Tri-Cities new COVID cases trend down, defying nationwide increase. But can it last?

Even as the rate of new COVID-19 cases in the Tri-Cities area continues to drop, public health officials are keeping a close eye on data as new daily cases are again on the rise across the United states..

Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the number of new daily cases nationwide started to increase this month, coinciding with colder weather, after a steep drop following the September peak in the latest wave of cases.

“We are moving into the holidays, which always makes us a little bit nervous,” said Dr. Amy Person, health officer for Benton and Franklin counties, in a video interview with the Benton Franklin Community Health Alliance.

A year ago, with the vaccine not yet available for most people, the Tri-Cities cases showed a sharp increase in new cases starting with colder weather and rising as people gathered indoors from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day.

New cases in the Tri-Cities area hit an even higher peak in the late summer and early fall after the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus became the dominant one in Washington state.

Now new daily cases in the Tri-Cities have been dropping for about two months, but the decline has slowed in recent weeks.

Data on new cases for the past weekend through Wednesday in the Tri-Cities showed new confirmed cases averaging 33 per day.

Because of Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Day, case data was released only through Wednesday.

The 33 cases per day was down from an average of 38 per day the previous week and 42 a day the week before that.

The number of new cases per 100,000 in two weeks has dropped to below 200 in the Tri-Cities area.

The combined case rate for the two counties as reported Wednesday was 193 new cases per 100,000 ]over two weeks, or 185 in Benton County and 211 in Franklin County.

That’s down from a rate of 346 for Benton County and 404 for Franklin County at the end of October.

COVID hospitalizations, deaths

The Benton Franklin Health District reported 29 people hospitalized for COVID-19 in the two counties just before Thanksgiving.

They accounted for just under 8% of all patients at the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals.

At the end of October 39 people were hospitalized for COVID-19 treatment in the two counties.

In another sign that the spread of COVID-19 is slowing, the percentage of positive test results at the free drive-thru testing site at Columbia Basin College off Argent Road in Pasco has dropped to 9%.

Six weeks ago 15% of test results were positive.

At the Richland walk-up free testing site at 975 George Washington Way the positive rate is 5%.

The Benton Franklin Health District usually announces recent deaths due to COVID-19 each Friday.

However, no deaths were announced the day after Thanksgiving because the office was closed.

Previously 533 deaths from complications of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic have been reported for the Tri-Cities area.

They include 374 deaths of Benton County residents and 179 deaths of Franklin County residents.