58 new COVID-19 cases, five deaths added to toll in Pierce County
Pierce County reported 58 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Friday and five new deaths.
Tacoma alone registered 22 new cases in 24 hours and has seen 989 cumulative cases since the start of the pandemic.
The deaths reported Friday include a Tacoma man in his 60s, a Lakewood man in his 80s and three women from University Place, one in her 70s and two in their 90s. All of them had underlying health conditions.
Steve Metcalf, media communications specialist with the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, told The News Tribune via email that the five deaths occurred in late June and early July and were recently confirmed as being caused by COVID-19.
“COVID-19 is now listed on the death certificate as the cause of death,” he wrote.
The health department has shared on its blog how the deaths are determined. Those who die with COVID-19 but who may have died from another cause gain further investigation to determine the ultimate cause of death.
“At the beginning of the outbreak, Department of Health defined COVID-19 deaths as anyone with a recent diagnosis who died. This decision allowed them to quickly capture and report information. Later, health statisticians would re-assess deaths that needed additional investigation,” the department wrote June 5.
In May, the state announced it would remove unconfirmed COVID-19 deaths from mortality data, an action Pierce County also took.
There have now been 3,057 cases and 97 deaths recorded since the county’s first case was reported March 6 in the pandemic, according to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.
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 646 cases in the past 14 days, according to the health department. The 14-day case rate per 100,000 population is 71.6. The county has averaged 46.1 cases per day over the past 14 days.
The county reported an estimated 954 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.
Friday’s geographical case totals are listed below with previous day’s totals in parentheses:
▪ Bonney Lake: 62 (61)
▪ Central Pierce County: 199 (198)
▪ East Pierce County: 79 (74)
▪ Edgewood/Fife/Milton: 131 (130)
▪ Frederickson: 102 (97)
▪ Gig Harbor area: 85 (83)
▪ Graham: 84 (82)
▪ JBLM: No longer reported
▪ Key Peninsula: 17 (16)
▪ Lake Tapps/Sumner area: 94 (92)
▪ Lakewood: 311 (308)
▪ Parkland: 172 (169)
▪ Puyallup: 209 (205)
▪ South Hill: 152 (149)
▪ South Pierce County: 58 (57)
▪ Southwest Pierce County: 37 (no change)
▪ Spanaway: 105 (104)
▪ Tacoma: 989 (967)
▪ University Place: 144 (142)
▪ Unknown: 27 (29)
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 July 10, 2020 at 2:41 PM.
