Knowledge is the best tool to fight against fear. A wise person chooses to be informed so they can make sound decisions. To join the fight against COVID misinformation, you can share this update through your social media platform of choice.

[KING COUNTY, Wash.] – (MTN) Although Washington reached a grim milestone of 7,000 COVID-related deaths today, data on new cases indicated that the Evergreen State is reaching a peak. The divide between the most and least vaccinated counties continues to widen, and the number of patients in the ICU reached a critical level statewide.

The Lake Washington School District expands how much COVID data they are sharing and in the Northshore School District, a concerning trend has emerged at three schools.

Hospitals in Spokane are suspending all non-emergency surgeries as they struggle to support the lower vaccinated counties in Eastern Washington and the surge in Idaho. In Bellingham, officials report they are inching closer to crisis standards.

Edmonds canceled Oktoberfest for the second year in a row.

Almost 4,800 state employees have requested a vaccination exemption, about 8% of the 60,000 person workforce. Protesters are coming to Vancouver, Washington’s Skyview High School on Wednesday despite a court order, and they are bringing infamous Seattle street preacher Matthew with them.

The mayor of Puyallup is started a fundraiser to show appreciation to hospital workers.

We have expanded our travel advisory to include Spokane County and the state of Alaska, with the latter having the largest hospital move to “crisis standards of care.”

In the misinformation section, we discuss swollen testicles and Betadine.

This update uses the latest data from the Washington State Department of Health released on September 14, 2021.

Washington State Update for September 14, 2021

Washington state COVID update

Today’s data provided a strong indication that Washington state has hit a peak while demonstrating the effectiveness of vaccines. In the South Central Hospital Region, which includes Benton, Franklin, Klickitat, Walla Walla, and Yakima counties, new cases are 883.3 per 100K people, essentially unchanged from yesterday. In comparison, the Central Hospital Region, which represents King County, had a rate of 295.4. In addition, for counties that are 50% fully vaccinated or higher, the 14-day rolling average of new cases dropped below 500 for the first time since we started tracking.

Through September 13, Washington’s statewide 14-day rolling average was 500.8 COVID cases per 100K, which is within the 500 to 535 range the state has bounced between. Lincoln (1,294.1 per 100K), Franklin (1,170.9 per 100K), and Stevens (1,121.5 per 100K) reported an extreme number of new cases. Counties in the 800.0 to 999.9 per 100K range include Adams, Asotin, Benton, Chelan, Clallam, Cowlitz, Douglas, Grant, Grays Harbor, Lewis, Okanagan, and Pend Oreille. Although Yakima County fell off of the report, its case rate is 799.4 per 100K.

The Washington State Department of Health reports a data backlog for test positivity, with the published number 14 days old. According to Johns Hopkins University Medicine, the positivity rate for the last 30 days is 13.40%, and over the previous 7 days, 13.67%. These numbers indicate the state is under testing. Further, there has been little change in the positivity rate for almost a month.

The 7-day case rate was up for birth to 34 years old, and down for 80 and over. Hospitalizations were mostly flat, with a slight increase for adolescents from 12 to 19 years old.

The USA Today COVID Tracker reported 63 deaths on Tuesday and Washington state crossed a grim milestone of 7,000 COVID-related deaths since February 29, 2020.

Edmonds Oktoberfest canceled due to concerns about COVID

For the second year in a row, The Rotary of Clubs of Edmonds has canceled Oktoberfest due to concerns about COVID. The event had been scheduled for September 24 and 25. The organization made an announcement on the Oktoberfest website.

This change was made as a safety precaution given the current COVID-19 environment. The rate of new COVID cases reached an all-time high last week at 464 per 100,000 people, according to data released Tuesday, Sept. 7, by the Snohomish Health District.

“This decision was not made lightly,” said Maggie Peterson, Edmonds Rotary President. “We very much want Edmonds Oktoberfest to be a family-friendly traditional event but the current rise in COVID-19 cases, combined with the start of the school year, creates a situation where there would be many vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals co-mingling. We are looking forward to bringing back Oktoberfest (or similar event) including the Kids Korner and all corresponding fun activities in 2022!”

Edmonds Oktoberfest Founder and Committee Co-Chair David Kaufer added, “We are dependent on volunteers to run this event, with more than 170 volunteer slots identified. We do not feel comfortable placing them, as well as attendees and other participants, in a situation where they may be at a higher risk of catching or transmitting this highly contagious variant.”

Those who have purchased tickets for Edmonds Oktoberfest may request a refund by emailing david@edmondsrotary.com. 

Almost 4,800 state employees ask to be exempt from vaccine mandate

The Seattle Times is reporting that almost 4,800 state employees, about 8% of the 60,000 state government employees required to get vaccinated have requested an exemption. Exemptions can be granted on religious or medical grounds, but the bar is high for both. As we reported a few days ago, there are only a handful of religions in the United States that have a core tenet of refusing Western medicine such as vaccinations.

The request for exemptions represents a cross-section of 24 different state agencies from the Washington State Patrol to the Department of Revenue. In attempting to read the entrails on how many employees may eventually quit, over 80% of state workers represented by the Washington Federation of State Employees ratified a compromise agreement for a vaccine mandate with more than 80% approval. The union represents almost 47,000 of the state’s 60,000 government workers. On the other end of the spectrum, a lawsuit filed in Walla Walla which attempts to dismantle the vaccine mandate has 89 plaintiffs.

State employees not represented by the WFSE have until October 4 to receive the single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine to be in compliance with the October 18 deadline if they have not received their first dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. Certain employees with the WFSE could go past that date if they meet certain requirements set in the compromise ratified last week.

Anti-vaccine protest planned at Skyview High School in Vancouver – again

The group Waking Up Washington is planning a protest at Skyview High School in Vancouver, Washington on Wednesday, and they are bringing infamous Seattle street preacher Matthew with them. If you have ever been to a protest, rally, concert, march, parade, or large sporting event in Seattle, you have likely heard Matthew.

This action is being driven by 14-year old Melanie Gabriel, a student at the school who was attempting to get a 504 exemption to not have to wear a mask. The anti-vaccination activity in Oregon and Washington is largely run by a handful of people. Michelle Morales-Walker is the most prominent voice and face of the movement. She is supported by Joey Gibson of Patriot Prayer, Ammon Bundy, Washougal Women, and Palmer Davis of La Center.

The group was withdrawn from a planned protest in Olympia on Saturday, due to a Proud Boys rally planned for the same day.

The Seattle Truth Network, in coordination with Wake Up Washington, is planning an anti-vaccination event on September 25 at Rooster’s Bakery and Cafe in Woodinville.

Puyallup Mayor organizing fund raiser for employees at MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital

Puyallup Mayor Julie Door organized a GoFundMe page earlier this month to raise money for Starbucks gift cards, which will be distributed to 2,134 employees at MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital.

Door created the GoFundMe page on Sept. 2 and had $6,050 as of Sept. 10. She thought she could show support for the employees by raising funds to give each of them a $5 Starbucks gift card.

Editor’s Opinion: Not directed at Mayor Door, however, most medical workers would prefer for everyone to wear a mask and get vaccinated so they don’t show up in the emergency department sick due to COVID. It isn’t a lack of gratitude. They’re exhausted and see this current wave as preventable.

