Our weekly update on local pandemic numbers and notes is moving to Mondays for at least this week and next since the holidays are changing the county’s update schedule. That means this update contains 10 days of data, compared to the 7 days in our previous update:

KING COUNTY CUMULATIVE NUMBERS (through today):

*193,703 cases – 14,309 more than the data through 12/17 in our previous update (7,038 total in West Seattle, up 668)
*9,079 hospitalizations – 142 more than the previous update (265 total from West Seattle, up 3)
*2,153 people have died – 17 more than the previous update (77 total in West Seattle, up 1)

TRENDS

Go to the county’s dashboard page for a look at the graphs – while cases are up sharply, hospitalizations have risen at a lower rate, and deaths are down. That bears out in the West Seattle-specific stats – in particular, while the case numbers have jumped, the hospitalization rate has not increased nearly as much.

SEATTLE PUBLIC SCHOOLS STATS

Though school has been out for a week, the district added cases to its dashboard for the weekly update today, so we are incorporating the local breakout here. Districtwide, since last Monday, the cumulative case total for this school year is 1,194, 116 more than a week earlier. 23 of the new cases are in the Southwest (West Seattle/South Park) region. Here’s the local school-by-school breakout (as always, the total is cumulative since the start of the school year):

Denny International Middle School – 26, unchanged
Chief Sealth International High School – 24, unchanged
West Seattle High School – 21, up 10
Louisa Boren STEM K-8 – 16, up 5
Roxhill Elementary – 15, unchanged
Gatewood Elementary – 14, up 2
Highland Park Elementary – 14, unchanged
Genesee Hill Elementary – 14, unchanged
Arbor Heights Elementary – 14, unchanged
Madison Middle School – 12, up 1
Fairmount Park Elementary – 11, up 4
West Seattle Elementary – 10, unchanged
Lafayette Elementary – 10, unchanged
Concord International (Elementary) – 9, unchanged
Pathfinder K-8 – 8, unchanged
Alki Elementary – 6, up 1
Sanislo Elementary – 4, unchanged
BRIDGES @ Roxhill – 1, unchanged

VACCINATION RATE

81.3% of King County residents 5+ have completed their vaccine series – up .4% from our previous update

By West Seattle zip code – note that these numbers are still NOT available as 5+, so they reflect percentage of 12+ population:
98106 – 87.7% completed series, 36% had a booster dose too
98116 – 91% completed series, 47% had a booster dose too
98126 – 83% completed series, 40.1% had a booster dose too
98136 – 92.6% completed series, 51.3% had a booster dose too
98146 – 83.2% completed series, 32.3% had a booster dose too

(Find more COVID-related King County stats here.)

THE WEEK’S PANDEMIC HEADLINES

Quarantine/isolation recommendation changes – Expecting a wave of asymptomatic cases, the CDC has changed its recommendations for quarantine and isolation – here are the details.

New WANotify feature for home testers – If you test positive with a home kit, now you can enter that into the app that will anonymously notify users that they’ve been exposed.

NEED TO GET TESTED IN WEST SEATTLE?

The UW Medicine testing service in the Nino Cantu Southwest Athletic Complex parking lot (2801 SW Thistle) continues to operate; you can make an appointment here. Readers report that waiting time is long and walk-ups have been turned away. Meantime, the Curative testing kiosk at Don Armeni Boat Ramp (1222 Harbor SW) is also still operating (no availabilities are shown right now until next Monday), though readers report it was not staffed today (likely because of the weather). Curative’s Summit Atlas location is shown as reopening Tuesday, January 4th.