Spokane — Spokane County reported 98 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, setting another record for new daily case numbers. The previous record, set Tuesday, was 79 new cases in a day.
The Spokane County Regional Health District had reported 26 new cases of the respiratory disease linked to the novel coronavirus on Saturday. Spokane County’s total number of cases is now 1,668.
No new deaths were reported Sunday, according to a release from the Spokane Regional Health District. On Saturday, SRHD said 18 county residents were hospitalized with the virus; that number was down to 17 as of Sunday.
A total of 135 residents have been hospitalized since the beginning of the pandemic, up from 132 cases Saturday. As of Friday, 51.5% of cases in the county had recovered from the illness, defined as the patient not requiring hospitalization or dying 28 days following the onset of symptoms or testing.
SRHD spokesperson Kelli Hawkins said the district had not yet had time to review the links between all 98 new cases, but believed the spike in numbers to be caused by a combination of increased testing and contact tracing, as well as increasing community spread.
Hawkins said she could not yet say what proportion of new cases were caused by increased testing and tracking versus new community spread. However, Hawkins said SRHD is working to distinguish the two and plans to include those numbers in daily reports in the near future.
The uptick in community spread has not been tied to any one business or group, Hawkins said, though smaller outbreaks have occurred in family units and workplaces in recent weeks.
“It’s a lot of the same as what we’ve been seeing throughout the pandemic, just in greater numbers today,” Hawkins said. “It’s evidence of the need to keep following guidelines set out by the district and the state, like keeping up with hand-washing and face covering.”