Travel Advisories

We recommend avoiding all travel to Spokane, Yakima, Klickitat, Benton, Franklin, and Walla Walla counties, along with the states of Alaska and Idaho. Hospital resources in these regions are so constrained that you may receive inadequate care if you experience a medical emergency.

Thank you

Thank you to our new subscribers and those of you who have made one-time contributions. On behalf of the entire team, thank you for helping us keep the lights on!

Vaccination

No update beyond please get vaccinated.

Hospital Status

According to the DoH COVID Dashboard, 23.1% of all acute care patients hospitalized in Washington have COVID. A hospital system caring for this many COVID-positive patients in acute care is considered to be under “severe stress.” ICUs are at 91.4% of capacity statewide, with 35.6% of ICU patients fighting COVID. This is the highest level of occupancy within Washington state ICUs and the highest percentage of COVID patients under care.

The hospital admission rate Epidemiologic Curve dashboard wasn’t working today. It appears the daily hospitalization rate is in the 160s, which would be close to yesterday. This is another encouraging sign that the state may be hitting a peak. The Department of Health reported there were 1,683 COVID patients statewide on September 13 and 269 on ventilators. Both numbers indicate a decline although we have no way of knowing if the decline was due to fatalities or releases.

Providence Hospital announced this afternoon that they were stopping all non-emergency surgeries effective tomorrow, due to the growing patient load in Eastern Washington.

We got a response from the Washington State Department of Health on getting data on NICU, PICU, and pediatric COVID cases. The state is working on tracking that data and providing it as either a report or a dashboard. The date of availability was not provided.

News that Washington was still taking transfer patients from out state has created outrage on social media. The Washington State Hospital Association indicated they were taking patients but emphasized it was far fewer than in the past. Additionally, there are some hospital networks that have facilities between Washington and Oregon or Washington and Idaho, and patient transfers within those systems would be normal. In the same press conference, the WHSA indicated that a patient from Spokane was transferred to Idaho.

Everett Providence reported today that they are accepting “two to three” transfer patients a day, mostly from the North Puget Sound region. However, they currently have patients from Alaska, Idaho, and Montana. Officials also pointed out that Snohomish County is sending patients to King County.

In Bellingham, PeaceHealth Regional Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sudhakar Karlapudi stated the hospital was “at the cusp” of facing a COVID crisis similar to what hospitals in Yakima, Richland, and Walla Walla are facing. The hospital set a new record for the number of COVID patients under care over the weekend.

Back to School

The Lake Washington School District updated its tracking dashboard providing a better degree of insight on the number of confirmed COVID cases among students and faculty, mirroring the information provided by the Bellevue School District.

Although there are a significant number of impacted schools in the LWSD, there have not been any community transmission outbreaks within the district. The number of impacted schools in BSD declined overnight, and we were able to get more data on quarantines.

The more concerning trend is in the Northshore School District where 3 schools now have 5 or more reported confirmed COVID cases. Bothell High School has 7 confirmed cases between students and faculty, and another 21 in quarantine. Shelton View Elementary has 5 confirmed cases among students and another 9 in quarantine. North Creek High School has 7 confirmed cases among students, and 8 more in quarantine.

Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville

No update

National Round-Up

Johns Hopkins University Cumulitaive Case Tracker has not been updated at press time.

Three states have exited the CDC ‘high’ COVID transmission category – Vermont, the most vaccinated state, Connect, the second most vaccinated state, and California, the 16th most vaccinated state.

The Pentagon announced guidance on the vaccination mandate that was established in August for active-duty military. Service members have three months to become fully vaccinated for face discharge from the force. The Marines released a soldier last week for refusing to wear a mask, issuing a general discharge under honorable conditions.

In what could be called ironic, Russian President Vladamir Putin is self-isolating after he was exposed to COVID. Putin who is vaccinated has faced accusations from European and North American nations of backing the spread of COVID misinformation to undermine trust in democratic governments.

Alaska

Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage Alaska, the largest hospital in the state, was forced to move to crisis standards of care on Tuesday. The hospital published a two-page letter explaining why they had to restrict care and start making black tag triage decisions.

“At this time, we feel we have an ethical obligation to be transparent with our community and share with the public the distressing reality of what is happening inside the walls of our hospital. The state’s COVID-19 Dashboard isn’t equipped or designed to demonstrate the intricacies of providing medical care during this unprecedented time. More than 30% of the adult patients hospitalized at Providence have tested positive for COVID-19.

Our caregivers are doing their best, just as they have been for the past 18 months of this pandemic. We
believe that the Providence administration has acted in good faith throughout the pandemic, following the guidance of local and national experts to create policies and procedures that protect patients and caregivers.

While we are doing our utmost, we are no longer able to provide the standard of care to each and every
patient who needs our help. The acuity and number of patients now exceeds our resources and our ability to staff beds with skilled caregivers, like nurses and respiratory therapists. We have been forced within our hospital to implement crisis standards of care.

What does this mean? In short, we are faced with a situation in which we must prioritize scarce resources and treatments to those patients who have the potential to benefit most. We have been required to develop and enact policies and procedures to ration medical care and treatments, including dialysis and specialized ventilatory support.”

Doctor Kristen Solana Walkinshaw, Chief of Staff indicated that this decision could have a dramatic impact on healthcare across Alaska.

Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson last weeksaid he will not ask residents to get vaccinated, issue a mask mandate, or order other COVID-19 restrictions. Bronson also said hospital capacity issues weren’t caused by COVID-19 patients but nurses leaving their jobs over vaccination requirements.

“Nurses here are not leaving because of the vaccine mandates. They’re leaving because they’re overwhelmed by the emotional toll it’s taking,” Gonsette, the Providence hospitalist, said in an interview Tuesday. “Part of it, we all feel it, is because we are not heard. The public either wants to bury their head in the sand or maybe some of them really don’t know what’s going on. Those are the ones we’re trying to reach.”

Colorado

We have avoided reporting on right-wing radio or TV personalities who have become infected or have died from COVID, but Bob Enyart was a special kind of awful. Enyart, a provocateur who gleefully mocked the deaths of AIDS victims, had encouraged his listeners not to get any of the three available COVID-19 vaccines because he claimed they had been tested on “cells of aborted babies.” (Though coronavirus vaccines do not contain fetal cells, Johnson & Johnson used a historic fetal cell line to produce and manufacture its vaccine; Pfizer and Moderna used a fetal cell line in a very early phase to confirm efficacy prior to production.) He also successfully sued the state of Colorado over COVID-related restrictions on church attendance.

Enyart’s wife is still hospitalized with COVID.

Editor’s Note: It is ironic that Mr. Enyart would die after exaggerating the danger AIDS presented to the general population while minimizing the impact of the second pandemic in his lifetime.

Idaho

The situation in Idaho is going from worse to catastrophic. In a media briefing today Idaho Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen reported “Hospitalizations in Southwest, Central and South Central health districts, which includes the Treasure Valley and the Magic Valley, are reaching a critical point,” Jeppesen said. “Without a change in direction, crisis standards of care are imminent for all three of those health districts.”

