 80s died.

They bring total deaths just this year from COVID in the Tri-Cities area to 272, compared to 255 in 2020, with the first local death of the pandemic reported in March 2020.

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, earlier this month.

In all, since the start of the pandemic 527 residents of the Tri-Cities area have died of complications of COVID-19. They include 355 from Benton County and 172 from Franklin County.

There have been 70 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 reported that month. That was far more than the 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, 8,417 deaths due to the coronavirus have been reported since the start of the pandemic. They include 219 deaths reported over the past week, down from 226 deaths the previous week.

Vaccine breakthrough

Of the people who have died statewide, 527 were known to be vaccinated against COVID, according to the latest state Washington state Department of Health report issued Oct. 20 on vaccination breakthrough cases. They ranged in age from 34 to 103, with a median age of 80.

At least 196 of them were residents or staff of long-term care facilities.

Deaths from breakthrough cases in the Tri-Cities are available only through September, when 16 fully vaccinated Tri-Cities area residents had died. The other 194 deaths during the same time period were in unvaccinated people.

There were 2,280 confirmed cases in vaccinated residents of Benton and Franklin counties out of 22,100 total known cases between Jan. 17 and the end of September.

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

Tri-Cities cases, hospitalizations

Tri-Cities cases and people hospitalized for COVID-19 continued to trend down over the past week.

On Friday, there were 35 people being treated for COVID-19 at hospitals in Benton and Franklin counties, down from a high of 127 last month.

However, it is still higher than in the spring. On most days in March and April the number of COVID-19 patients was in the teens.

The 35 people being treated on Friday accounted for 9% of the patients at the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals.

During the past week, 511 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported in the Tri-Cities area.

New cases averaged 73 per day, down from 105 new confirmed cases per day last week and 127 the week before.

This story was originally published October 22, 2021 at 3:46 PM.