Tag Archives: Mask Up

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Western WA’s COVID Cases Level Off, Hospitals Brace for Surge, More Masks and Tests Available

by Sally James

Washington’s medical officials are bracing for the next few weeks in the latest surge of the COVID-19 pandemic. But they also offered a glimmer of good news at their Wednesday, Jan. 19, media event. 

“The next several weeks will be very difficult,” said Umair Shah, M.D., M.P.H., secretary of health of the Washington State Department of Public Health (DOH). Even though case counts have leveled off in most of Western Washington, they are still rising in Eastern Washington. Hospitals are struggling with too many patients and barely enough room or staff to care for them properly. Gov. Jay Inslee has sent National Guard personnel to help several state hospitals. 

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City Will Shift Virus Testing Responsibility Away From Seattle Fire Department

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by Elizabeth Turnbull

As almost 80% of eligible Seattle residents are fully vaccinated, City officials announced on Wednesday that the University of Washington Medicine and other public health partners will take over COVID-19 testing and vaccinations efforts from the Seattle Fire Department (SFD).

“The mission of the Seattle Fire Department is to save lives and protect property and the environment,” Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins told the press Wednesday. “We never really know what that means from day to day, but I think the last 16 or 18 months has shown us that we’re capable of standing in the gap in many different places.”

Since June 2020, SFD has administered roughly 800,000 COVID-19 tests, and one in three Seattleites have used the free testing provided by the department, according to the City.

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With Most Seattleites Vaccinated, Durkan Announces Mass-Vaccination Site Closures

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by Jack Russillo

With more than 60% of Seattlites already fully vaccinated against COVID-19, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan is shutting down all but one of the City’s fixed mass-vaccination sites.

Durkan made the announcement on Wednesday, May 26, at a press conference at the Rainier Beach vaccination site at Be’er Sheva Park. She said that the decision comes with the news that more than three-quarters of Seattle residents aged 12 or older have initiated their vaccination process.

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As COVID-19 Surges Yet Again, King County Poised to Move Back to Phase 2

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by Carolyn Bick

Unless State officials change the Roadmap to Recovery metrics before Tuesday, May 4, these same officials will likely move King County back into Phase 2 of the state’s reopening plan, due to the fact that the County has exceeded both case and hospitalization rate metrics required to stay in Phase 3.

“Our 14-day new case rate is 242 [people] per 100,000 [people], and the metric for Phase 3 calls for that number to be below 200,” Public Health – Seattle & King County (PHSKC) Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin said in a press conference on Friday, April 30. “Our seven-day hospitalization rate is 5.8 [people] per 100,000 [people], and [the Phase 3] metric calls for that number to be below 5.”

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State in Fourth Wave in COVID-19, Vaccination Sites Open in South King County

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by Elizabeth Turnbull

Gov. Jay Inslee announced Thursday that the state appears to be entering a fourth spike in coronavirus cases as mutations of the virus appear to be contributing to its spread. 

“We have a situation that we’re dealing with right now, I wish it was otherwise,” Inslee said at a press briefing. “Unfortunately we now are seeing the beginnings of a fourth surge in the state of Washington.”

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“We Admitted 10 Patients in Five Hours”: State, Hospitals Rapidly Approaching Critical Case Counts and Hospitalizations

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by Carolyn Bick

The dire warnings the state’s top health officials shared with the public just last week appear to be coming to pass. 

In a Washington State Department of Health (DOH) COVID-19 briefing on Nov. 18, DOH Health Officer Kathy Lofy shared several charts that show what Lofy called a “dramatic,” exponential growth rate in cases of COVID-19 and “sharp increase” in hospitalizations in Western Washington. She also said that the effective reproductive number — also known as the R-naught or R0 number, which is the number of people one person will infect — has continued to rise. It now stands at 1.7 in Eastern Washington, and 1.8 in Western Washington.

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State Reaches Record One-Day High of COVID-19 Cases

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by Carolyn Bick

The state has now reached its all-time COVID-19 case one-day high, standing at 2,147 new cases of the disease today alone, the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) reported in a press release late in the day on Nov. 13.

“Just two weeks ago, we announced 1,000 new cases in a day for the first time since mid-summer. And, each day this week we have reported over 1,000 new cases per day. This rapid escalation is extremely alarming,” the press release reads.

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“We Should Probably All Stop Socializing For the Next Several Weeks”: Health Officials Deliver Grim COVID Data, Warnings

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by Carolyn Bick

The basic precautionary measures that public health experts have been asking Washingtonians to take throughout the novel coronavirus pandemic are now “the only thing[s] standing between us and disaster,” Tacoma-Pierce County’s Dir. of Public Health Dr. Anthony Chen said in an urgent COVID-19 press briefing on Nov. 10. It’s because people haven’t been taking them that the state is now poised to suffer a sharp — potentially exponential — increase in deaths and hospitalizations.

“I know there are lots of tensions. Everyone’s tired. But this is not the time for argument,” Chen said. We’ve got to … put politics aside, put personalities aside. We’ve got to work on this together.”

Chen and a slew of other public health officials spoke during the briefing, each of them sharing grim statistics. At the core of their concern is the real potential for the state’s healthcare system to become overwhelmed, which would likely force the state to institute more aggressive approaches to slowing down the spread of the disease. These approaches appear to include another lockdown.

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Mayor Announces New Testing Site at Chief Sealth High School, Says Site Strategically Positioned for Hardest-Hit Communities

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by Carolyn Bick

The City of Seattle will be standing up a new free novel coronavirus testing site at the Chief Sealth High School (CSHS) Athletic Complex in Southwest Seattle, Mayor Jenny Durkan announced at a press conference on Aug. 20. The new site will open on Aug. 28 and will bring the city’s testing capacity to 4,000 tests per day.

Standing in front of the newly opened testing site in the parking lot of Rainier Beach High School (RBHS) in Southeast Seattle, Durkan, District 2 City Councilmember Tammy Morales, and Seattle Fire Department Chief Harold Scoggins outlined the city’s plan for the new site. Like the RBHS testing site, the CSHS testing site will be a walk-up. It will accept anyone who comes to get a test regardless of whether they have insurance and does not require a person to be a United States citizen to get tested. Though registration is encouraged, it is not required. The new site will be open from 9:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

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Senior Center Meal Program Works Every Weekday to Fill Need, But Challenges Remain

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by Carolyn Bick

Shiny, blushed coral apples sit in rows on the tables in front of brown paper bags. Lined up almost perfectly straight, one right next to the other, they almost look like little cherubs, dutifully waiting their turn to leap into a bank of puffy clouds.

But they aren’t mythical creatures. They’re vital sources of nutrition for the more than 160 seniors who rely on the Southeast Seattle Senior Center’s hot meal program. On this particular Thursday morning, a handful of masked volunteers works to prepare the day’s meal, a steaming-hot, colorful mix of vegetables cooked with golden cubes of fried tofu served over a couple scoops of white rice.

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