COVID-19 cases skyrocket as local variance application is amended

TRI-CITIES, Wash.-COVID cases continue to climb at an alarming rate, according to Dr. Amy Person of the Benton Franklin Health District, who says what's clear is what the community has been doing is NOT working.

"Our natural experiment of people being outside, not using face coverings, not necessarily maintaining physical distance, has not kept infection out of this community," Dr. Person notes.

And, the Benton-Franklin Health District says that the spike in Coronavirus cases from over the last weekend of 299 has little to do with increased testing at drive-thru stations that began last week.

"We continue to see a large number of cases because we have infections everywhere in the bi-county area", Dr. Person added. "We are managing outbreaks in multiple locations and spread is occurring throughout the community".

The BFHD also filed an updated report to the State Department of Health in it's request for the bi-county area to move into Phase 2 of re-opening. Among the items added were the fact that we have drive-thru testing, with the help of the Washington National Guard, and that the State is assisting with contact tracing. In addition, the BFHD announced plans to distribute 176-thousand cloth masks from the state stockpile, as well as taking OUT the cases at Coyote Ridge Correctional facility because they are not indicative of community spread.

The changes to the original variance application to move into Phase Two of re-opening did not need the approval of the full boards of commissioners in both counties.

"DOH had some questions, and some recommendations that they wanted us to address, so that's what we did", Benton County Commissioner Jerome Delvin said. "We had a commissioner from each council , plus we also had health district personnel, but also cities too".

Yakima County clearly has the most COVID-19 situation in the state, but Benton and Franklin Counties are not that far behind. Having said that, Benton County Commissioner Jerome Delvin does not believe Governor Jay Inslee needs to issue a mask directive here, like he did in Yakima.

"Really, we need to do this on our own, we shouldn't need to be mandated by a state agency to take care of our own", Delvin added.

No word yet from the Department of Health on the variance application.