900+ new Tri-Cities COVID cases. Hospitalized patients climbing too

The Benton Franklin Health District reported more than 900 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday.

The large number was the result of data that still needed to be processed from the New Year’s Eve weekend early in the week.

But it also is an indication that COVID-19 cases are increasing in the Tri-Cities area, likely due to more cases of the highly infectious omicron variant.

The number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 treatment in Benton and Franklin counties also is up, more than doubling since mid December.

For the past five days, the health district based in the Tri-Cities has reported 1,146 new confirmed cases. That included 939 cases reported Tuesday with a backlog from the holiday weekend.

New cases averaged 229 a day, up from 217 last Thursday, 189 last Wednesday and 148 last Tuesday.

Public health officials said in December that the omicron variant was slower to spread in Eastern Washington than in the Seattle area, but that its spread across the state was inevitable.

Record numbers of new daily cases of COVID-19 have been reported in recent days for Washington state.

The increase in cases in the Tri-Cities area has driven the two-week new case rate for Benton and Franklin counties to 253 cases per 100,000 people.

The case rate had dropped to the 120s around Christmas.

It remains far below case rates in mid September that topped 1,000 cases per 100,000 people over two weeks in the Tri-Cities area.

On Tuesday, there were 35 patients being treated for COVID in hospitals in Benton and Franklin counties.

That’s up from 15 patients in mid December, which was the lowest count since spring, according to Tri-City Herald records.

The 35 patients on Tuesday accounted for about 9% of all patients in the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals.

During the peak of the delta variant spread in the Tri-Cities as many as 127 people were being treated for COVID-19 at Tri-Cities area hospitals, accounting for almost a third of patients.

This story was originally published January 4, 2022 at 3:12 PM.