The rising number of COVID patients has already forced Idaho hospitals to delay some surgeries and treatments. Health officials say more than 90% of COVID patients are unvaccinated. During crisis standards of care, Jeppesen says hospital administrators are forced to make tough decisions about how to allocate scarce resources.

Boise Mayor Lauren McLean announced new COVID-related restrictions that will start on Friday.

Any permitted event or activity held in a city-owned building must require masks indoors, require masks outdoors if six feet of physical distance can not be maintained, and submit a plan to the city for approval, and requiring “COVID-19 Protocol Ambassadors” on-site. In addition, the mayor said, all events over 250 people must require proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID test. 

Event organizers will be tasked with supplying masks to those who do not have them. 

North Dakota

Hospitals in Fargo, North Dakota are reaching crisis levels as Minnesota deals with its own increase in cases, and is limiting the number of transfer patients.

“We do believe that here in Fargo, we’re probably about two to three weeks away from peaking in terms of COVID cases. But we’re already at capacity and have been for a few weeks now due to our overall non-COVID census being very high,” said Dr. Doug Griffin, vice president and chief medical officer at Sanford Health in Fargo.

Griffin said most of their COVID patients are local or coming from western North Dakota, where vaccination rates remain low. Griffin said the hospital is turning away patients who need critical care, some from as far away as southern Minnesota. 

Ohio

Governor Mike DeWine would instate a statewide mask mandate for K-12 schools if it weren’t for a state law passed earlier this year that allows state lawmakers to repeal health orders.

“If I could put on a statewide mandate, if the health department could do it, we’d do it,” he said during a Tuesday press conference. “The legislature has made it very clear that if we put a mandate on for kids in schools to wear a mask, they would take it off.”

DeWine’s comments were a shift from the Republican governor’s previous position, which had been that there isn’t an “appetite” for such mandates. DeWine has instead emphasized personal responsibility and sharing information with Ohioans.

Oregon

The number of Oregonians hospitalized with COVID-19 peaked on September first, but experts say the situation is still dire, and hospitalization rates are likely to remain high for months

“The good news is that we did peak,” said Peter Graven with Oregon Health and Science University. “The bad news is, the model is showing that it could take until the end of October or even November until we really get down to the levels that we had prior to the surge.”

Tennessee

Tennessee is now ranked as the worst state in the nation for COVID spread. The state, which ranks 40th for vaccinations, has the highest new case rate, and if it were a country, it would be third-worst in the world.

Utah

Parents in Utah aren’t getting notified about a child’s COVID exposure for days, and sometimes up to a week after it happened.

With recent testing difficulties and delays in contact tracing, parents around Utah are saying they aren’t getting notified of their kids’ classroom exposures until it’s almost too late to do anything about it. Quarantine periods generally are backdated to begin 10 days after the exposure or a student began having symptoms, but families may not know to start quarantine until days later.

Misinformation

We have a two for one tonight for misinformation. Part one – Nicki Minaj.

There is no scientific evidence, nor one single VAERS entry prior to September 13, 2021, stating that the COVID vaccine causes swelling in a man’s testicles. There is no scientific evidence to back up the claim that the COVID vaccine causes infertility in men or women (there is evidence that COVID infections cause stillbirths and premature births).

However, there is a condition that can cause swelling of the testicles, infertility, and a mate wanting to call off a wedding. That’s called gonorrhea. This type of misinformation is called a false causality fallacy where the “link between premises and conclusion depends on some imagined causal connection that probably does not exist.”

That would be correct.

First, it was hydroxychloroquine, and more than a year after former President Donald Trump stopped advocating it as a possible treatment, people are still taking it.

Then it was Chlorine dioxide, a chemical bleach that has been previously advertised as a junk science cure for autism.

Next came ivermectin – and we’ve beat that dead horse into the ground.

Then it was glyphosate, a herbicide.

Now it’s Betadine, the iodine-based antibacterial antiseptic. Yes, Betadine, and apparently people are drinking it and gargling with it, despite it being toxic when ingested. Additionally, long-term consumption of excess iodine can damage the thyroid.

The manufacturer of Betadine was receiving so many calls and inquiries they were forced to put a COVID-19 FAQ on their website.

“Betadine^® Antiseptic First Aid products have not been approved to treat coronavirus. Betadine® Antiseptic First Aid products should only be used to help prevent infection in minor cuts, scrapes and burns.”

Betadine won’t prevent, treat, or cure COVID.

Knowledge is the best tool to fight against fear. A wise person chooses to be informed so they can make sound decisions. To join the fight against COVID misinformation, you can share this update through your social media platform of choice.

[KING COUNTY, Wash.] – (MTN) The number of hospitalized COVID patients dropped slightly over the weekend, while the number of critically ill patients on ventilators increased. New King County and statewide vaccination data show the gap between the most vaccinated and least vaccinated counties grew wider. A new IHME forecast indicates Washington may have hit the peak but forecasts a long fall ahead.

Two more schools in the Lake Washington School District reported COVID cases, while the number of quarantined students at Kamiakin Middle School rose to 140.

The Washington State Hospital Association stated hospitals were operating in “contingency care” as staffing, transportation, and some critical equipment remain in tight supply. 911 dispatchers in Seattle were diverting ambulance calls for part of the day on Saturday, as local emergency departments were flooded with a surge of patients.

A ferry was delayed by a man who refused to wear a mask, and on Friday, ferries heading to the San Juan Islands were canceled due to a sick out.

Complaints have emerged at the Spokane County Fair and the Washington State Fair due to people not wearing masks indoors and lax enforcement.

Almost 90 Washington state employees have filed a lawsuit in Walla Walla trying to block the governor’s vaccination mandate. A woman was cited for trespass in Vancouver for refusing to wear a mask and refusing to leave a private business.

This update uses the latest data from the Washington State Department of Health released on September 13, 2021.

Washington State Update for September 13, 2021

Washington state COVID update

The gap between the highest vaccinated counties versus the least widened more over the weekend. In the South Central Hospital Region, which includes Benton, Franklin, Klickitat, Walla Walla, and Yakima counties, new cases are 886.1 per 100K people. In comparison, the Central Hospital Region, which represents King County, had a rate of 318.6.

Through September 12, Washington’s statewide 14-day rolling average was 526.1 COVID cases per 100K, which is slightly up from Friday but still within the 500 to 535 range the state has bounced between for weeks. Asotin (1,007.1 per 100K), Clallam (1,057.7 per 100K), Douglas (1,024.0 per 100K), Franklin (1,182.0 per 100K), Grant (1,036.7 per 100K) Lincoln (1194.6 per 100K), Okanogan (1,013.2 per 100K), and Stevens (1,191.2 per 100K) reported an extreme number of new cases. Counties in the 800.0 to 999.9 per 100K range include Adams, Benton, Chelan, Columbia, Cowlitz, Grays Harbor, Lewis, Pend Oreille, and Yakima. Garfield County dropped to 764.0

The Washington State Department of Health reports a data backlog for test positivity, with the published number 14 days old. According to Johns Hopkins University Medicine, the positivity rate for the last 30 days is 13.40%, and over the previous 7 days, 13.81%. These numbers indicate the state is under testing. Further, there has been little change in the positivity rate for almost a month.

