Pierce County reports new COVID-19 cases, updates Puyallup grocery distributor outbreak
Pierce County reported 68 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday and one additional death.
The new death involved a Tacoma woman in her 70s with underlying health conditions.
County totals are now 8,289 cases and 178 deaths since the first case in the coronavirus pandemic was recorded March 6.
The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department has reported 735 cases in the past 14 days. The 14-day case rate per 100,000 people is 81.5.
With a six-day data lag required in the state’s Safe Start measurements, the county’s case rate per 100,000 is 75.6.
Average cases per day over the past 14 days is 52.5.
There are an estimated 1,250 still-active cases in the county, according to the health department.
Outbreaks now listed
The health department on Wednesday added a new listing to its COVID-19 dashboard. It now lists specific outbreaks involving businesses with 60 or more employees with 10 or more COVID-19 cases.
As of Wednesday, only one business was listed, the Fred Meyer distribution center in Puyallup. The site is facing its second COVID-19 outbreak this year. It now has 33 cases, up from 28 on Friday and the initial 20 cases reported Sept. 23.
Including the latest outbreak, the site has seen a total of 48 cases since April.
Business outbreaks as a whole were down from the previous week, with three listed for the week of Sept. 25, down from six the previous week.
“Through Oct. 3, 103 businesses experienced COVID-19 outbreaks in Pierce County. We linked nearly 400 confirmed cases to those outbreaks since June,” the department noted on Wednesday.
Testing is available at various sites in the county. For more information on testing sites, go to www.tpchd.org/covidtest.
Wednesday’s geographical case totals for Pierce County are listed below with previous day’s totals in parentheses:
▪ Bonney Lake: 215 (213)
▪ Central Pierce County: 483 (480)
▪ East Pierce County: 291 (286)
▪ Edgewood/Fife/Milton: 356 (354)
▪ Frederickson: 330 (328)
▪ Gig Harbor area: 229 (227)
▪ Graham: 285 (281)
▪ JBLM: No longer reported
▪ Key Peninsula: 66 (65)
▪ Lake Tapps/Sumner area: 279 (274)
▪ Lakewood: 734 (732)
▪ Parkland: 439 (436)
▪ Puyallup: 490 (488)
▪ South Hill: 445 (436)
▪ South Pierce County: 231 (228)
▪ Southwest Pierce County: 89 (87)
▪ Spanaway: 373 (369)
▪ Tacoma: 2,551 (2,535)
▪ University Place: 322 (321)
▪ Unknown: 81 (82)
This story was originally published October 7, 2020 at 2:53 PM.
