The first week of December in Seattle has been one of the driest and warmest in history. Saturday will provide one more day of sunshine before a major shift in our weather pattern to wet, cool, and breezy happens.
November and December haven’t just been warm; so far, Seatac Airport has only been below freezing once, on November 29 for a couple of hours when the temperature dripped to 31 degrees. The forecast calls for temperatures to dip to 29 degrees tonight on the eastside, but still not cold enough or long enough for a hard freeze for the Puget Sound lowlands’ urban areas.
Saturday will bring partly cloudy skies with a high of 46 to the eastside. Closer to home in the Bellevue-Kirkland-Woodinville area, temperatures will range from 44 on the highest hills to 48 closest to the water, Totem Lake, and downtown Bellevue.
Sunday will be cool and wet, with a high of 44 and persistent rain through the day. The forecast models indicate rain, and a lot of it, as far out as we can see. Monday appears to be the best day next week, but it will still be cool with rain showers.
The first week of December was one of the warmest and driest in Seattle history. During the first seven days, Seattle hit a new record of 60 degrees on December 2 and got to 58 degrees on December 5. It rained on three of the seven days, but rainfall totaled just 6/100 of an inch. In December of 2011, Seattle went rainless during the first 7 days of the month.
North King County and Snohomish County hospitals are nearing maximum ICU capacity, and a few have already hit that point. In Kirkland, Washington, the first significant outbreak site in the United States, Evergreen Hospital is currently at 90% ICU usage. Further north in Everett, Washington, Providence Hospital ICU is at 100% capacity.
In contrast, Seattle and Bellevue are reporting more available beds, but a worsening situation. Seattle is at 70% utilization while Overlake Hospital in Bellevue is at 64%. The utilization number at Overlake doesn’t tell a complete picture. The facility has a staffing crisis due to a low number of available specialists and many nurses sick with COVID. Traveling nurses are making as much as $10,000 a week to work at hospitals in COVID hotspots. Nurses are offered such high pay due to the dire need, long hours, and overall risk of infection. In Seattle, Harborview Medical Center has more patients with COVID than at any time since the pandemic started.
Area capacity to treat patients is reaching a critical breaking point. Seattle only has 121 ICU beds available as of this writing, based on a seven-day rolling average. With almost 1,100 patients in Washington hospitals with COVID, the governor’s office predicted that a “better case” scenario would be 2,000 hospitalized by the end of the year.
The central issue isn’t available hospital beds, but the staff to support sick patients. A COVID patient in ICU requires an extensive care team of three to four people per patient. Hospitals are optimized from a staff and revenue standpoint to operate at 60% to 80% capacity. The excess capacity is available for short term surges due to accidents, natural or humanmade disasters. To sustain above 80%, hospitals need additional staffing, which isn’t widely available.
Earlier today, the United States reached another grim milestone. Officials reported 3,054 COVID deaths, the most single-day fatalities in the United States since the pandemic started.
The New York Times, US Department of Health and Human Services, and The COVID Tracking Project provided some of this article’s data.
The city of Seattle was found to be in contempt of court for multiple uses of force violations by a federal judge. The violations represent four distinct incidents, two on September 7, one on September 22, and one on September 23. The city of Seattle has until December 11 to respond and the federal court will issue a remedy on or by December 18.
As the reality of the 2020 election results start to solidify, violence from far-right extremists is increasing across the country including a police officer run over by anti-masker in New York and a shooting in Olympia, Washington.
Kesha Rodgers and Sara So of The Ally League discuss cancel culture and the need for patience
Kesha Rodgers started The Ally League with her friend Sara So to help promote and support Black businesses and dismantle systemic racism. The events of 2020, including the resurgent Black Lives Matter movement and the disproportionate impact of COVID on the BIPOC community, created opportunity and hardship. As working moms, Rodgers and So realized that people wanted to support the Black community but didn’t have the time or resources to engage actively. The mission of The Ally League is to promote and support Black-owned businesses while enabling allies to learn about the available products. In this second part of our interview, Kesha and Sara talk about cancel culture and the need for patience.
