CORONAVIRUS: Sunday 4/11/2021 roundup, including our weekly West Seattle trend check

| Coronavirus | West Seattle news

Tonight’s pandemic news:

PHASE NEWS TOMORROW: Though Gov. Inslee insists it won’t be “Judgment Day,” tomorrow nonetheless is the day on which he and state health officials will announce whether any of the state’s counties will have to change reopening phases. Last week he announced that counties would have to fail both metrics to be forced to roll back. As of Friday, King County was close to the danger zone, but not in it. Any changes announced tomorrow will take effect Friday.

NEWEST KING COUNTY NUMBERS: From the King County Daily Summary Dashboard page, the cumulative totals:

*91,438 people have tested positive, 384 more than yesterday’s total

*1,483 people have died, unchanged since Friday

*5,446 people have been hospitalized, 7 more than yesterday’s total

*991,687 people have been tested, 754 more than yesterday’s total

One week ago, those totals were 89,356/1,472/5,372/976,899.

WEST SEATTLE TRENDS: Time for our weekly check. These numbers are shown in two-week increments via the “geography over time” tab on the daily-summary dashboard; to determine WS status, we combine the totals from the West Seattle and Delridge “health reporting areas” (HRAs): For the past two weeks, 120 positive test results; 95 in the 2 weeks before that; 77 in the two weeks before that. … We also are noting WS death totals each week. The total deaths for the entire pandemic in the two HRAs comprising West Seattle: 65, unchanged from last week.

STATEWIDE NUMBERS: See them here.

WORLDWIDE NUMBERS: 135.8 million cases and 2,935,000+ deaths, 562,000+ of them in the U.S. – see the nation-by-nation breakdown here.

LOOKING FOR VACCINE? Here are links to try:

*Check for West Seattle city-run site appointments here; sign up for the city’s notification list for all four of its sites here.
*Health-care providers (particularly bigger ones like UW Medicine (one reader specifically recommends Valley Medical Center), Franciscan, Swedish, Kaiser Permanente, Neighborcare, etc.)
*covidwa.com (volunteer-run aggregator) – you can also follow its tweets for instant notifications
*The state’s Vaccine Locator (as mentioned above)
*The CDC’s Vaccine Finder
*Pharmacies big and small – Safeway, Rite Aid, QFC, Pharmaca, Costco
*Sea Mar clinics

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

flimflam April 12, 2021 (6:23 am)

right. it won’t be “judgment day” in part because Inslee changed the metrics yet again. after caving to business groups, there is no way (King County, at least) will ever rollback even to phase 2. not going to happen…

G April 12, 2021 (8:01 am)

I think phase 2 would also mess up all those plans for many more students to return to school just after returning from spring break next Monday. Cases will most definitely continue to climb.
Lisab April 12, 2021 (10:03 am)

Agree with both of you. And Inslee definitely caved.
David Benson April 12, 2021 (10:04 am)

Which was the correct thing to do. I’m glad he is adapting a tiny bit. I wonder if maybe he is becoming aware of the 5 months of data from Florida and 5 weeks of data from Texas showing that business closures and restrictions have little to no effect on virus spread.
- Scubafrog April 12, 2021 (11:37 am)
  
  Are you paying no attention whatsoever to the CDC and Covid #’s? “Business closures and restrictions have no effect on virus spread.” Good heavens.
  - WSB April 12, 2021 (11:44 am)
    
    Of potential interest, the weekly WA state report on “non-health-care congregate settings” that are sources of outbreaks.
    https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/data-tables/StatewideCOVID-19OutbreakReport.pdf
    - David Benson April 12, 2021 (12:31 pm)
      
      Yep, interesting. Restaurants are operating at their highest capacity in a year with indoor dining yet accounted for only 6 possible positive tests in the week reported. Ranked 3rd on that list (surprisingly I don’t see households which I would expect to be #1).I refer to Texas, as they have been completely open at 100% capacity for 5 weeks now and have sustained a decline in deaths and no spike in positive tests. One would have expected a sharp spiking beginning to form at the 2-3 week mark. Florida did in fact still have a wave a few months after lifting all restrictions (Let’s be honest, there were never any real restrictions to begin with from what I saw when I was there), but that wave fell directly in line with the waves neighboring states with restrictions in place had. As a data scientist the comparison of restricted states versus open states in the same region would be the data set I would examine to determine any effect of an introduced variable.
    - RME April 12, 2021 (1:19 pm)
      
      It doesn’t say 6 positive tests, it says 6 outbreaks.
  - DJ April 12, 2021 (3:31 pm)
    
    Very interesting. Would you have a citation/link for that? Thanks
    - David Benson April 13, 2021 (12:05 pm)
      
      My mistake, it’s a little fuzzy, but they appear to define outbreaks as 1 or more positive tests linked to a location. so still a small overall number. But the point I was making is that they are responsible for half the number of outbreaks as the leading source, despite them being at the highest capacity they have been at in a year. So small dataset, but increasing restaurant capacity doesn’t appear to have led to an increase in restaurant outbreaks.Not sure if DJ is referring to me. But I just use the CDC site and compare data between states. For example you can look at FL’s graph (no restrictions since September) against Louisiana’s graph (still has restrictions) and then adjust for population. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendscases