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CORONAVIRUS: Sunday toplines, with King County reporting 10 cases including 2 deaths

March 1, 2020 9:04 pm
|      32 COMMENTS
 |   Coronavirus | West Seattle news

Seattle-King County Public Health sent two media updates today on newly confirmed COVID-19 cases. Here’s our nightly roundup with those and other area developments:

KING COUNTY CASES: As of right now, 10 cases, including two deaths, are reported in King County. SKCPH’s morning update is here; the evening update is here. From the latter, the key excerpt:

The four new cases are in:

·A female in her 80s, hospitalized at EvergreenHealth in Kirkland. The woman has underlying health conditions, and is in critical condition

·A female in her 90s, hospitalized at EvergreenHealth in Kirkland. The woman has underlying health conditions, and is in critical condition

·A male in his 70s, hospitalized at EvergreenHealth in Kirkland. The man has underlying health conditions, and is in critical condition

· A male in his 70s was hospitalized at EvergreenHealth. He had underlying health conditions and died on 2/29/20.

All of these newly identified cases are among residents of LifeCare, the skilled nursing facility in Kirkland that was previously identified to have two associated cases.

Six other cases, already reported earlier by Public Health, include:

·A man in his 60s, hospitalized at Valley Medical Center in Renton.

·A man in 60s, hospitalized at Virginia Mason Medical Center.

·A woman in her 50s, who had traveled to South Korea; recovering at home

·A woman in her 70s, who was a resident of LifeCare in Kirkland, hospitalized at EvergreenHealth

·A woman in her 40s, employed by LifeCare, who is hospitalized at Overlake Medical Center

·A man in his 50s, who was hospitalized and died at EvergreenHealth

No in-person briefing today, but county authorities say they plan one tomorrow (haven’t received an advisory with the time yet), as does Gov. Inslee (to be streamed on TVW at 3 pm).

METRO REITERATES: As noted in our Saturday night report, King County Executive Dow Constantine said Metro is cleaning and vacuuming buses daily. The transit service reiterates that in this post tonight.

SEATTLE PUBLIC SCHOOLS STATEMENT: The district sent out this message saying it has NO cases so far.

PUBLIC HEALTH’S ADVICE FOR YOU: From today’s second media release:

1) Do not go to the emergency room unless essential. Emergency rooms need to be able to serve those with the most critical needs. If you have symptoms like cough, fever, or other respiratory problems, contact your regular doctor first.

2) Stay home when sick

3) Practice excellent personal hygiene habits, including handwashing, coughing into tissue or elbow, avoid touching eyes, nose, or mouth.

4) Stay away from people who are ill, especially if you are 60 and older or have underlying health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, or a weakened immune system.

4) Stay informed. Information is changing frequently. Check and subscribe to Public Health’s website or blog.

ONGOING COVERAGE LINK: Everything we report will appear in this coverage archive: westseattleblog.com/category/coronavirus.

ADDED MONDAY MIDDAY: We’ll have a daily roundup again this evening. In the meantime, the latest King County update is here.

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32 Replies to "CORONAVIRUS: Sunday toplines, with King County reporting 10 cases including 2 deaths"

  • Ben March 1, 2020 (10:09 pm)

    Thanks for doing this. Laborious task to sift through all the other info outlets. WSB is the best!

  • brian March 2, 2020 (6:26 am)

    You know what would be really cool (and I’m really just spitballing here): How about metro cleans and vacuums the busses every single day regardless if this is going on or not? Like how is that even a special request to ask for the bus to get vacuumed once a day?    

  • Nan March 2, 2020 (7:24 am)

    Thank you for your clear, straightforward reporting.  Just excellent journalism.

  • West Seattle Hipster March 2, 2020 (7:26 am)

    Anyone who happened to drive by a Costco this weekend saw the effects of a hysterical public.  Long lines, empty shelves, fistfights over cases of water, etc.  People need to educate themselves and become informed.Wash your hands, practice good hygiene, and use common sense when going out in public.This too shall pass.