The 7-day case rate by age was up in every age group except 35 to 49-year-olds. Hospitalizations were flat or slightly down over the weekend, and that decrease is mirrored in the patient reports from the Washington State Hospital Association.

The USA Today COVID Tracker reported 68 deaths on Friday. Numbers from over the weekend typically include multiple days of data and should not be used to read a trend.

Seattle Fire Department diverted 911 calls for ambulances on Saturday

For part of the day on Saturday, calls to Seattle 911 for ambulances were being diverted, with only the most serious calls being responded to. Critical calls were still covered, while others, which would normally get an EMS response, were told they would need to transport themselves.

Hospitals may decide to divert ambulances from going to their emergency room when they get overwhelmed with patients or are expecting a surge from incidents such as a mass casualty event. On Saturday, multiple emergency departments were beyond capacity in Seattle, which created a ripple effect impacting emergency departments both east and north of the city. On Saturday evening, one area hospital had over 80 patients in the emergency department and another 22 waiting for hospital beds.

The number of people coming into emergency departments wasn’t just due to COVID. There was an influx of medical emergencies such as cardiac arrests and several significant auto accidents. Additionally, the Washington State Hospital Association reported this morning there is a shortage of ambulances for ground transit.

Calls to 911 for EMS and fire services were above average on Saturday but nowhere near the record set on June 28, when the department responded to 555 calls for aid.

Latest IHME forecast projects Washington state has hit the peak

On Friday, the IHME updated its forecast models, which projected that Washington state has hit the peak for the current wave. The projected number of fatalities through December 1 declined slightly also, to 8,784. Part of the decline is due to the Washington vaccination mandate for state employees and the statewide order for mask wear. The model projects that if mask wear compliance was 100%, we could save 600 lives.

The model also projects that the state will only see a gradual decline in cases and will settle to half of the current volume of new cases, patients, and fatalities. The Washington State Hospital Association expressed today that slashing the number of hospitalized COVID patients from 22% to 11% as a new normal would be unsustainable for the healthcare system.

Vancouver police cite woman for trespass over refusal to wear mask

The incident apparently happened on September 8 but blew up on social media over the weekend after a story was run in the Post Millenial. A woman with her children at Chuck’s Produce and Street Market on Southeast Mill Plain Blvd. refused to wear or mask or leave the store when directed by staff. She continued to shop and was told police would be called.

When Vancouver police arrived, she continued to refuse the leave the store and went to checkout. While she continued to defy store management and the police, she was cited for trespassing.

Kitsap ferry delayed by man who refused to wear a mask

On Saturday, the 7:40 PM sailing of the Kitsap ferry from Fauntleroy was delayed for over an hour by a man who refused to wear a mask. According to Washington State Ferry employees, the man was asked to put a mask on during the crossing and refused. He then became “aggressive” toward the crew and appeared to be inebriated. He was issued a 60-day no-trespass order from the Washington State Ferries property. We also hope he didn’t drive off in a vehicle.

Weekend sick-out impacts ferry service to the San Juan Islands

After weeks of threats, a sickout impacted ferry service to the San Juan Islands on Friday evening. Two ferry runs out of Anacortes to Friday Harbor, the 4:45 PM and the 8:20 PM, along with the additional stops at Lopez, Shaw, and Orcas, were canceled due to a lack of Coast Guard certified personnel. Additionally, the #3 Samish was running behind schedule for the afternoon and early evening.

The Washington Federation of State Employees, which includes Washington State Ferries employees, ratified their agreement over mandated COVID vaccination with the state of Washington on Thursday. Over 80% of members voting in favor of the compromise agreement.

Spokane County Fair organizers respond after photos emerge of maskless guests and vendors

Photos emerged over the weekend of non-existent mask wear at the Spokane County Fair. According to KREM, Kevin Humphrey, a regular guest at the fair, talked to officials about the lack of masks and was told that masks were only checked at the entrance but were not being enforced.

In response to the photos, Spokane Interstate Fair Director Erin Gurtel wrote, “The Spokane Fair and Expo Center staff is communicating with all vendors in writing daily, along with verbal announcements over the Fairgrounds sound system multiple times a day. All of the vendors have been made aware of the requirement to wear masks indoors and starting tomorrow, September 13th, we will require this indoors and outdoors.”

The fair has also created numerous signs to post all over the grounds to communicate the new requirement of outdoor masks, Gurtel said. The fair’s team is also doing its best to communicate the requirement and make sure it is “being adhered to,” she added.

People complaining about lack of masks at the Washington State Fair

In Puyallup, where up to one million people are expected to visit the Washington State Fair through September 26, complaints are growing about maskless vendors and guests. Numerous pictures and videos emerged of groups of people both indoors and out.

89 state employees sue over Washington state employee vaccine mandate

A group of state employees from the Washington State Patrol, Washington State Ferries, and Washington State Department of Corrections filed a lawsuit in Walla Walla against the looming vaccine requirement.

According to a report in Northwest News, Nathan Arnold, the lawyer who filed the lawsuit, wrote, “The penalties for not taking affirmative action to comply with the Governor’s Mandate are overly severe, punitive, and unconscionable.” He also called the penalty of termination “arbitrary and capricious,” especially for employees who can work from home or have natural immunity from having previously contracted COVID-19.

The lead plaintiffs are William and Sherra Cleary. Mr. Cleary was listed as a King County firefighter and Ms. Cleary as a healthcare worker who is also pregnant. The plaintiffs are looking for the court to declare the vaccine mandate unconstitutional.

The Tri-Cities Herald reported Troopers Travis Brawdy and Brittany Crosby with the Washington State Patrol and Michele Vasquez, an employee of the Washington state Department of Revenue, were also listed as plaintiffs.

The Supreme Court’s 1905 ruling, Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, is a frequently used case to justify vaccine mandates at a municipal, county, and state level. The ruling by the Supreme Court was challenged as recently as last month, with a case being reviewed by Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett. In that case, she ruled against the plaintiffs’ attempt to block a vaccine mandate at the University of Indiana.

Largest Tri-Cities employer mandating vaccination for all employees by November 15

Prior to the announcement by the Biden Administration, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) announced they would require all employees to be vaccinated by November 15. The company is located in Richland, and the decision was made by Battelle, the Department of Energy contractor that operates PNNL.

The Biden Administrator’s order for federal employees and contractors to get vaccinated also impacts 11,000 workers at Hanford.

Travel Advisories

We recommend avoiding all travel to Yakima, Klickitat, Benton, Franklin, and Walla Walla counties, along with the state of Idaho. Hospital resources in these regions are so constrained that you may receive inadequate care if you experience a medical emergency.

Thank you

Thank you to our new subscribers and those of you who have made one-time contributions. On behalf of the entire team, thank you for helping us keep the lights on!

Vaccination

Vaccination rates are increasing statewide. As of September 13, 75.1% of all Washingtonians 12 and up have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine. In King County, 85% of all residents have received at least their first dose, and 78.9% are fully vaccinated.

Booster Shots

Tension is growing between the Biden Administration, the CDC and FDA, and global health leaders with the WHO over booster shots.

A group of leading U.S. and international scientists questioned the need for booster shots on Monday in a Viewpoint titled Considerations in boosting COVID-19 vaccine immune responses, published in the respected medical journal, The Lancet.

