CORONAVIRUS: Wednesday 9/9 roundup

The stats are back, and that’s where we start tonight’s pandemic-related toplines:

NEWEST KING COUNTY NUMBERS: From the Public Health daily-summary dashboard, the cumulative totals (keep in mind, these are the first since Monday):

*20,440 people have tested positive, 120 more than 2 days ago

*741 people have died, 7 more than 2 days ago

*2,283 people have been hospitalized, 19 more than 2 days ago

*386,938 people have been tested, 1,786 more than 2 days ago

One week ago, those four totals were 19,819/729/2,239/367,481.

ANOTHER LOCAL DEATH: In today’s updates, 98136 reported its fourth death. Here are the current counts for the other four zip codes that are entirely or partly within West Seattle:

98106 – 4
98116 – 6
98146 – 13
98126 – 15

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

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

VACCINE? The state Department of Health has published an update on planning for what happens when a vaccine is available and who will be the first to have access to it – read the update here.

FUNDED: The city has announced $11 million more funding for organizations that help people experiencing homelessness – including four that serve people in our area: Transitional Resources, DESC, LIHI, and the Salvation Army.

NEED FOOD? Reminder – Friday is the deadline to apply for this if your family needs it:

More than 30,000 King County students who are eligible for a one-time, $399 food benefit have until Sept. 11 to apply for Pandemic EBT, an emergency federal program that provides families cash assistance to buy food while schools are closed due to COVID-19.

Pandemic EBT is available to all children in public schools in Washington who receive free or reduced-price school meals. Across the state, over 150,000 eligible students can still apply.

Many low-income families rely on the free and reduced-price meals students get at school. With school closures, those families are struggling to feed their children. Pandemic EBT aims to fill that gap and ease the food insecurity many in our community are experiencing.

Pandemic EBT is not subject to public charge and does not affect or require proof of immigration status.

Families can apply online on the Washington Connection website. People who need help with the application process can call 2-1-1 and ask for assistance.

Applicants should ensure their children’s names match the spelling they used when they registered them for school. While the application includes a field for a Social Security number, it is not required.

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

psps September 10, 2020 (12:45 am)

In the vaccine distribution blurb, they say, “We will be watching the FDA approval process closely.” I’d rather they would use a different, more trustworthy organization. Stephen Hahn is just another unqualified ring-kisser serving “at the pleasure of the president.” I’ll wait until an un-corrupted non-US agency, such as the EMA, approves the vaccine. It should be obvious to everyone that any of these fast-track rushed vaccines will be political vaccines, not scientific ones.

pilsner September 10, 2020 (7:38 am)

I want to see a Mr. Burns vs 3 eyed fish parody with Trump vs the vaccine.

SAS September 10, 2020 (6:10 am)

If 20,440 positive tests and 741 deaths … does than mean that the death rate is 3.62%?Yes.Where are these COVID “deniers“ coming up with the <1% death rate?

AMD September 10, 2020 (11:36 am)

There are models that show as little as 1:10 people with COVID get tested and show up in official numbers (there is a suspected under-count in deaths as well, but a much smaller percentage). If you use the number of people who likely have COVID rather than the ones who officially have COVID, the death rate is much lower. That said, having COVID and not dying from it is still a very bad thing we should try to avoid. There are long-term health consequences, huge hospital bills (only the test is free), and the accompanying strain on a system that functions near capacity in normal times because capacity is based on profitability. Deniers will find something to latch onto; that’s just the nature of the beast. Anyone who can still pretend it’s no big deal because they don’t know anyone who has had severe consequences or died from it is a lucky person indeed.
- CAM September 10, 2020 (5:30 pm)
  
  I understand what you’re saying but the problem with that logic is it assumes that the death rates for other viruses or illnesses (because it is always a matter of comparison) are not similarly based only on known cases. Not everyone who has the flu is diagnosed or reports having it, etc. As many before me have pointed out, measuring the percentage of people who die if they become ill from the virus is fairly consistent with how we measure death rates of all other forms of illnesses.

MK September 10, 2020 (12:00 pm)

I’m not a Covid denier by any means. I just wanted to answer your question. The 3.62% rate is based on the number of known/diagnosed cases. The problem is that we’re only catching a fraction of the true number of infections. In the beginning of the pandemic when tests were extremely scarce, we probably only caught 1 out of every 10 cases. Now that testing is more available, we’re still only diagnosing maybe 1 in every 4 infections considering the number of asymptomatic people. The CDC, WHO and the health departments of pretty much every country all agree that the true fatality rate is well below 1%.There was even a study from Iceland that was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine. It was the largest sero study of its kind where they tested almost 10% of the population. 50% who were seropositive were completely asymptomatic. The true fatality rate was estimated at 0.3%. Feel free to Google the study or the WHO mortality rate estimates if you’re interested.

Nichole September 10, 2020 (1:50 pm)

King county has hit the bench mark of less than 75 positive cases out of 100,000 people . This is significant for Assisted Living as it allows us to stop serving meals in the residents apts and move to a social distance communal dining option. If you have loved ones in Assisted Living please show us some patience as we work out the kinks. Most our buildings have 1 dining room that seating is not adequate for social distancing so some hybrid model of some in apt and some dining room service has to be worked out.

WSB September 10, 2020 (2:16 pm)

Good luck! Hope it means a little less loneliness.
Bandana September 10, 2020 (9:12 pm)

Thank you for sharing this information. Everyone please mask up for the sake of these residents.

Sorry, comment time is over.