    • Jethro Marx March 2, 2020 (8:26 am)

      Which Costco did you see that fistfight at?  Tell us more- or was that more of a rhetorical/hysterical/apocryphal story?

      • West Seattle Hipster March 2, 2020 (9:00 am)

        At the Everett Costco.  Both families were thrown out.  

    • Greg March 2, 2020 (8:39 am)

      You say hysterical public, I say unprepared.  We have a civic duty to prepare for emergency.  It is healthy to examine the specific needs pandemics present and prepare accordingly.  I won’t tell others how to think or live, but in my household, we are preparing for other kinds of emergency and laying in a little extra to share with the unprepared.

    • KM March 2, 2020 (9:46 am)

      Why are people buying cases of water? Is there some COVID-19 drinking water supply contamination risk I don’t know about?

      • Pops March 2, 2020 (10:33 am)

        People have to come to work to treat the water you drink. 

    • Frog March 2, 2020 (10:31 am)

      Hipster, dude, have you been bingeing Netflix for the past month, and somehow didn’t notice the effect of this virus in China?  So far there have been only about 3,000 reported deaths from the virus in China, but that’s “reported” deaths, and also reflects the extraordinary measures taken to stop spread of the virus.  That includes lockdown of whole cities larger than Seattle, travel bans, mandatory quarantines, and the economy of central China coming to a near stop.  Even then, hospitals were overwhelmed, and people were denied medical care due to lack of capacity.  No big deal, really?I can’t help but wonder if this nonchalant attitude among hipsters reflects the political cleavages in our society.  It’s primarily older people who die from the virus, and who needs them anyway, right?  They don’t vote progressive, and their single family houses could each be replaced by six uglybox townhouses.  Not to mention people with pre-existing health conditions like diabetes, COPD (from smoking tobacco only; pot smokers are exempt), auto-immune conditions, etc.  If lots of them die, well, that too shall pass and afterward hipsters will probably pay lower health insurance premiums.  I can’t help but wonder if the attitude would be different if COVID threatened the lives of young hipsters.

      • West Seattle Hipster March 2, 2020 (11:29 am)

        Frog dude, according the CDC (a pretty reputable source), between 12,000 and 61,000 people die annually from the flu.  While this new virus is clearly something to be concerned about, I think people need to calm the ____ down and educate themselves.  Use common sense precautions and you should be fine.

        • Frog March 2, 2020 (12:05 pm)

          Hipster, dude, have you relayed your advice to the Chinese government?  Because they obviously didn’t have the benefit of that advice.  You must think 1) that the Chinese government over-reacted by a lot; or 2) that Chinese people are strangely less able than Seattlites to use common sense precautions (requiring a much stronger government response); or 3) it’s better to let the virus spread uncontrolled.  P.S. what happens when COVID begins to spread through homeless encampments and tiny house villages?  Does that get your sympathy or attention?

    • Sue H March 2, 2020 (12:14 pm)

      People were armageddeon shopping yesterday at Trader Joe’s too. I went in to buy my typical week’s groceries and many shelves were cleaned out, lines long, almost all carts in use and piled sky-high, parking lot extra crazy. Thankfully, everyone was civil.

  • Ruckus March 2, 2020 (8:59 am)

    Fistfights over water? At Costco? 

  • Kristina March 2, 2020 (10:43 am)

    While it is recommended in case of earthquake to have a water supply on hand, I don’t see how it would help during a COVID outbreak. What are people thinking!? We have great tap water in Seattle.I went grocery shopping on Saturday and bought more than usual, stocking up on dry goods that I’ll use eventually if not now – I also picked up extra shampoo, hand soap, and toilet paper. If I’m going to be stuck at home at some point, dang it, I want to know I’m not going to run out of TP! :-) I also like the idea of NOT having to go to the grocery store more often if there are a bunch of sick folks in the community. I’m not panicked, but I am prepared.It seems that the number of cases is rapidly increasing, and that with new information that there could be 1500 folks in our general area who already have it… well, I’d rather be prepared. If it turns out that I have too much pasta and oatmeal, and that I bought next months’ shampoo early, then I can live with that. But if I can protect myself and my community by staying home when recommended, well, I’ll do that too.

