by Carolyn Bick
A jail health services (JHS) employee at the King County Correctional Facility in Seattle has tested positive for COVID-19, according to an official Public Health – Seattle & King County letter the Emerald received from an anonymous source. The employee is the first JHS staffer to test positive.
Continue reading First Jail Health Services Employee at King County Jail Tests Positive for COVID-19by Carolyn Bick
Washington State’s undocumented workers waiting for the same kind of economic relief their documented peers receive will have to keep waiting, Gov. Jay Inslee’s office told the Emerald. They also won’t be eligible for the state’s first public option health program, Cascade Care, when it begins next year.
In late May, Inslee said his office was looking into the possibility of creating a novel coronavirus pandemic relief fund for undocumented workers, who are ineligible to receive unemployment benefits or federal economic relief. In an email to the Emerald on July 10, Inslee’s Deputy Communications Director and Press Secretary Mike Faulk said that the reason a fund is taking so long is due to a number of factors, including the complexity of the task and the recent mandate that requires certain staff members to take one furlough day per week, in an effort to cut costs.
Continue reading Undocumented Workers Must Wait on COVID-19 Relief Fund, Will Not Be Eligible for State’s First Public Option Health Programby Carolyn Bick
Sporting a Seahawks face mask, Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee in a July 7 press conference tried to reframe the state’s burgeoning novel coronavirus case rate in a more positive light, but the state’s current numbers still paint a bleak picture. As of this writing, the case rate is even higher than it was in April, at what had previously been the peak of the pandemic in the state.
Joined by Washington State Department of Health State Health Officer Dr. Kathy Lofy, Inslee showed a graph that showed a dramatic spike between June and today. As of the press conference, the state is seeing more than 95 cases per 100,000 Washingtonians in the last two weeks, which is about 20 more cases per 100,000 people than at the previous peak in April.
Continue reading As State’s COVID-19 Case Rate Surges Past April Numbers, King County Sees Increase in Cases Among Young Peopleby Carolyn Bick
A mask-clad Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee announced in a July 2 press conference that beginning on July 7, businesses will be legally required to enforce mask use among their patrons. He also said that all counties’ applications to move forward into a new Safe Start phase will be paused for two weeks starting immediately.
The announcements come as the number of novel coronavirus cases statewide continue to rise. In an earlier press conference, Public Health – Seattle & King County’s Public Health Officer Jeff Duchin revealed that cases in King County have more than doubled in the last two weeks, going from 40 per day to more than 100 per day, and that almost half these cases are in the City of Seattle alone. Most of the increase is among younger people. Duchin said that one-third of these recent increases are among young adults 20-29 years old, and more than half of all new cases are in people 29-39 years old.
Inslee called the surge across the state a “troubling spike,” and pointed to graphs that showed the number of cases in several counties are almost at or have surpassed the number of cases in April, when the virus was at its peak in the state. He also showed a graph that indicates the rate of transmission is once again increasing, and is at just above one in Western Washington and around 1.5 in Eastern Washington. This means in both parts of the state that one person is infecting more than one other person.
Continue reading Inslee Issues Mandate That All Businesses Require Mask Use Among Patrons, But Stops Short of Active Enforcementby Carolyn Bick
Following a unanimous vote at a meeting on June 23, King County Council has approved a third round of emergency funding to the tune of $86 million. Council Chair Claudia Balducci also said that legislation to make Juneteenth a holiday for King County employees will be introduced at a future meeting.
The emergency funding money, which will come from the county’s general fund, will provide support for several programs throughout the county meant to combat both the novel coronavirus and racism, which the council formally recognized as a public health crisis on June 18.
Continue reading King County Council Passes $86 Million in Emergency Funding, Looks to Future Legislation To Make Juneteenth a Holiday For County Employeesby Carolyn Bick
King County has moved into Phase Two of Washington State’s Safe Start reopening plan, even as the number of novel coronavirus cases have increased.
In a briefing on June 19, Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin of Public Health — Seattle & King County shared that the evening before the briefing, the office had learned that cases had increased 47 percent. He said the department learned of this after Duchin had approved the county’s application to move into Phase Two.
Continue reading “We’ve Had Lots of Reports of People Not Wearing Face Masks”: On the Eve of King County’s Move Into Phase Two, Coronavirus Cases On the Riseby Carolyn Bick
Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee did not rule out moving counties back to earlier phases of the state’s Safe Start plan and the possibility of instituting a mask-wearing mandate, if novel coronavirus cases across the state continue to rise.
Continue reading Inslee Prepared to Move Counties Back to Earlier Safe Start Phases, Mandate Mask Useby Emerald Staff
As King County moves through a phased re-opening of businesses and regular activities, we’ve updated our living guide to be more relevant to the current state of the pandemic. This our archives page. For the latest local coverage of COVID-19-related announcements and events, please follow along with our daily posts (on the home page). We’re also adding relevant updates to this post.
We created a living guide to provide a trusted aggregate resource for South Seattle during the COVID-19 pandemic. These are the guide archives—all our pandemic coverage from March 6, 2020 to June 12, 2020 in one place.
Looking for COVID-19 Updates and current pandemic-related articles for Seattle and King County? Visit this post.
Continue reading A South End Guide to Thriving in the Pandemic — (The Archives)by Carolyn Bick
According to NaSushon Taylor’s unemployment claim, which as of mid-June was still listed as “[a]djudication in progress,” Washington State owes her more than $5,000 in unemployment.
She hasn’t seen a dime of that money.
For the first three months since she was furloughed from her dishwashing job at Cook Weaver in Capitol Hill nearly four months ago, due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, Taylor called Washington State’s Employment Security Department (ESD) every day to try to get the thousands of dollars in unemployment the state owes her.
Taylor has been fighting hard for it. When she was still calling ESD every day, it wasn’t unusual for her to call hundreds of times in one day. One day, she called ESD 541 times. Another, she called 511 times. Each time, ESD’s system disconnected her call.
Taylor isn’t alone. Robin, a registered nurse and tutor who preferred that the Emerald not print her last name or place of employment, was furloughed from one of her two part-time jobs at a local clinic in mid-March. She faced a different situation — ESD had told her that she owes the state $1,700 for allegedly inaccurately entering one of her employer’s names. But the end result was the same as Taylor’s: she dealt with endless holds and hundreds of dropped calls, while the bills continued to mount. And according to ESD, hangups, dropped calls, difficulties using the system, and general confusion aren’t an uncommon problem for the almost 1.17 million people who have filed for unemployment since March 7.
Continue reading “It’s Labyrinthine”: Workers Filing for Unemployment Benefits Face Dropped Calls, Confusing Online Systems, and Hours-Long Wait Timesby Carolyn Bick
Author’s Note: Please skip to the end if you are only looking for the testing sites’ dates, locations, and hours of operation.
Residents of South King County will have access to two free, one-day pop-up novel coronavirus testing sites on June 13 and June 14, thanks to a partnership among Somali Health Board (SHB), King County’s Office of Equity and Social Justice, Seattle-King County Public Health, and Tina Knowles-Lawson’s #IDidMyPart Mobile Testing Campaign.
Continue reading Somali Health Board, King County Partners with #IDidMyPart Campaign for Two Pop-Up COVID-19 Testing Sites in South King County
