CORONAVIRUS: Sunday 1/3/21 roundup

| Coronavirus | West Seattle news

Here’s what’s new as the holiday season ends :

KING COUNTY’S NEWEST NUMBERS: Here are the cumulative totals from the Public Health daily-summary dashboard – again, remember that testing availability is limited during holidays, so we won’t get a full picture of the current situation for at least a few more days:

*64,578 people have tested positive, up 469 from yesterday’s total

*1,091 people have died, unchanged since Friday

*4,249 people have been hospitalized, up 4 from yesterday’s total

*755,666 people have been tested, up 497 from yesterday’s total

One week ago, the King County totals were 60,182/1,043/4,042/732,257.

STATEWIDE NUMBERS: See them here.

WORLDWIDE NUMBERS: 85 million cases and 1,842,000+ deaths, 351,000 of them in the U.S. – see the nation-by-nation breakdown here.

WHAT TO EXPECT THIS WEEK: No date announced for a briefing, but Gov. Inslee‘s office promised that, “An updated reopening plan is currently being developed to provide a pathway for businesses and workers impacted by this order to reopen safely” and that it will be released this coming week.

FOOD FOR STUDENTS: The winter break for Seattle Public Schools is ending, so all meal sites return to operation tomorrow – here’s the list/map of where and when.

GROCERY HOURS: We revisited local standalone stores’ hours, including special senior/at-risk shopping times, here.

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

anonyme January 4, 2021 (3:56 pm)

Our state is doing a miserable job on the vaccination front. I spoke to a friend in New Mexico last night, and she asked if I’d registered to be vaccinated. Of course, I didn’t know what she was talking about as we have no such plan here, no organized effort to get people vaccinated. Apparently, registration is standard in many other states, but not here. I understand some of the delays in actually getting people vaccinated quickly due to lack of medical personnel, but there’s no excuse for the lack of planning and poor execution. It’s ridiculous that senior citizens such as myself have no idea when to expect to be able to receive a vaccination, aside from “2021”. I thought Inslee did a pretty good job with the pandemic initially, but he’s really dropped the ball as of late. Get it together, Washington.

AMD January 4, 2021 (4:44 pm)

New Mexico’s program is similar to ours. Right now they’re administering the vaccine only to health care workers, as the first phase. “Registering” with NMDOH doesn’t give you a date when you’ll be vaccinated; it puts you on a list to get a notification when you’re eligible to schedule an appointment. If you’re not a health care worker and you live in New Mexico, you don’t have any better of an idea when you’re getting the vaccine than “2021” either. That said, I don’t think everyone is interested in seeing the vaccinations get out faster. Hopefully the plateauing COVID numbers will free up more medical staff to administer the vaccine so it can start happening quicker. And hopefully there are plans coming to broaden the current vaccine distribution plans, specifically including Bartell’s/Rite Aid, and other smaller pharmacies in the vaccine distribution scheme. More places offering the vaccine means more qualified medical personnel in a position to vaccinate folks.
Andros January 5, 2021 (9:05 am)

You know, if we had a federal government that was better, they would be running this program nationally. Also a great way to employee lots of unemployed people during this time too. Maybe the next administration will take this over.

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