  • Staying healthy March 2, 2020 (11:10 am)

    Here is a good article with some facts to get educated:

    https://healthykidshappykids.com/2020/02/27/coronavirus-covid-19/?fbclid=IwAR3RVzbJputXWjpHJuLHnjmPElor-A4JmdHQt7PaanknCiNTx9dclaB1Q3U

  • West Seattle Hipster March 2, 2020 (11:58 am)

    Armageddon through the years:

  • WSB March 2, 2020 (12:04 pm)

    Today’s update (new URL):
    https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/health/news/2020/March/2-covid19-14-cases.aspx

    Now 14 cases in King County including (updated) five deaths. Note that one of the cases is a patient at Highline Hospital (Burien).

    • Pops March 2, 2020 (12:56 pm)

      The Highline patient is critical with no underlying health conditions. 

  • Em March 2, 2020 (12:36 pm)

    SIX people in our state have now died from the wuhan virusWAKE UP PEOPLE

    • Frog March 2, 2020 (2:49 pm)

      A couple of hours ago, KUOW had a segment on COVID, and the message of the UW experts was essentially the same as Hipster:  piffle, it’s just another flu.  It’s striking to see the neo-Darwinian logic revealed among local officials.  It reminds me of watching an old wildlife documentary, where you see some lions tear up a hapless antelope, and to preserve your faith in the goodness of the world, the narrator intones that the lions prey mostly on the old, sick, and weak.  It actually benefits the herd, he says … more grass for the young hipster antelopes.  Washington state and local officials will have to decide whether to take the same extraordinary control measures that were taken in China, and clearly they don’t want to.  That would cause way too much inconvenience and expense to the young and healthy.  If the measures taken in China had any effect, then we can expect a much higher aggregate death toll here from doing nothing but blaming the victims for not washing their hands enough.

    • WSB March 2, 2020 (5:42 pm)

      It’s actually five – today’s news release was confusingly written, with one victim mentioned twice.

      • J March 2, 2020 (6:49 pm)

        I’m pretty sure it’s 6. Check Snohomish County reporting.

        • WSB March 2, 2020 (6:56 pm)

          5 *in King County*.

  • Vanessa March 2, 2020 (12:38 pm)

    West Seattle Hipster, you forgot the African Killer Bees…….

  • J March 2, 2020 (1:35 pm)

    China worked it’s hardest, using all of it’s autocratic/central powers, to try to save the world from a pandemic. It was a valiant effort. Many citizens sacrificed dearly for our sakes. Thank you China for trying. You had more chance than anyone to stop this. Sincerely, I thank you for your efforts. 

  • Mark schletty March 2, 2020 (7:38 pm)

    Just for those of you who still think this is not too serious, I ran a couple quick numbers coupled with a few assumptions.  With a supposed 2% death rate coupled with known much higher death rates for many categories of people (21.9%for 80 year olds, around 11% for those 70, around 9-10% for those with diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and others) I’m making a 4% average overall death rate assumption.  Harvard has a professor who studies epidemics and pandemics who just predicted that about 70% of the worlds population (7.8billion) will eventually get the Coronavirus. If this is accurate, this means that about 312 million people could die. Even if some of the %s and my assumptions are a bit off, we are still looking at possibly 100 million deaths. I  really don’t think this should  be poo-pooed. I’m not getting panicky, and neither should you, but try to be a little realistic.  

    • AMD March 2, 2020 (9:23 pm)

      The death rate is expected to be much lower once they get a better count (or estimate) of asymptomatic infections (of which there appears, at this time, to be a LARGE number of).  The current 2% IS the overall death rate.  It factors in the higher numbers for at-risk populations already.  I’m not saying we should all just ignore the virus, of course.  What I’m saying is wash your hands, stop touching your face, and maybe we don’t need to hoard all the dry goods from Costco just yet.

  • Mj March 2, 2020 (10:47 pm)

    It’s a bad flu, most people affected have mild symptoms and these cases likely go unreported.  The seasonal flu results in 10 of thousands of lives lost.  

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