County sees 16 new COVID-19 cases, one new death, more cases involving care facilities

Story has been updated to reflect new death count.

Pierce County on Wednesday reported 16 new COVID-19 cases with one new death.

The county’s totals now stand at 1,893 cases and 72 deaths, according to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.

Late Wednesday, the health department issued a clarification that four of 76 deaths originally listed in its Wednesday tally need to be re-examined. It now lists the county’s death toll as 72.

In a blog post published Wednesday, the department noted that its actions follow the state Department of Health also reviewing cases included in the statewide total.

“Department of Health recently updated COVID-19 death counts to remove deaths in people who had a positive COVID-19 test but may have died of other causes. We also updated our death information today to set aside four deaths that we need to further assess to determine if COVID-19 was the cause of if they should be removed from Pierce County’s total COVID-19 deaths.”

Given that the majority of Pierce County deaths have involved patients with underlying medical conditions, “In many cases, those people might have lived years longer had they not been infected. So, although underlying conditions left them more susceptible to the virus’ effects, we know they died sooner because of COVID-19,” according to its blog post.

The health department’s website notes daily case and death totals can change as the county receives new information about cases, finds duplicate data or is assigned cases originally attributed to other counties.

The one new death listed Wednesday involved a Tacoma woman in her 90s with underlying health conditions.

The county’s COVID-19 tracking page estimated the number of still-active confirmed cases at 491, with 1.402 estimated as assumed recovered.

There have been 24,191 coronavirus tests run on Pierce County residents with 7.3 percent of them positive as of May 25, according to state Department of Health data. That total does not include negative tests from long-term care facilities or tests not yet assigned to a county, according to the county health department.

Among the other Wednesday updates in the weekly portion of the county data, hospitalizations were down slightly from the previous week, and the percentage breakdown of deaths since the start of COVID-19 deaths in the county were as follows:

▪ Hospitalized: 59.2 percent.

▪ Lived or worked in a care facility: 67.1 percent.

▪ Had underlying health conditions: 97.4 percent.

As many as 316 confirmed COVID-19 cases (16.7 percent of total cases) in Pierce County are health care workers.

This week, the county reported 459 cases at congregate care facilities, up from 445 last week. The “Other Facilities” listing includes sites with fewer than 10 cases or fewer than 30 beds. It also includes homeless shelters, domestic violence shelters and rehabilitation centers.

Cases at care facilities among residents and staff as of Wednesday are listed with previous week’s totals in parentheses. Newly listed locations will only show one case total:

▪ Heartwood Extended Health Care, Tacoma: 70 (no change)

▪ Alpha Cottages (Gibraltar Assisted Living), Central Pierce County: 36 (no change)

▪ Avamere Puget Sound Transitional Care, Tacoma: 32 (no change)

▪ Lindon Grove, Puyallup: 67 (66)

▪ Orchard Park Health and Rehab Center, Tacoma, 22 (no change)

▪ Pioneer Place Memory Haven, Central Pierce County: 15 (no change)

▪ The Cottages at Edgewood, Edgewood/Fife/Milton: 14 (no change)

▪ People’s Retirement Center, Tacoma: 19 (no change)

▪ Other facilities, multiple areas: 184 (171)

Wednesday’s geographical case totals are listed below with previous day’s totals in parentheses:

▪ Bonney Lake: 47 (no change)

▪ Central Pierce County: 138 (136)

▪ East Pierce County: 52 (51)

▪ Edgewood/Fife/Milton: 88 (87)

▪ Frederickson: 65 (no change)

▪ Gig Harbor area: 53 (52)

▪ Graham: 55 (no change)

▪ JBLM: No longer reported

▪ Key Peninsula: 7 (no change)

▪ Lake Tapps/Sumner area: 47 (46)

▪ Lakewood: 196 (195)

▪ Parkland: 105 (104)

▪ Puyallup: 136 (135)

▪ South Hill: 103 (no change)

▪ South Pierce County: 38 (no change)

▪ Southwest Pierce County: 21 (no change)

▪ Spanaway: 65 (no change)

▪ Tacoma: 607 (600)

▪ University Place: 62 (no change)

▪ Unknown: 8 (no change)

This story was originally published May 27, 2020 at 3:01 PM.

Debbie Cockrell

The News Tribune

253-597-8364

Debbie Cockrell has been with The News Tribune since 2009. She reports on business and development, local and regional issues.