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COVID-19

State makes more at-home tests available through portal

The Department of Health has released more at-home COVID tests for Washington residents.

Residents can visit sayyescovidhometest.org to claim up to five free tests per household while supplies last.

The department anticipates sending tests to an additional 120,000 households in the state while supplies last this time around.

Spokane County also has additional testing options for residents at two new sites, one downtown and one in Mead, which opened last weekend to boost access to testing in the region.

The Department of Health recently updated its data to include the number of residents who have been vaccinated, including those children who most recently became eligible for the vaccine.

In Washington, about 33% – or 226,000 children ages 5 to 11 – have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine. In Spokane County, 21% of children in this age group have received at least one dose.

The Department of Health also adjusted its data to include these childhood vaccination. The department estimates that 71.8% of the state population 5 years old and older is fully vaccinated.

In Spokane County, 58.9% of residents who are 5 years old and older are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Here’s a look at local numbers

The Spokane Regional Health District reported 664 new COVID cases on Monday and 2,979 more cases over the weekend.

There are 216 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in Spokane.

The Panhandle Health District reported 345 new COVID cases on Monday and over the weekend, but the district now has a backlog of 4,900 cases to confirm.

There are 109 Panhandle residents hospitalized, and Kootenai Health is treating 103 patients with COVID-19.

Health departments continue to deal with record-level case counts and data, making data reporting fluctuate, and departments encourage evaluating trends instead of individual numbers or case counts.

Arielle Dreher's reporting for The Spokesman-Review is primarily funded by the Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund, with additional support from Report for America and members of the Spokane community. These stories can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper’s managing editor.