CORONAVIRUS: Wednesday 7/15 roundup

Here’s tonight’s roundup:

NEWEST KING COUNTY NUMBERS: From the Public Health daily-summary dashboard, the cumulative totals:

*12,353 people have tested positive, 109 more than yesterday

*620 people have died, 14 more than yesterday

*1,731 people have been hospitalized, 25 more than yesterday

*221,754 people have been tested, 4,121 more than yesterday

One week ago, the four totals were 11,319/598/1,643/194,992.

TWO MORE LOCAL DEATHS: Today’s update includes one new death reported by each of two of the five zip codes that are either entirely or partly wtthin West Seattle – 98106 and 98126.

STATEWIDE NUMBERS: Find them, county by county, on the state Department of Health page,.

WORLDWIDE NUMBERS: See them, nation by nation, here.

OPENING SCHOOLS SAFELY: New modeling shows it can be done in King County this fall – but it depends on more than what happens on campuses. From today’s news release:

Grouping students by age, physical distancing, wearing masks and safe hygiene may be able to reduce the impact of school reopenings on transmission, but how much of an impact these measures have will depend on the level of COVID-19 transmission outside of schools. Even with countermeasures, students and staff would need to be screened for symptoms daily and both work and community mobility would need to stay below a certain threshold. “Every part of our society is connected when it comes to COVID-19,” said Dr. Jeff Duchin, health officer for Public Health – Seattle & King County. “How well we control transmission in workplaces, businesses, recreation, families, and social networks are related and all impact whether we can safely reopen schools.”

COVID-RELATED CLOSURE: After an employee at the U-District location of Supreme tested positive, the restaurant closed its West Seattle branch too.

STAY HEALTHY STREETS SURVEY EXTENDED: Love those no-through-traffic, social-distancing-friendly streets? Hate ’em? Or? Whatever you think, tell the city – the survey that was supposed to close today has been extended a week.

GOT INFO? Email us at westseattleblog@gmail.com or phone us, text or voice, at 206-293-6302 – thank you!

17 Replies to "CORONAVIRUS: Wednesday 7/15 roundup"

  • Gwen July 15, 2020 (11:11 pm)

    That is a shocking spike in deaths and hospitalizations. 

  • West Seattle Mad Sci Guy July 15, 2020 (11:16 pm)

    …14 people died in one day?  Is this a backlog correction of people who died over the weeks that got categorized as a sars-cov-2 death?  Seems like a large number for a single day given recent death counts. My condolences to those that lost their loved ones.

    • AMD July 16, 2020 (7:56 am)

      They’ve been doing data corrections the other way–removing deaths that were counted because the person tested positive for COVID but did not die directly because of COVID.  The numbers posted were net totals (new deaths minus corrections) to my understanding, so it might be LACK of data correcting that makes it appear as a jump.  My deepest condolences to the grieving families.

    • Zoomy July 16, 2020 (8:00 am)

      I’m betting it was a backlog in reporting. . Every once in a while I see large spikes for no apparent reason. Then it goes back down to the average. A couple of days of numbers like that would definitely be concerning though. 

  • Stay well July 15, 2020 (11:22 pm)

    14 more deaths/25 more people hospitalized since yesterday? That is a concerning spike.

    Hopefully this is skewed by some corrections or a back-log.

    And no contrarians, I don’t care right now that the death rate was low for awhile, I’m concerned about current rising hospitalizations and more people being sick right now, and at risk of losing their life in the near future.

    • Smittytheclown July 16, 2020 (4:12 pm)

      Should look at the 7 day moving average.  Sometimes reporting is spotty.

      • Stay well July 16, 2020 (6:40 pm)

        I don’t think we’ve seen a daily hospitalization number this high in some time, it’s concerning, to some of us.

        Will be paying attention to these numbers in the following days.

  • Trickycoolj July 16, 2020 (12:11 am)

    Wondering if we’re now starting to see spiking of numbers related to the holiday weekend now that it was about 2 weeks ago.  Also read somewhere that Eastern Wa was sending patients to Western Wa are those people part of KC numbers I wonder?

    • Smittytheclown July 16, 2020 (4:14 pm)

      Doubtful.  Remember, we were told the protests had nothing to do with the spike even though they occurred three weeks after.  Especially in states that had already been opened a month before the protests started!  Coincidence, I guess.

  • M July 16, 2020 (6:15 am)

    However, only 109 positive of over 4 thousand tested is a low infection rate. 

    • Foop July 16, 2020 (10:02 am)

      My main concern I have is the number of essential workers who are not testing because they can’t live without their jobs and have no rent or job security if they get sick. Is America great again?

    • GatewoodGirl July 16, 2020 (10:28 am)

      Does anyone know of a chart that shows the positive test rate over time? 

  • AdmiralE July 16, 2020 (9:35 am)

    STAY WELL  – per King County there is no “current rising hospitalizations” but don’t let “data and science” get in the way of how you feel – Love “A contrarian”

    • Stay well July 16, 2020 (5:05 pm)

      The data reported here by WSB shows a spike in hospitalizations, 25 more than reported the previous day, but you can choose to ignore, deny, or try to minimize that if you wish.

  • wsgal July 16, 2020 (10:32 am)

    Now that covid data is going straight to the Trump administration rather than the CDC, do you know if you will be able to track our county numbers the same as before?

  • JJ July 16, 2020 (12:31 pm)

    I just heard that there is a significant number of people who are positive where a rash was the only sign they had of the illness… Just one more thing that should trigger self-isolation and testing. If we all have a very high level of suspicion for illness, perhaps we can keep our transmission rates low, and save some lives. This and all the distancing and masks and hygiene… of course. Here’s a link to a video about COVID skin signs… https://youtu.be/BeKDzwhi8nw

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