CORONAVIRUS: Thursday 11/19 roundup

One week before a Thanksgiving we’re urged to spend at home, here’s where the pandemic stands:

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

*36,797 people have tested positive, up 804 from yesterday’s total

*834 people have died, unchanged from yesterday’s total

*2,901 people have been hospitalized, down 2 from yesterday’s total (“data correction” per PHSKC)

*608,055 people have been tested, up 4,247 from yesterday’s total

One week ago, those totals were 32,570/826/2,772/583,480.

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

WORLDWIDE NUMBERS: 56.8 million cases worldwide, 11.7 million of them in the U.S. See the nation-by-nation breakout here.

CAMPUS CASE: A staff member at Denny/Sealth tested positive, the district says.

SENATOR EXPLAINS LETTER: Late last night, a reader sent us this link to an Everett Herald story about nine state legislators sending a letter to Gov. Inslee opposing his ban on indoor dining, Among them, our area’s State Sen. Joe Nguyen. We talked to him about it today. He said the letter was drafted before the governor’s announcement, mostly out of frustration that they hadn’t been briefed on the criteria for the drastic decision. Sen. Nguyen says they’ve learned more since, and he fully supports the action now, adding that the focus has turned to what can be done for workers, particularly lower-income workers bearing the brunt of pandemic-related job losses. He told us about getting takeout from a worker who was in tears, expecting to get laid off for a second time. He said there should be some news about economic help soon – and in the meantime, he supports raising “progressive revenue” such as capital-gains tax or a high-earners tax to raise money to help.

URGING FEDERAL HELP: The governor, meantime, sent the feds a letter urging them to get back to work on pandemic relief.

LOCALS HELPING LOCALS: The next two days bring four events distributing free food – the weekly 2-5 pm distribution at Food Lifeline tomorrow (815 S. 96th), and three in West Seattle on Saturday.

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

ARPigeonPoint November 19, 2020 (11:32 pm)

804 out of 4,247 is really, really bad.

Uggh November 20, 2020 (12:13 am)

What ARPigeonPoint said. I really hope there are data errors in today’s #’s.
AMD November 20, 2020 (6:45 am)

It can take a couple days to get test results back, so the positive number does not coincide with the same day’s testing numbers. I would assume the positivity rate is based on the day’s “all test results” number, which was 8,971 yesterday (still bad, but not as bad). Test positivity on the graph has is at 6.7% (not good), but that’s a 7-day average and is on its way up.

psps November 19, 2020 (11:58 pm)

The horror continues and, even after mister sedition leaves the scene, it will be either very hard or outright impossible to deal with this properly with moscow mitch refusing to pass any meaningful legislation. Oh, and this year’s christmas present from the republicans arrives a day late — 12/26 — when the paltry “stimulus relief” programs all stop.

Brian November 20, 2020 (12:09 am)

I clicked through to the DOH dashboard and it shows total deaths for King County as 846. Why is it twelve more than your number published an hour ago?

WSB November 20, 2020 (9:32 am)

Perhaps the state and county update their pages at different times of day/night? If you read the fine print on the county page (follow the link), while their updates are published in the afternoon, they reflect information through midnight the night before. I don’t know what time of day the state posts updates – we have specifically published the county updates since the start of all this 9 months ago … TR

22blades November 20, 2020 (5:36 am)

How many lives would we have saved if people were as adamant about wearing a mask as they were about hoarding toilet paper? You can’t cover your rear if you don’t cover your face!

Kim November 20, 2020 (9:43 am)

I was just thinking people probably are buying lots of things and stocking up on items for their family besides toilet paper and the reason why is because people do not want to go to the stores and be around a bunch of people who might have the COVID-19 and not know it! People need to get over this toilet paper thing there is also other items in low shortage at the store!
- WSB November 20, 2020 (9:44 am)
  
  There are solutions to avoiding crowds at the store. Though I am a night person to the extreme, there is one day every week – same day for 8 months now – that I get up mega-early even minus breaking news, because that’s the day we go grocery shopping. We used to shop at multiple stores multiple times a week, sometimes multiple times a day, and this routine was weird to get used to, but it became a great time-saver as well as a potential life-saver. Highly recommend it for anyone who doesn’t already have the routine going. Bonus, if you shop early in the morning, the stocking for the day is either complete or finishing up. – TR

Under Achiever November 20, 2020 (6:18 am)

The correlation between 804 testing positive and 4,247 being tested isn’t linear model statistics nor does this show trend lines. The 4,247 tested is an accurate report of those tested yesterday while there is a lag of unknown time of when the 804 positives were tested (it wasn’t yesterday, and occurred over any period of non-represented time — 804 is simply the number of those testing positive reported yesterday). While valuable information to have, the numbers of tested to positives in this format isn’t comparative. Additionally, we’ve been advised by health authorities not to test unless we have shown symptoms or known to have been exposed — this skews the % of positives to tests in the total population test group. And yes, I agree 804 is bad.

O'erthehill November 20, 2020 (9:43 am)

And the airlines would love to keep encouraging you to board their planes. Trying to make you believe their air filters are above standards and air flow is only directed down toward the floor. Tests show otherwise, and the filters are outdated or not changed as frequently as needed, many pilots say. I don’t understand why people keep traveling. It’s so selfish imo.

rme November 20, 2020 (5:01 pm)

Would you mind sharing details about the tests that show otherwise? Genuinely curious. Thanks!

Samuella Samaniegoa November 20, 2020 (12:57 pm)

Hi WSB, thank you for bringing up the letter in the Everett Herald. I never read the Herald unless there’s happens to a specific reason for doing so. Appreciate the link. :-)

WSB November 20, 2020 (1:27 pm)

It’s an interesting story. Would have written about it separately but ran out of time so I included it, and our conversation with the senator, in the roundup. – TR

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