More big announcements from the governor:

MORE VACCINATION ELIGIBILITY: Everyone 60 and up will be eligible as of March 31st, as will everyone 16 and up with at least two of the conditions on these CDC lists. Plus, Gov. Inslee said in an afternoon briefing, restaurant/food-service and construction workers will be added too. Here’s his full announcement, which also included word he’s expanding permission for long-term-care visits and extending the statewide eviction moratorium.

EARLIER IN THE DAY … you might have guessed an eligibility-expansion announcement was on the way because the weekly Department of Health briefing featured news that the federal government was “significantly increasing” supply in the next several weeks, to the point where Secretary of Health Dr Umair Shah expressed more concern about vaccine hesitancy than about supply. He said virus variants have been identified in 156 cases around the state, but so far they don’t seem to have raised the risk of severe disease or death. Here’s the latest state report on variants.

BUT ‘WE’RE NOT OUT OF THIS PANDEMIC’ … warned Dr. Shah, saying the downward trend had definitely flattened. Tonight’s King County numbers certainly bear that out. From the Public Health daily-summary dashboard, here are today’s cumulative totals:

*84,859 people have tested positive, 285 more than yesterday’s total

*1,444 people have died, unchanged from yesterday’s total

*5,199 people have been hospitalized, 11 more than yesterday’s total

*940,597 people have been tested, 2,144 more than yesterday’s total

One week ago, the four totals we track were 83,653/1,429/5,159/925,061.

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

WORLDWIDE NUMBERS: 121.7 million cases worldwide, 29.6 million of them in the U.S. See the nation-by-nation breakout here.

HAZARD PAY LAWSUIT DISMISSED: A judge threw out the lawsuit against the new city requirement of hazard pay for grocery-store workers.

FREE FOOD ON FRIDAY: Highland Park Elementary will give out food boxes 3-5 pm outside the school at 1012 SW Trenton … Food Lifeline distributes free food boxes 2-5 tomorrow at its South Park HQ (815 S. 96th).

LOOKING FOR VACCINE? The state has upgraded its appointment-search tool. Meantime, here’s our list of links:

*Check for West Seattle city-run site appointments here; sign up for the city’s notification list for all three of its sites here.
*Health-care providers (particularly bigger ones like UW Medicine, CHI Franciscan, Swedish, Kaiser Permanente, etc.)
*covidwa.com (volunteer-run aggregator)
*Pharmacies big and small – Safeway, Rite Aid, QFC, Pharmaca, Costco
*Sea Mar clinics

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