Jenny Durkan will not seek re-election, thanks for the memories
After a tumultuous year, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has announced that she will not be seeking re-election. Amid multiple calls for her resignation, she has seen her support wane, both inside and out of city hall. While enjoying some early successes, such as negotiating to bring the NHL back to Seattle, the mayor also faced challenges that many felt she was not up to handling.
Governor Inslee held a press conference today where he announced additional grants for small businesses, a potential unemployment extension for up to 100,000 citizens, and a continuation of statewide COVID restrictions. The governor cited 80% ICU utilization, 1,094 people hospitalized for COVID statewide, and over 10,500 new cases reported in the last 48-hours as the reasons for the extension. The state projects that 2,000 Washingtonians will be hospitalized with COVID under a “moderate” scenario by the end of December.
Part of today’s press conference announced an additional $50 million in grants to assist small businesses most impact by COVID-related closures. The Department of Commerce is prioritizing businesses such as yoga studios, fitness centers, entertainment venues, and bars to receive the new grants. The maximum amount a company can receive is $20,000. The number of approved applicants will determine that final sum.
Officials in Washington D.C. remain deadlocked on a second stimulus package for Main Street and citizens. Benefits from the CARES Act in the form of unemployment extensions and unemployment for 1099 employees, also called gig workers, is set to expire on December 31. For most people, the actual expiration date is December 26. Governor Inslee announced that for a subset of people collecting unemployment, extensions would continue into January.
People collecting Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) will continue to received benefits if the federal government does not come up with a stimulus package. This extension benefits approximately 60% on unemployment and would represent a flat payment versus the current sliding scale. The governor did not state how much each qualified individual would get, only saying that for “a few,” it would be less. The governor indicated that funds were available for him to extend the program through executive order and that Employment Security was already working on implementing the plan. Officials stated there were insufficient funds to expand PEUC, impacting as many as 172,000 people if benefits expire.
Governor Inslee did not take further business restrictions off the table and announced businesses not complying could receive fines up to $10,000 a day. Multiple state officials stated that we would better understand the number of new COVID cases created by Thanksgiving travel and celebrations in the next one to two weeks. The change in those numbers will dictate if the state needs to issue another extension after January 4 or take more robust measures.
State officials indicated that 62,000 doses of the Coronavirus vaccine would arrive in the state of Washington on December 15. Frontline healthcare workers and residents of nursing homes would get top priority. An additional 182,000 doses would come by the end of December, with more “likely” in January. Immunization requires two doses, 28 days apart, and takes a total of 60 days to become effective. The amount of vaccine arriving in December will not be enough to immunize everyone at the head of the line. Washington will receive vaccines from AstraZeneca and Moderna.
Update: Guenzler was still in custody in Thurston County jail as of 4:40 PM Tuesday, December 8, 2020.
Thurston County officials have set bail at $50,000 for a 27-year-old Port Orchard 27 man accused of shooting and pistol-whipping two different people during a rally in Olympia earlier this month. Chris Guenzler’s bail is $25,000 for each of the two charges, first-degree assault and second-degree assault. Furthermore, the court has ordered that he cannot possess or reside in a home where he may have access to firearms. A pre-trial report indicates that he currently lives with his parents in Port Orchard, stores guns in his room and that his father has a gun safe in the home where additional guns are presently stored.
On December 5, multiple journalists aligned with both the left and right media report capturing video of Guenzler pistol-whipping an individual, then waving his firearm before placing it back in its holster. Through various videos obtained through social media, it was noted he was tracking a specific subject as he discharged his firearm. Guenzler was taken into custody following a review of this evidence and was cooperative but noticeably nervous during questioning.
Guenzler’s social media profile showed a years-long pattern of supporting white nationalist ideology. He was attending a pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” rally in Olympia and was caught on camera committing numerous violent acts during the afternoon. Guenzler is currently awaiting arraignment in Thurston County Jail, which the court has set for December 22.
Community manager Ty Steele contributed to this story.
Journalists, activists, and researchers defending the First Amendment
Subscribe to Malcontent News
Register to feed your head holes with the Malcontent News newsletter.
Submitting your e-mail address gives us permission to send you e-mails. We do not sell or distribute our e-mail lists or share them with third parties.
