Thurston County hits 1,700 COVID-19 cases with 38-case spike Friday

Thurston County announced an alarming 38 new COVID-19 cases on Friday. One more resident also has died of the virus, a woman in her 70s.

Twenty of the new cases are tied to an outbreak at Garden Courte Memory Care, an assisted living facility on Lilly Road in Olympia. Last Sunday, the county released data showing that 50 cases had been confirmed at Garden Courte, 37 residents and 13 staff. County officials were not sure if any more cases were confirmed earlier this week, but today’s 20 cases mean there are now at least 70 tied to the facility.

With two days left in the week and 107 new cases announced already, the county is approaching last week’s record high of 148 cases.

The county is still dealing with six COVID-19 outbreaks at “congregate care settings.” Besides the outbreak at Garden Courte, the county is dealing with five other outbreaks at another assisted living facility, two adult family homes, and two nursing homes.

In the region

▪ Pierce County added 139 new cases on Friday, and three more people have died of the virus: a woman in her 90s from Frederickson, a woman in her 70s from Tacoma, and a man in his 60s from Lakewood. The county now has a total of 9,543 cases and 188 deaths.

▪ Lewis County reported five new cases on Friday for a total of 704 cases and 12 deaths.

▪ Grays Harbor County announced 11 new cases Friday for a total of 680 with 11 deaths.

▪ Mason County reported one new case on Friday for a total of 553 with nine deaths.

Around the state, nation and world

The state Department of Health reported 821 new cases and seven deaths on Friday to give the state 101,525 cases with 2,296 deaths.

In the U.S., more than 8.5 million cases had been reported and more than 224,000 people had died as of Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Globally, more than 42.4 million cases had been reported and more than 1.1 million people had died as of Saturday, the data show.

This story was originally published October 23, 2020 at 5:22 PM.

Brandon Block

The Olympian

360-754-5453

Brandon Block is The Olympian’s Housing and Homelessness Reporter. He is a Corps Member with Report For America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms.