COVID hospital cases down by half in a week. All Tri-Cities cases still ‘substantial’

The level of COVID-19 in the Tri-Cities area has dropped from a rating of “high” to “substantial,” the Benton Franklin Health District announced Tuesday.

It’s just one of the ways of rating the risk of COVID-19 in the area, with others also showing improvement.

The COVID-19 impact to hospitals in Benton and Franklin counties dropped to a rating of “low,” on Tuesday, according to the Tri-Cities based health district.

The impact to hospitals last week was rated as “medium.”

But in the last seven days the number of people coming to area hospitals for treatment of COVID-19 dropped to 25. That includes people admitted and those treated at emergency departments, and excludes people being treated for other conditions who are also diagnosed with COVID-19.

It is a 54% drop in one week.

The rating of “substantial” levels of the coronavirus being transmitted person to person in the two counties is based on new cases per 100,000 people reported to the health district and the percent of positive test results reported to public health officials.

It does not include the large number of people who use home test kits, with few of those results reported to public health officials.

The current new case rate for Benton and Franklin counties combined is 85 new cases per 100,000 for the week of test ending Feb. 24. It is about half of the case rate of 174 reported a week ago.

The current new case rate for Benton County is 80 and for Franklin County is 96.

The new reporting metrics look at when tests were taken, not when results were reported to public health officials, creating a lag in dates for reported data.

CDC: No masks

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also maintains a rating system for COVID-19 in all counties, which was current through Thursday, March 3.

It rated COVID-19 levels in Benton County as “medium” and in Franklin County as “low.”

At medium levels of COVID-19 people don’t need to wear a mask, but the CDC recommends they talk to a doctor about whether they should wear a mask indoors in public.

Washington state will no longer require masks to be worn indoors in most public settings on Saturday, March 12. Masks will still be required on public transportation and in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and other long term care homes, pharmacies and dental offices.

The CDC says people can still choose to wear a mask at any time, even if their counties are at a low or medium COVID-19 level.

They also should wear a mask indoors in public if they have symptoms, have tested positive or have been exposed to someone with COVID-19.

The CDC rating system looks at the number of new cases reported in each county and at hospital admissions and hospital beds being used.

Benton County has the largest hospital in the Tri-Cities, Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland, plus hospitals in Kennewick and Prosser. Franklin County has one hospital and it also has a lower percentage of elderly people who are at higher risk of a severe case of COVID-19.

When the COVID-19 level is rated as medium, there is some impact on the health care system and more people with severe illness, according to the CDC. A rating of low means limited impact on the health care system and low levels of severe illness.

The CDC’s new COVID-19 level rankings was created to better assess the impact of COVID-19 on communities by looking at cases of severe illness that require hospital capacity now that vaccines, tests and treatments are available to hep protect people from serious illness and death.

COVID deaths high

The number of deaths due to COVID-19 in the Tri-Cities area remains higher than in previous months. A decline in deaths has lagged the decline in new cases for each peak of the pandemic.

On Friday, 10 recent deaths were reported, which was already half as many deaths as reported for each of November, December and January. February deaths were also high.

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