The report, in which two senior Food and Drug Administration officials were contributors along with the World Health Organization, came as another study indicated the FDA approved Pfizer vaccine and the emergency authorized Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines remain highly effective against hospitalization and death.

“The ability of vaccines that present the antigens of earlier phases of the pandemic (rather than variant-specific antigens) to elicit humoral immune responses against currently circulating variants6,7 indicates that these variants have not yet evolved to the point at which they are likely to escape the memory immune responses induced by those vaccines.”

Hospital Status

According to the DoH COVID Dashboard, 23.2% of all acute care patients hospitalized in Washington have COVID. A hospital system caring for this many COVID-positive patients in acute care is considered to be under “severe stress.” ICUs are at 90.9% of capacity statewide, with 35.0% of ICU patients fighting COVID. All of these numbers are up from over the weekend.

The new hospital admission rate for COVID patients was 162 per day on September 11. This is a decrease from last week and is an indicator that the state may be at its peak. The Department of Health reported there were 1,742 COVID patients statewide on September 12 and 275 on ventilators. That is down from the 283 reported on Saturday. Weekend numbers typically get adjusted upward on Tuesday as additional data is processed.

EvergreenHealth reported there are 39 COVID patients in Kirkland and none in Monroe.

The Washington State Hospital Association held its weekly press conference, telling reporters that hospitals are operating under “contingency care” statewide. From walk-in clinics to trauma centers, medical facilities continue to struggle with the crush of regular and COVID patients.

We are in a crisis, but we are not in crisis standards of care,” said Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA) Executive Vice President Taya Briley.

Briley also reported that 95% of hospitalized COVID patients statewide are unvaccinated, saying, “We are far, far above our peak from last year.”

Dr. Christopher Baliga with Virginia Mason Franciscan Health in Seattle added, “The hospitals are struggling.”

“Everyone who works in healthcare, it does feel like everybody has gone back to normal. It is scary, frustrating, and disheartening for people not to understand what is going on. We have stretched almost as far as we can go.”

“With the last surge in the fall, our hospitals were empty. That’s not true anymore. All of those patients are there…and they are sicker. This is non-COVID. YOu now have a hospital that is essentially full having to manage an influx of COVID patients.”

When asked about what additional resources would be available to improve the situation, Briley reported there were few options left. The state was already enlisting the help of unpaid volunteers. The WSHA had already reached out for National Guard resources, but the critical staff and equipment have already been deployed to other states to support their COVID surges, along with aiding in hurricane, flooding, and climate disasters. Federal resources are also stretched thin.

The press conference closed with an appeal to get vaccinated, wear a mask, and avoid risky behavior that could cause a general injury.

Back to School

In the Lake Washington School District, new quarantines were announced at Ben Franklin and Robert Frost, while the number of quarantined students at Kamiakin Middle School grew to 140, 24% of the student body. Several classrooms are now fully virtual, moving the school over into the closure column.

It is important to note that quarantined does not indicate widespread infection. To date, none of the area schools we are following have reported a significant outbreak of COVID cases that has been transmitted in school or at school activities.

Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville

King County Public Health updated the vaccination rates by zip code, with the numbers improving throughout the region. The northern half of Kirkland continues to lag behind the rest of the local area.

National Round-Up

Johns Hopkins University Cumulitaive Case Tracker does not reflect nationwide data on Monday due to the way states report their information.

Irresponsible headline of the day – 57% of hospitalized COVID patients are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms

The Atlantic is grabbing headlines with a story out this afternoon, Our Most Reliable Pandemic Number is Losing Meaning. There is a lot that is problematic with this story and the interpretation of a study released today. The study, The COVID-19 Hospitalization Metric in the Pre- and Post-vaccination Eras as a Measure of Pandemic Severity: A Retrospective, Nationwide Cohort Study, is a pre-print non-reviewed study. The study includes a list of prestigious and respected doctors from the Veteran’s Administration and Tufts University.

For those who only read headlines (and the coming misinformation memes), there are many things to consider that the story in The Atlantic did not.

• COVID patients, even when asymptomatic or mildly sick, require additional safety protocols for hospital staff. This takes up time, equipment, and personal protection equipment. This would be the same protocols for patients with other infectious diseases such as a measles outbreak. The critical difference is the scale of the number of COVID positive patients coming into hospitals.
• The report only analyzed patients in the Veteran’s Administration, which is heavily male, and does not include pediatric patients. The VA demographics are not representative of the United States population.
• The report study period ended in June, before the surge in Delta cases.
• The study did not control for patients who required oxygen therapy before being admitted to a VA hospital, a condtion that is more common among veterans than the general population.
• The VA has a policy of testing all patients for COVID regardless of what they come into the hospital for. That is not reflective of all hospitals in the United States.
• Not all severe cases of COVID are admitted to a VA hospital, and those cases aren’t included in the data.

The report concludes, “Consideration should be given to updating the definition of COVID-19 hospitalizations to improve differentiation between hospitalization caused by COVID-19 and those associated with detection of SARS-CoV-2 through the addition of straightforward and objective measures of disease severity.”

Alabama

Alabama is seeing several indicators that could mean it’s reached a peak, at least temporarily, in the latest COVID-19 surge.

After reaching a peak of 2,890 COVID-19 inpatients on Sept. 1, the state’s hospitals are starting to see a steady fall in the number of coronavirus patients.

As of Monday, hospitals were down to 2,474 patients being treated for the virus, according to the latest data from the Alabama Department of Public Health. It’s not clear to what extent the drop in hospitalizations is due to deaths or discharges.

Alaska

The number of patients in Alaska hospitalized with COVID-19 rose again over the weekend, setting yet another new record.

By Monday, the state health department reported 210 COVID-19 patients in Alaska hospitals — the most ever. Thirty-three of them were on ventilators.

Health care officials have also cautioned that the true number of hospitalizations is likely even higher because the state’s data doesn’t include some long-term coronavirus patients, reported the Anchorage Daily News.

Hospitals in Anchorage had no remaining ICU beds on Monday.

California

A Grover Beach bank manager and Army veteran says he was called a racist slur and then attacked and beaten in the parking lot — all because he asked a customer to wear a mask.

Police have confirmed they are investigating a report of a hate crime and battery that occurred in the city last week, but they declined to disclose further details.

The Wells Fargo employee asked the man to wear a mask, and he responded aggressively. When he offered a mask to the customer, he started rummaging through the file cabinets and drawers of the bank, forcing employees to threaten to call the police.

The man then threatened the employee, calling him a racial slur and finishing with, “I better not catch you outside.”

When the bank closed at 5:30, the man was waiting for the banker and assaulted him in the parking lot. The employee fought back, and as a coworker called the police, the attacker fled. He was chased for a block, and as police arrived, scrambled over a fence.

“It’s crazy,” he added. “The guy went home, he plotted, he laid in wait, he ambushed me. And he called me a ‘sp–.’ I’m thinking, ‘Gosh, you know, he completely escalated on his own. He didn’t like the idea of having to wear a mask.’”

Florida

As Florida’s new case and hospitalization numbers continue to decline, Governor Ron DeSantis appears poised to try and move the numbers in the other direction.

