Thurston County ends week with 4 new confirmed cases of COVID-19
Thurston County almost went an entire week with no new cases of COVID-19.
But on Sunday, county health officials announced four new cases. They were a man in his 60s, two women in their 40s and a woman in her 30s, according to Thurston County Public Health and Social Services.
The four new cases increased the total here to 131. Of those, there has been one death and 122 people have either recovered or are recovering from the virus. That gives the county eight active cases of the novel coronavirus.
The low number of cases here has meant that the county can apply for a variance to move to Phase 2 of the state’s “safe start” recovery plan. Phase 2 allows retail in-store purchases, restaurant seating with 50 percent capacity and table sizes no larger than 5, new construction, and the reopening of hair and nail salons, and barbers.
The county is working to complete the application, according to spokeswoman Meghan Porter. The Board of County Commissioners, which is made up of the same commissioners who sit on the Board of Health, plans to review the full application on Tuesday.
After the application is submitted, the state Secretary of Health will review it and can approve the plans as submitted, approve them with modifications, or deny the application altogether, The Olympian reported. The state aims to review applications within 1-3 days of receiving them.
COVID-19 in the region
Pierce County cases continue to jump by double-digit margins. On Sunday, county health officials there announced 16 more cases and one more death, a Puyallup woman in her 80s with underlying health problems. That gives the county more than 1,800 cases and 74 deaths.
But the remaining counties that border Thurston have all moved to Phase 2 of reopening the economy:
- Lewis County has a total of 35 confirmed cases and three deaths.
- Mason County has 34 cases and one death.
- Grays Harbor County has 16 cases.
Across the state, nation and world
As of Monday, Washington state was reporting 19,828 confirmed cases and 1,061 deaths, according to the state Department of Health.
In the U.S., there had been more than 1.65 million cases and 97,974 deaths as of Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
The New York Times on Sunday devoted its front page to the pandemic and listed the names of about 1,000 people who have died from the disease. Nearly 30,000 of the nation’s deaths have occurred in New York state.
Globally, more than 5.5 million people have had confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 344,500 have died, the Johns Hopkins data show.
This story was originally published May 24, 2020 at 4:55 PM.
