Pierce County holding on to lower COVID-19 case totals but not yet ready for Phase 3
Pierce County reported 28 new COVID-19 cases Thursday and one additional death.
The latest death involved a University Place man in his 80s with underlying health conditions.
County totals are now 7,289 cases and 163 deaths since the first case in the coronavirus pandemic was recorded March 6.
The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department has reported 466 cases in the past 14 days. The 14-day case rate per 100,000 people is 51.7. The goal for counties in Phase 2 is 25 or fewer per 100,000.
The average cases per day over the past 14 days is 33.3.
At Wednesday’s Board of Health meeting, Dr. Anthony Chen, director of the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, noted the county still has a ways to go before moving into an enhanced Phase 2 or advancing to Phase 3.
This summer, state officials put a pause on allowing counties to advance as a second wave of infections swept through the state and notably Pierce County. That pause was extended “indefinitely” in late July.
In late July-early August, the county hit the peak in its second wave with more than 90 cases in its 14-day rolling average.
Chen on Wednesday advised that residents should be doing “everything we can do to really get that rate below 25 per hundred thousand. Because if we can be at below 25 per hundred thousand for three weeks, yes, we can start talking about” the next phase.
With a six-day data reporting lag required for the state’s Safe Start metrics, the county is just below 60 cases per 100,000 in its 14-day average.
“We cannot be complacent right now. We cannot say we’re good enough at 60 because the kids are back in school and restaurants are open at this fractional capacity,” Chen said.
The health department said Wednesday it is anticipating further guidance from the state soon.
Stephanie Dunkel, the department’s assistant communicable disease director, said at Wednesday’s meeting: “I do know that the governor’s office is working on additional information and guidance. And so we may hear something soon. But right now, we are still in a pause. We do have some of our materials prepped and ready to go when we need to do that per our previous last cycle of preparing an application.”
On Thursday, Gov. Jay Inslee said during his COVID-19 news briefing that “We’ll be talking to our Department of Health and their experts about how to help people be safe in the fall — how do you be safe inside, how do you have some social interaction in a way that does not increase this pandemic. And we’ll be sharing those messages with the public as we work on this.”
There are an estimated 1,056 still-active cases in the county, according to the health department.
The 20-39 age group remains the highest number of COVID-19 cases at 44.6 percent in the past two weeks.
Daily totals for cases and deaths can change as the county receives new information, finds duplicate data or is assigned cases originally attributed to other counties.
Testing is available at various sites in the county. For more information on testing sites, go to www.tpchd.org/covidtest.
Thursday’s geographical case totals for Pierce County are listed below with previous day’s totals in parentheses:
▪ Bonney Lake: 179 (178)
▪ Central Pierce County: 440 (no change)
▪ East Pierce County: 246 (245)
▪ Edgewood/Fife/Milton: 310 (309)
▪ Frederickson: 278 (276)
▪ Gig Harbor area: 198 (no change)
▪ Graham: 246 (244)
▪ JBLM: No longer reported
▪ Key Peninsula: 56 (no change)
▪ Lake Tapps/Sumner area: 230 (no change)
▪ Lakewood: 662 (659)
▪ Parkland: 399 (396)
▪ Puyallup: 442 (441)
▪ South Hill: 383 (382)
▪ South Pierce County: 185 (183)
▪ Southwest Pierce County: 75 (no change)
▪ Spanaway: 340 (339)
▪ Tacoma: 2,250 (2,243)
▪ University Place: 294 (291)
▪ Unknown: 76 (no change)
This story was originally published September 17, 2020 at 2:32 PM.