Standing firm in the face of the Biden Administration, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday said any cities and counties in the Sunshine State that mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for public government employees will be fined $5,000 per worker.

Speaking in Alachua County, DeSantis said government agencies in violation could potentially face millions of dollars in penalties.

“We are gonna stand for the men and women who are serving us. We are gonna protect Florida jobs,” DeSantis said. “We are not gonna let people be fired because of a vaccine mandate.”

Georgia

After weeks of rising COVID-19 case numbers, Georgia could finally be seeing a slowdown.

Cases started climbing in late June and finally topped out toward the end of August. At that point, the state averaged more than 9,200 new cases a day. The average dropped by almost a thousand a week later.

Georgia never surpassed January’s surge that topped out at an average of nearly 11,000 new cases a day, but the state did almost double the peak from July 2020 of less than 4,700.

Health experts questioned whether traveling and get-togethers over the Labor Day weekend would keep cases climbing. The holiday still falls well within the two-week preliminary data window, so the state is still counting tests from that time. 

Idaho

According to data from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Idaho added 25 new COVID-19 deaths and more than 2,700 cases to its pandemic ledger Monday. The numbers are part of a surge of COVID-19 infections that have set new hospital and intensive care unit admissions records.

Idaho’s 2,713 new cases, which included the weekend, brought the state’s seven-day moving average for new daily cases to 1,400. Hospitalizations hit a record high on Friday, with 626 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 statewide.

The Panhandle and North Central Health Districts in Idaho continue to operate using “crisis standards of care.” We strongly recommend not to travel to Idaho during this time of medical crisis. Any health emergency requiring hospitalization could result in you receiving inadequate care.

Illinois

We reported last week about Veronica Wolski. A well-known figure in the Chicago area for her sign waves over an expressway, last week it was widely reported that she was in the hospital with COVID.

Wolski died on Sunday night to the outrage of the QAnon community, disgraced lawyer Lin Wood, and former national security advisory Michael Flynn. According to her supporters, she had requested to be treated with ivermectin, and the hospital has refused.

A harassment campaign led by Wood and Flynn flooded the hospital with phone calls and e-mails.

Wolski was a passionate supporter of Bernie Sanders starting in 2014, campaigning vigorously for the Vermont Senator. When Sanders failed to get the nomination from the Democratic Party, she became despondent and starting following the QAnon conspiracy.

North Carolina

The Union County Public School Board voted Monday morning to end COVID-19 contact tracing and quarantining for non-positive students and staff.

That means students can go to school even if they have come in close contact with someone who is COVID-positive. The only people who have to stay home are those who have tested positive or have symptoms.

The School Board released a statement after the decision was made.

“At the Sept. 13 Special Called meeting, the Union County Board of Education voted effective immediately, to halt all staff responsibilities regarding contact tracing and quarantining for students and staff, except as required by law. The statutory authority of managing contact tracing and quarantining is that of Union County Public Health.

“As required by law, school nurses, administrators and school staff will continue to address positive, presumptive or confirmed cases of COVID-19. All students and staff who do not have a positive COVID-19 test or symptoms, should return to school or work immediately.

“If students or employees have the following symptoms: fever or chills, sore throat, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, headache, they should stay home, stay away from others and call their health care provider.

“Students and employees who have been isolated due to a positive case or COVID-19 symptoms, should not report to school or work until they have completed 10 days of isolation, symptoms have improved and fever free for 24 hours without fever-reducing medication.

“Face coverings are still optional for students and staff in Union County Public Schools.”

UNC Rex Hospital in Raleigh set up tents outside its Emergency Department on the same day more than 11,000 new cases of COVID were reported statewide. The surge tents will allow UNC Rex to expand its Emergency waiting areas and treatment areas.

“The hospital is full,” said Rex Director of Emergency Services Kim Boyder. “We are like 90% or greater capacity in the hospital. So that means we also get backed up in the ER. So that means we need additional space for not only the volume but some of the boarding.”

Oregon

During the weekend, Oregon surpassed 300,000 confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, the state health authority reported on Monday.

Although COVID-19 related hospitalizations have declined since Friday, 93% of Oregon’s hospital beds for adults are full, and there are just 62 adult intensive care unit beds available in the state.

Between Friday and Sunday, health officials say there were 32 deaths due to COVID-19. To date, the state’s death toll since the start of the pandemic is 3,446.

Oregon is in the midst of its worst COVID-19 surge since the start of the pandemic — which health officials say is fueled by unvaccinated people and the highly transmissible delta variant.

Misinformation

Taking the day off

Knowledge is the best tool to fight against fear. A wise person chooses to be informed so they can make sound decisions. To join the fight against COVID misinformation, you can share this update through your social media platform of choice.

[KING COUNTY, Wash.] – (MTN) Hospitals in Eastern Washington continue to struggle with more officials warning they are running out of staff and resources. Counties with higher vaccination rates have fewer new COVID cases, while counties with low vaccination rates run out of options.

There were more COVID cases in all three school districts we are monitoring, including Peter Kirk Elementary and an expansion of quarantined students at Juanita High School and Kamiakin Middle School.

The Washington Federation of State Employees overwhelmingly approved a compromise agreement with Washington in support of the Governor’s vaccine mandate.

The Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer ignored a court order barring protests within one mile of Vancouver, Washington schools. The same organizers of the ongoing Vancouver protests have an event scheduled in Woodinville on September 25.

New data from the CDC shows that Moderna is the vaccine winner against the Delta variant and provides a hint on why the Johnson and Johnson vaccine has all but disappeared.

Reactions to announcements made by the Biden Administration yesterday are following partisan lines to the surprise of no one.

Finally, you probably heard about a study that indicated that 85% of men who take ivermectin become infertile. A study that we haven’t mentioned until right now. We cover that one in our misinformation section.

This update uses the latest data from the Washington State Department of Health released on September 10, 2021.

Washington State Update for September 10, 2021

Washington state COVID update

Although COVID cases remain on a plateau statewide, counties with lower vaccination rates have more new cases per capita.

In the South Central Hospital Region, which includes Benton, Franklin, Klickitat, Walla Walla, and Yakima counties, new cases are 844.9 per 100K people.

Through September 9, Washington’s statewide 14-day rolling average was 508.0 COVID cases per 100K. Clallam (1,008.2 per 100K), Columbia (1,075.3 per 100K), Franklin (1297.0.0 per 100K), Lincoln (1049.5 per 100K, Okanogan (1,001.6 per 100K), and Stevens (1,060.5 per 100K) reported an extreme number of new cases. Counties in the 800.0 to 999.9 per 100K range include Asotin, Benton, Chelan, Cowlitz, Douglas, Grant, Lewis, Pend Oreille, and Yakima. Garfield County dropped to 764.0

King County is at 301.1 cases per 100K, statistically unchanged from yesterday.

The Washington State Department of Health reports a data backlog for test positivity, with the published number 14 days old. According to Johns Hopkins University Medicine, the positivity rate for the last 30 days is 13.73%, and over the previous 7 days, 13.84%. These numbers indicate the state is under testing, and testing locations are becoming overwhelmed in the hardest-hit counties. The rate of hospitalization was flat to down across all age groups.

The USA Today COVID Tracker reported 59 deaths yesterday.

