121 Confirmed COVID-19 Cases in Tri-Cities for July 17, No Deaths

The Benton Franklin Health District released the COVID-19 statistics for Friday July 17, and the report says the Columbia Basin had 121 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19, but fortunately, no deaths to report in either county.

Benton County had 47 additional cases testing positive out of 200 total tests, for a total of 2,725 total positive tests in Benton County.

In Franklin County, 74 additional individuals were positive out of 240 tested people, or a whopping 31% of yesterday's tests, bringing the total number of positive tests in Franklin County to 2,647.

For the week of July 13-17, Benton and Franklin Counties had a combined total of 863 positive COVID-19 cases identified with an additional 14 deaths.

The Heat Map continues to show relatively sparse color in Richland compared to a high concentration of cases in Kennewick and especially Pasco.

I have no idea how this is going to impact the data and how it is to be reported moving forward, but today it was announced that hospitals are no longer allowed to report data to the CDC. COVID-19 data will now be in the hands of the Trump administration. More on that, here.

One positive side effect of the coronavirus era, with people staying home, there is a lot less food waste. It's down 27% since the pandemic started, people are throwing out a lot less food, they are actually eating it, or donating way more of what they buy.

Also, the pandemic has really made people realize the value of local small businesses. 80% of people have intentionally bought something from a small business they would've bought from a larger chain store before the beginning of the pandemic.