New monitoring of Phase 2 benchmark as county adds 16 new COVID-19 cases, one death
Pierce County on Thursday reported 16 new COVID-19 cases with one new death.
The new death was a Tacoma man in his 70s with underlying health conditions.
The county’s totals now stand at 1,907 cases and 73 deaths, according to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.
Late Wednesday, the health department revised its earlier total number of deaths in the county from 76 to 72, with four previously listed deaths on hold pending review.
“We updated our death information May 27 to set aside 4 deaths that we need to further assess to determine if COVID-19 was the cause of death, or if they should be removed from Pierce County’s total COVID-19 deaths,” the department wrote on its website Wednesday.
The move follows an earlier review launched this month by the state health department of its statewide totals.
The local changes were also cited in a blog post published Wednesday.
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.
Another new feature introduced this week on the health department’s COVID-19 tracking page is a listing of how close Pierce County is to moving to Phase 2 in the governor’s Safe Start plan for reopenings.
So far, a total of 26 counties have been approved to move to Phase 2.
Under the program, a county must have fewer than 10 new cases per 100,000 residents over a 14-day period to apply to move to Phase 2. That benchmark is also listed in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s reopening guidance issued for the nation.
For Pierce County, this means fewer than 90 new cases over a 14-day period, or an average of about six new cases per day, according to the health department.
“In the last 14 days we had 167 new cases, an average of about 12 new cases per day. We’ll report this number with our case data each day,” according to the website on Thursday.
The health department estimates that the number of still-active confirmed cases at 478, with 1,429 estimated as assumed recovered.
There have been 24,558 coronavirus tests run on Pierce County residents with 7.6 percent of them positive as of May 26, 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.
Thursday’s geographical case totals are listed below with previous day’s totals in parentheses:
▪ Bonney Lake: 47 (no change)
▪ Central Pierce County: 140 (138)
▪ East Pierce County: 53 (52)
▪ Edgewood/Fife/Milton: 88 (no change)
▪ Frederickson: 65 (no change)
▪ Gig Harbor area: 53 (no change)
▪ Graham: 55 (no change)
▪ JBLM: No longer reported
▪ Key Peninsula: 7 (no change)
▪ Lake Tapps/Sumner area: 48 (47)
▪ Lakewood: 197 (196)
▪ Parkland: 107 (105)
▪ Puyallup: 138 (136)
▪ South Hill: 103 (no change)
▪ South Pierce County: 37 (38)
▪ Southwest Pierce County: 21 (no change)
▪ Spanaway: 65 (no change)
▪ Tacoma: 613 (607)
▪ University Place: 62 (no change)
▪ Unknown: 8 (no change)
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 28, 2020 at 2:54 PM.