Washington Federation of State Employees union ratifies COVID vaccination mandate agreement

Members of the Washington Federation of State Employees ratified an agreement with the state addressing the effects of Governor Inslee’s vaccine mandate. The vote concluded Thursday night, with more than 80 percent casting their ballot in favor of ratification.

The agreement provides an additional leave day, a retirement option, vaccine access and education on work time, and a fair, equitable, and consistent process for employees seeking a medical or religious exemption.

“Our union was able to achieve what we set out for—a victory for public health and due process,” said WFSE President and Psychiatric Social Worker Mike Yestramski.

State employees have until this Sunday to get their first dose and comply with the October 18 deadline to be totally vaccinated. Although the Johnson & Johnson vaccine could be received as late as October 4 to meet the deadline, the supply of the single-dose vaccine is low.

Patriot Prayer, Proud Boys, and activists ignore protest injuction in Vancouver

Multiple groups protested at Skyview High School in Vancouver in defiance of a court order restricting protests within one mile of any school in the city. Skyview High School parents received an e-mail informing them of the multiple protests planned. The school district added security and was “coordinating with the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.”

Members of Patriot Front, the Proud Boys – including Tusitala “Tiny” Toese, and the Washougal Moms protested on school grounds and across the street. Police did not intervene to enforce the court order. The group then left to protest at the home of Clark County district judge Suzan Clark’s home. Social media posts and a website listed the judge’s address publicly, and on Telegram, there were calls to come armed to her home. Protesters arrived at the published address this afternoon to find that it wasn’t the residence of Judge Clark.

The group that organized the planned protest at the judge’s home also organizes anti-vaccination protests across Washington state, including upcoming area protests in Seattle, Marysville, and Woodinville. The Seattle Truth Network, in coordination with Wake Up Washington, is planning an anti-vaccination event on September 25 at Rooster’s Bakery and Cafe in Woodinville.

Palmer Davis of La Center is behind the announcement to protest at the judge’s house yesterday. Davis ran for a city council seat in La Center last month, receiving 4.68% of the vote in a 4 candidate field.

The anti-vaccination and the anti-government movements are intersectional, with Open Schools USA, Wake Up Washington, and Washougal Mom’s have embraced support from right-wing organizations. In a study released on August 27, the Proud Boys were among the top three factions in the country that brandished firearms at protests, and Patriot Prayer was among the top ten. The same study found that 25% of the events that the Proud Boys showed up at descended into violence.

Travel Advisories

We recommend avoiding all travel to Yakima, Klickitat, Benton, Franklin, and Walla Walla counties, along with the state of Idaho. Hospital resources in these regions are so constrained that you may receive inadequate care if you experience a medical emergency.

Thank you

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Vaccination

The CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) included a new report studying the Interim Estimates of COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Against COVID-19–Associated Emergency Department or Urgent Care Clinic Encounters and Hospitalizations Among Adults. The report studied vaccine effectiveness against the Delta variant in nine states from June to August.

The research data was collected from 187 hospitals and 221 emergency departments and urgent care clinics. The nine states utilized were selected because the Delta variant accounted for at least 50% of the laboratory-confirmed COVID cases at the start of the study period. Researchers examined confirmed COVID cases among 32,867 adults 18 and over, and vaccination status was confirmed using electronic records and immunization registries. For the study, a person was considered fully vaccinated 14 days after they received their final dose.

The median age of an infected person was 43 years old, and the median age for an individual hospitalized was 65. The study did not take into account factors such as weight, race, community COVID restrictions or mandates, or comorbidities.

The study found that the Moderna vaccine was the most effective against the Delta variant, followed by Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. For the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, some of the data is concerning.

The study does have several limitations. Overall vaccine effectiveness and how much immunity declines over time have not been fully evaluated, and the time between being completely vaccinated before testing positive was not considered. The study did not account for partial vaccinations, with data included in the unvaccinated group. Lastly, although the study uses a significant population sample, the findings are likely too narrow to apply to the entire United States.

The federal government stopped the distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in June of this year, and doses are very hard to find. This report provides some insight into why the one-dose vaccine has fallen out of favor.

Hospital Status

According to the DoH COVID Dashboard, 22.4% of all acute care patients hospitalized in Washington have COVID. A hospital system caring for this many COVID-positive patients in acute care is considered to be under “severe stress.” ICUs are at 89.6% of capacity statewide, with 34.1% of ICU patients fighting COVID, a small increase compared to yesterday.

The new hospital admission rate for COVID patients is 176 per day on September 7. The Department of Health reported there were 1,755 COVID patients statewide and 261 on ventilators.

Yesterday, we reported that at least one hospital in Yakima was having to ration care and warned they were close to crisis standards of care. In Colville, Mount Carmel Hospital is full, and more than half of the patients have COVID.

“Stevens County today has 14. When you think about only having 25 beds or less in critical access,” Peg Currie, the chief operating officer at Providence Healthcare, explained. “Imagine what the emergency rooms are like, the waiting lists are like, to try to get into a higher level of acute care.”

The Walla Walla County Department of Community Health reported over the last 2 weeks, Mary Hospital had no beds available, and the county recorded the most lab-confirmed cases of COVID in a single month since the pandemic began. On Wednesday, 90% of the hospitalized COVID patients in Walla Walla were unvaccinated.

Officials in Spokane County held a press conference today, reporting a record number of COVID and total patients in the hospital.

As of Friday morning, 150 patients with COVID-19 are hospitalized at Sacred Heart and Holy Family Hospital in Spokane, and 95% are unvaccinated, Providence COO Peg Currie said during the press conference.

“It’s not a record that we wanted to break, but we have broken that,” Currie said. “Many of these [patients] are in our ICUs, and everybody that is in the Sacred Heart and Holy Family ICU now on a ventilator is not vaccinated.”

The age group that Providence is seeing the most in its hospitals is 40 to 50 years old, Currie said, which is much younger than previously hospitalized patients. 

Back to School

The number of students moving to quarantine expanded at Juanita High School and Kamiakin Middle School in the Lake Washington School District. Parents were notified that 29 at Juanita High and 13 at Kamiakin had close contact with a positive COVID case. Additionally, parents at Peter Kirk Elementary were notified that 2 students had been put into quarantine due to a COVID exposure.

Multiple school districts throughout Western Washington are reporting COVID cases, including Shoreline and Edmonds.

The next board meeting for the Lake Washington School District is Monday, September 13, 2021, at 7:00 PM and will be remote only.

Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville

No update

National Round-Up

Johns Hopkins University Cumulitaive Case Tracker was not updated at press time.

Yesterday’s announcement by the Biden Administration’s mandating the COVID vaccine for most federal employees and contractors, and requesting OSHA to implement a program that mandates vaccination or weekly COVID screening at companies with 100 or more employees, is being met with fierce resistance along partisan lines.

The governors of Arizona, Indiana, Georgia, Montana, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas vowed to fight the looming OSHA rules in court. During a visit with first lady Jill Biden to a middle school in Washington D.C., the president was asked his message to Republicans who decry the vaccine mandates as federal overreach and plan to challenge them in court.

“Have at it,” Biden said. “We’re playing for real here. This isn’t a game.”

