Pierce County reports just 10 new COVID-19 cases, but new UW study offers grim outlook
Pierce County on Friday reported 10 new COVID-19 cases and one new death.
According to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, the county’s total cases are at 1,634 with 58 deaths. It removed one previous case from the list, giving Friday’s adjusted total.
Daily case totals can change as the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department receives new information. Adjustments can include correcting duplicate data, assigning a case to another county or learning a test for the coronavirus was a false positive.
The latest death involved a Puyallup man in his 60s with underlying health conditions.
New UW COVID-19 fatality study
This week a new peer-reviewed study by the University of Washington said that if the infection rate of the coronavirus in the United States reaches 20 percent, anywhere from 350,000 to 1.2 million people could die.
The study calculated a preliminary infection fatality rate of 1.3 percent compared with 0.1% for the seasonal flu during a typical flu season.
“This is a staggering number, which can only be brought down with sound public health measures,” said study author Anirban Basu, the Stergachis Family Endowed Director of The CHOICE Institute at the UW School of Pharmacy, in a news release announcing the findings.
Basu added the “infection fatality ratio estimate is itself dynamic in nature. The overall estimate can both increase or decrease in the future, depending on the demographics where the infections will be spreading. It is possible, as the infection spreads to more rural counties of the country, the overall IFR will increase due to the lack of access to necessary health care delivery.”
The study estimated an infection fatality rate of 3.6 percent for King County, the highest among the 116 counties it reviewed, excluding New York. More county data would be made available next week, according to the news release.
The study used publicly reported data from the Johns Hopkins Repository and The New York Times on the total number of cumulative deaths and detected cases for U.S. counties.
Pierce County cases
While Friday’s new case total in Pierce County was low, some areas have seen a sharp rise in cases.
Puyallup, in particular, has seen a spike in cases over the past week, reporting just 70 cases as of May 1. One week later, on Friday, its total had risen to 114.
On Friday, The News Tribune reported that 12 workers at the Fred Meyer distribution facility in Puyallup have tested positive for COVID-19 and are self-quarantined, according to a representative of the grocer.
According to the state Department of Health’s COVID-19 data dashboard, there have been 16,930 tests run on Pierce County residents with 8.8 percent of them positive. That data lags the county reporting on case totals.
The county’s COVID-19 tracking page lists the number of assumed recovered cases as 828 with estimated active confirmed cases at 806.
Friday’s geographical totals are listed below with Thursday’s numbers in parentheses:
▪ Bonney Lake: 38 (no change)
▪ Central Pierce County: 124 (121)
▪ East Pierce County: 47 (no change)
▪ Edgewood/Fife/Milton: 81 (no change)
▪ Frederickson: 54 (no change)
▪ Gig Harbor area: 51 (no change)
▪ Graham: 50 (no change)
▪ JBLM: No longer reported
▪ Key Peninsula: 7 (no change)
▪ Lake Tapps/Sumner area: 41 (40)
▪ Lakewood: 169 (167)
▪ Parkland: 82 (no change)
▪ Puyallup: 114 (113)
▪ South Hill: 85 (84)
▪ South Pierce County: 34 (no change)
▪ Southwest Pierce County: 19 (no change)
▪ Spanaway: 56 (no change)
▪ Tacoma: 527 (526)
▪ University Place: 48 (no change)
▪ Unknown: (7)
Daily reports include cases received by 11:59 p.m. the previous day.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREHow we are reporting coronavirus numbers
The News Tribune reports confirmed coronavirus cases as listed by the Washington Department of Health and the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department in their daily updates.
The state total includes all cases submitted by county health departments by 11:59 p.m. the previous day and is updated once a day by 6 p.m. on its website. Its numbers only include the cases the health departments have reported directly to the state. In some cases, county health departments have reported cases publicly but not to the state health department by the daily deadline, leading to different totals on occasion.
Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department updates its total by 2 p.m. each day on its website, and consists of all new confirmed cases reported by 11:59 p.m. the previous day.
This story was originally published May 8, 2020 at 2:51 PM.
