Clark County reports four new COVID-19 deaths on TuesdayFree

Clark County reported four new deaths from COVID-19 on Tuesday as the pace of new cases fell but hospitalizations increased.

Data from Clark County Public Health showed a COVID-19 activity rate of 450.56 new cases per 100,000 population over two weeks as of this week, up from 447.7 last week. There were 79 new cases reported Tuesday, down from the weekend average of about 163 cases per day, bringing the county’s total to 11,198 cases to date.

Hospitalizations rose on Tuesday after dropping to lower levels in the past week, with 60 people hospitalized with COVID-19 and nine people hospitalized awaiting test results. Those patients accounted for 10.8 percent of all licensed hospital beds in the county. ICU bed occupancy was just over 84 percent on Tuesday, up from 75 percent the day before.

The four new fatalities reported Tuesday are of two men age 80 or older, one man in his 70s and one man in his 60s — all of whom had underlying conditions, according to Public Health. To date, the county has reported 131 suspect or confirmed deaths from COVID-19.

The number of known active and potentially contagious cases fell to 856 on Tuesday, down from 922 on Monday. Cases are considered active if the person is still in their isolation period.

Public Health also released updated data on COVID-19 testing that showed a drop in the percentage of positive tests during the last week of November. During that week, from Nov. 22-28, the county received 757 positive results on 6,195 tests, for a positivity rate of 12.28 percent, down from 15.72 percent one week earlier.

Latest Clark County COVID-19 testing results

Testing data comes from the Washington State Department of Health and local providers and includes all negative tests, including multiple negative tests for the same individual.