PANDEMIC UPDATES: Local check-in #24, 12/27/2021, Seattle Public Schools update included

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.

14 Replies to "PANDEMIC UPDATES: Local check-in #24, 12/27/2021, Seattle Public Schools update included"

  • valvashon December 27, 2021 (10:32 pm)

    Had an appointment(s) scheduled for the Curative site at the boat ramp tomorrow (Tuesday the 28th) and just received an e-mail saying that the site will be closed that day but will be open on Wednesday.  Nothing available until after the new year so I will be heading down to the SW Athletic Complex as a walk in tomorrow.  Curative can sometimes squeeze you in on a particular day if you have an appointment on another day but I’m not going to chance it.

  • JJ December 27, 2021 (10:48 pm)

    In the past hospitalizations trailed behind cases, and deaths lagged behind hospitalizations.  I wouldn’t count any chickens before they hatch.

    • SW December 28, 2021 (9:53 am)

      I agree and are people even reporting during their vacations?

  • NW MAMA December 28, 2021 (11:38 am)

    Thank you to our community.  Look at those vaccination rates!  Keeping my vaccinated family member with cancer safer than would be in other areas.  

  • Sarah Airhart December 28, 2021 (12:32 pm)

    Would you PLEASE add the sites or links to where/how we can get boosters? THANK YOU

    • WSB December 28, 2021 (12:38 pm)

      The West Seattle city clinic is closed until 1/7, Pliable’s not having another independent clinic until 1/9. That’s all I have right now.

    • wsperson December 28, 2021 (2:08 pm)

      I was able to get an appointment for a booster at QFC next week through their website, and you can find some other places here: https://vaccinelocator.doh.wa.gov/

      Pharmaca says they welcome walk-ins but I walked in there and they said “no” but they do have some appointments available.

  • Tony December 28, 2021 (3:02 pm)

    It looks like the SW Athletic Complex  is booked for the week for testing appts. Can anyone confirm if they are accepting walk up?

    • James December 28, 2021 (4:43 pm)

      We were there with appointments today but they do accept walk ins. I would say there were 50 people in the walk in line at 3. We got tested last week as walk-ins and the wait was 30-40 minutes.

    • Emily December 28, 2021 (4:59 pm)

      They are accepting walk ups, but the wait is much Ionger.  We had appointments today and waited about 40min.  The non-appointment line was 3x the length.

  • Ellen Carleton December 28, 2021 (8:59 pm)

    Made an appointment for testing last Wed at Thistle St. Even though the staff was confused as to where I should stand, and therefore participants were confused as well,  it was a relatively easy process.  Appointments are the way to go, no registering on a cellphone in driving rain.Online sign up has a question that was unanswerable for me so I had to call to get help. When it asks for your reason for testing, enter “family exposure;” that works.

  • MLM December 28, 2021 (9:28 pm)

    This is an legimate question not a sarcastic one. Are people going in to be tested because they’ve been exposed or because they’re scared because of the newest variant going around?

    • WS Res December 29, 2021 (12:05 am)

      Xmas Eve I had a killer headache, which I figured was the weather system moving in. Xmas Day I started waking up at 4am with GI issues which kind of never stopped. By trip #3 to the Little Elves’ Room, I assumed I ate something bad the day before. So my “festive holiday meal” was soda water and plain rice. But by about 2pm my body was really starting to hurt and by 3pm I was starting to spike a low grade fever. By the time I got to an advice nurse, it was too late to head out to Burien for a test, so I sacrificed a $75 Lucira rapid at-home test I’d been saving. While I was waiting for the results, my WA State exposure tracker went off: it reported that I’d had proximity to someone who later tested positive.  But the exposure was 9 days previous, and for less than 15 minutes (talk about ambiguous). Rapid test came back negative, but only a lab test can be really sure. Still waiting for my results from getting swabbed yesterday. HTH.

      • waikikigirl December 29, 2021 (9:36 pm)

        WS RES, Sending good thoughts  to you and hoping you are negative!

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