Tri-Cities COVID-19 cases increase. Health officials worry about Memorial Day

The Tri-Cities area has 15 new known cases of COVID-19 but no additional deaths from complications of the disease, health officials reported Thursday. The case increase was about 1%, with increases ranging from 1% to 3% for at least a week, according to data from the Benton Franklin Health District. The number of known cases since the start of the pandemic is 1,416. One of the new …