300+ Pierce County COVID-19 cases reported Tuesday likely an undercount, officials say
Pierce County reported 343 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday and one additional death.
The latest death involved a Tacoma woman in her 80s with underlying health conditions.
County totals are now 15,089 confirmed cases and 225 deaths since the first case in the coronavirus pandemic was recorded March 6.
The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department has reported 3,452 cases in the past 14 days. The 14-day case rate per 100,000 people is 382.7. Average cases per day over the past 14 days are 246.6.
With a six-day data lag required in the state’s Safe Start measurements, the county’s case rate per 100,000 is 306.2.
There are an estimated 5,205 still-active cases in the county, comprising 34 percent of all the county’s cases since March.
The health department on Tuesday said both it and the state Department of Health’s data teams were facing an unprecedented volume of testing.
“The sharp increase in recent testing volume has caused delays in processing and reporting. We continue to play catch-up and report cases from 2 to 3 days ago in addition to cases from yesterday,” the county health department said. “Today’s case count is likely an undercount.”
It added the state Department of Health “has suspended negative test reporting during the unprecedented surge of testing results. We won’t update our test positivity rate and number of total daily tests charts until DOH resolves it backlog.”
Testing is available at various sites in the county. For more information on testing sites, go to www.tpchd.org/covidtest.
Geographic totals
Tuesday’s geographic case totals for Pierce County are listed below with previous day’s total in parentheses:
▪ Bonney Lake: 402 (395)
▪ Central Pierce County: 815 (802)
▪ East Pierce County: 553 (542)
▪ Edgewood/Fife/Milton: 687 (663)
▪ Frederickson: 616 (609)
▪ Gig Harbor area: 509 (491)
▪ Graham: 502 (482)
▪ JBLM: No longer reported
▪ Key Peninsula: 122 (120)
▪ Lake Tapps/Sumner area: 561 (550)
▪ Lakewood: 1,260 (1,237)
▪ Parkland: 760 (749)
▪ Puyallup: 994 (975)
▪ South Hill: 873 (854)
▪ South Pierce County: 435 (421)
▪ Southwest Pierce County: 192 (188)
▪ Spanaway: 686 (672)
▪ Tacoma: 4,453 (4,342)
▪ University Place: 553 (547)
▪ Unknown: 116 (no change)
This story was originally published November 24, 2020 at 3:06 PM.
