Pierce County passes 3,000 cumulative COVID-19 cases; 63 new cases Thursday
Pierce County reported 63 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Thursday and no new deaths.
There have now been 3,001 cases and 92 deaths recorded since the county’s first case was reported March 6, according to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.
The health department noted in a news release that lower case counts Tuesday and Wednesday were likely the result of several labs being closed over the July Fourth weekend and warned higher totals could be imminent.
Daily totals for cases and deaths can change as the county receives new information about cases, finds duplicate data or is assigned cases originally attributed to other counties.
The county has reported 613 cases in the past 14 days, according to the health department. The 14-day case rate per 100,000 population is 68. The county has averaged 43.8 cases per day over the past 14 days.
The county reported an estimated 910 still-active cases.
Testing is available at various sites in the county. For more information on local testing sites, go to www.tpchd.org/covidtest.
On Wednesday, the health department released updated testing data, showing an average of 796 daily tests run the week of June 21, its latest data set, compared with 561 the previous week and 519 at the end of May-early June.
However, positive rates have grown more than level of testing, the department explained on its blog Wednesday.
“More people are getting tested every week. But the percentage of positive tests is increasing even more. This means the level of COVID-19 disease is increasing in our community,” wrote Ingrid Friberg, data representative for the health department
Data show that Pierce County’s rate of positive tests was at 2.6 percent at the end of May, rising to 4.7 percent toward the end of June.
Friberg added, “If testing alone was the cause of the increase in cases, the percentage of positive cases would stay the same or go down.”
Thursday’s geographical case totals are listed below with previous day’s totals in parentheses:
▪ Bonney Lake: 61 (no change)
▪ Central Pierce County: 198 (193)
▪ East Pierce County: 74 (72)
▪ Edgewood/Fife/Milton: 130 (126)
▪ Frederickson: 97 (95)
▪ Gig Harbor area: 83 (80)
▪ Graham: 82 (81)
▪ JBLM: No longer reported
▪ Key Peninsula: 17 (16)
▪ Lake Tapps/Sumner area: 92 (85)
▪ Lakewood: 308 (304)
▪ Parkland: 169 (167)
▪ Puyallup: 205 (202)
▪ South Hill: 149 (147)
▪ South Pierce County: 57 (56)
▪ Southwest Pierce County: 37 (no change)
▪ Spanaway: 104 (100)
▪ Tacoma: 967 (953)
▪ University Place: 142 (136)
▪ Unknown: 29 (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.
