CORONAVIRUS: Friday 7/31 roundup

| Coronavirus | West Seattle news

22 weeks ago tonight, King County’s first confirmed case of COVID-19 was announced. We start tonight’s roundup with the numbers:

NEWEST KING COUNTY NUMBERS: From the Public Health daily summary:

*15,197 people have tested positive, 158 more than yesterday

*647 people have died, unchanged from yesterday

*1,948 people have been hospitalized, 2 more than yesterday

*294,823 people have been tested, 3,747 more than yesterday

One week ago, those totals were 14,047/638/1,866/265,108.

STATEWIDE NUMBERS: See them here.

STATE DATA FYI: From the Department of Health:

DOH experienced an outage with its reporting system today which caused interruptions in several functions. The data reported today is preliminary and only include cases through 7:00 pm on 7/30 (not 11:59 pm as is usual). DOH anticipates negative tests will be behind for a few days which will impact DOH’s ability to report out tests and percent positivity. Data dashboard visualizations will be impacted for a short time. DOH hopes to be back to normal by early next week.

WORLDWIDE NUMBERS: 17.5 million cases, 679,000+ deaths – see the nation-by-nation numbers here.

NEW TESTING SITE ON THE WAY: While announcing today that the city is opening a new testing site in Southeast Seattle, the mayor also said a new “Southwest Seattle” is in the works too. No location disclosed yet, but the mayor’s office tells WSB it should be made public within a few weeks.

COVID CLOSURE: Chelan Café announced it’s closed because a cocktail-lounge staff member tested positive.

UPDATED RESTAURANT (ETC.) GUIDANCE: From the governor’s office:

The governor’s office today released updates to the July 24 guidance for restaurants, taverns, breweries, wineries, and distilleries as part of Washington’s Safe Start phased reopening plan. Changes include clarification about which establishments can offer indoor seating, temporary outdoor seating guidance and counter-style seating clarifications. Read the full restaurants, taverns, breweries, wineries and distilleries guidance document here and attached memo here.

NEED FOOD? Free lunches will be offered noon-1 pm tomorrow at West Side Presbyterian Church (3601 California SW).

GOT INFO OR PHOTOS? westseattleblog@gmail.com or text/voice 206-293-6302 – thank you!

JJ August 1, 2020 (9:05 am)

I’m glad our local schools will be starting online only. Over the past decade I’ve watched janitorial staff laid off for budget reasons, and cleaning ended, nursing care being taken over by secretaries due to lack of nurses in schools, and classes becoming ever more crowded and oversized. The number number of sinks, amount of soap, and lack of time in the schedule has not allowed for even a large minority of students to hand wash before meals, let alone any other time. To summarize we have insufficient nursing, insufficient sanitation, insufficient cleaning supplies, insufficient PPE, and gross overcrowding. Mumbai slums recently tested 50% positive rate, our schools have much the same conditions, but at the end of the day all the children will be free to go home and infect their families, and everyone else they come into contact with when classes resume in person. This is not a safe situation for anyone in our community if kids go back. I’m glad we are taking a pause to think about the consequences before jumping in.

Jethro Marx August 1, 2020 (4:50 pm)

Have you ever been to Mumbai? I mean, I think you have a point, and I’m guessing you have some inside knowledge of schools, but are they really comparable to slum conditions? The real question is, do our schools need more money or a whole new way of spending it?

Sorry, comment time is over.