Alaska

Officials reported another record number of patients in the hospital with COVID as the medical struggles to cope. Large hospitals in cities such as Anchorage are so full of COVID patients that rural hospitals can’t transfer critical care patients. Similar to Idaho, Oregon, and Eastern Washington, patient care is starting to suffer as hospitals weigh their options.

Nome’s hospital doesn’t even have any COVID-19 patients, but it still faces “a COVID problem,” as Dr. Tim Lemaire, a family practitioner and member of the Norton Sound Health Corp. incident command team, put it. “We don’t have COVID here, but we can’t get our regular patients … care because of COVID everywhere else.”

Trying to move patients with heart attacks, strokes, or injuries from four-wheeler accidents, Norton Sound Regional Hospital sometimes has to call three or four facilities to find an open bed, at least once moving a patient all the way to Seattle to get them into an ICU.

State officials say rural hospitals throughout the state are suddenly facing unheard-of medical situations because they’re holding patients they’ve never had to before.

Brian Ritchie, the state’s health emergency response operations manager, helped a rural hospital find oxygen supplies after COVID-positive patients on high-flow therapy ran through existing cylinders faster than expected.

California

San Francisco schools started in-person instruction on August 16. A month later, the school district has reported 227 confirmed COVID infections among 52,000 students and almost 10,000 staff. Officials noted that in San Francisco, 90% of students age 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated.

The district hasn’t experienced a single outbreak during the first month of instruction. Officials define an outbreak as “three or more cases in non-related households in which the source of infection occurred at the school, and not another setting.”

The San Francisco health department also emphasized that vaccinations “are our best defense to protect children,” noting most pediatric cases of COVID-19 in the city came from unvaccinated adults in a household getting the virus and spreading it to unvaccinated children.

Colorado

Hospitals are starting to move to surge plans as the number of available ICU beds dropped below 200 today. COVID-19 Incident Commander Scott Bookman spoke with reporters today at a press conference with Governor Jared Pollis.

“The difference between this wave and all past waves is that Coloradans have returned to their normal lives,” Bookman said. “Those who have been vaccinated have been given the opportunity to go out and live their lives. What comes with that is additional cases of trauma, additional heart attacks, additional strokes – we have seen people who have delayed receiving care over the course of the pandemic because they were afraid to go to their doctor. And this is all coming together with the increase in COVID hospitalizations at this point to really stress our health care system.”

Colorado’s hospitals report that 81% of those hospitalized in the state are unvaccinated, and 85% of recent COVID deaths were unvaccinated, said Herlihy.

Florida

Less than 24 hours after a court blocked a mask mandate ban in Florida, the First District Court of Appeal has reinstated a stay on DeSantis’ ban on mask mandates in schools.

DeSantis’ press secretary Christina Pushaw tweeted: “(First) District Court of Appeals just granted the State of Florida’s request to reinstate the stay — meaning, the rule requiring ALL Florida school districts to protect parents’ rights to make choices about masking kids is BACK in effect!”

Yesterday, a Brevard County School Board meeting was far more subdued than the August 30 meeting that made national headlines. While things were quieter outside, a crowd of over 20 people gathered to burn masks. A counter-protestor with a megaphone, a Firehouse Subs helmet, and a fire extinguisher lectured them about fire safety and threatened to put out any fire they lit.

Megan Alexandra Blankebhiller of Jacksonville, Florida, arrived in a hospital emergency room on August 13. As she waited to be seen, she shot a short Tik Tok video, where the screams of another person could be heard in the background. The screams were coming from a person who had lost a loved one in another area of the emergency department.

Blankenbiller, who was 31 and unvaccinated, was admitted to the hospital with COVID. She made a series of videos appealing for her followers to get vaccinated from her bed as her condition declined.

“I shouldn’t have waited,” she said in the video, which has been viewed nearly 900,000 times. “If you are even 70% sure that you want the vaccine, go get it. Don’t wait. Go get it because hopefully, if you get it, you won’t end up in the hospital like me.” 

By August 20, Blankenbiller was in critical condition and on a ventilator, and she died shortly thereafter. Blankenbiller’s sister, Cristina Blankenbiller, told WebMD in an interview that their family had agreed to get vaccinated, including Alexandra, shortly before she became ill.

Idaho

The Panhandle and North Central Health Districts in Idaho continue to operate using “crisis standards of care.” We strongly recommend not to travel to Idaho during this time of medical crisis. Any health emergency requiring hospitalization could result in you receiving inadequate care.

Illinois

Veronica Wolski was well known in the Chicago area for producing videos and harassing retail employees and people wearing masks. In one video, she walked through a Staples, wearing a “Lone Ranger” style mask, telling the manager who asked her to wear a mask that she has one on and has a medical condition that exempts her.

Wolski is hospitalized with COVID at Ressurection Medical Center in Norwood Park, Illinois. According to her supporters, she has requested to be treated with ivermectin, and the hospital has refused. Wolski was known in QAnon circles. Her situation has drawn the attention of disgraced attorney Lin Wood and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn (have we mentioned lately how the anti-vaccination and the anti-government movements are intersectional).

The hospital is being flooded with phone calls and e-mails after deciding not to treat her with ivermectin. Hospital officials released a statement to the media about the state of her care.

“At AMITA Health, our first priority is the health and safety of our patients. Our physicians and clinicians follow the full guidance of the FDA and the CDC in the treatment of COVID-19. And while AMITA Health Resurrection Medical Center has received hundreds of phone calls and emails associated with one patient’s care, we have simply and respectfully noted the concerns shared.”

The largest peer-reviewed study on the effectiveness of ivermectin in treating COVID so far indicated that the anti-parasitic provided no benefit compared to a placebo. For hospitalized patients, it made them sicker.

Oregon

The good news is Oregon appears to have a peak in cases and hospitalizations. The same forecast that accurately predicted the peak now is forecasting that cases will only gradually fall off over the next two to three months, leaving hospitals in the state straining to care for patients.

Hospitalizations peaked at 1,178 COVID-19 cases on Sept. 1, and critical care resources remain under extreme strain, with roughly half of all intensive care units in the state filled with COVID-19 patients who are largely unvaccinated.

“It looks like we are seeing the flattening of cases that we had hoped for,” said Peter Graven, Ph.D., lead data scientist in OHSU’s Business Intelligence unit. “However, we are still projecting it will be a very long time before hospitalization levels return to more manageable levels.

Tennessee

Tennessee High schooler Grady Knox’s passionate plea for the health of himself and others was mocked earlier this week at a Rutherford County Board of Education meeting, a scene that has drawn national attention. 

Knox was ridiculed, even laughed at, Tuesday evening by some in the school board meeting audience when he said his grandmother died of COVID-19 after being exposed to a person without a mask.

Knox’s grandmother lived at Adams Place retirement community in Murfreesboro before she died of COVID-19.

After three hours of debate and Knox being heckled, the board decided to have masks remain optional at the school.

One of the persons who heckled Knox was quickly identified as Erika Casher, a nurse who had spoken at other school board meetings. It was reported today that Casher was terminated from her position with Cigna.

Texas

Karra Harwood of Baycliff, Texas, is mourning the death of her 4-year old daughter, Kali Cook, who died of COVID. Harwood, who is unvaccinated, had become sick and was confirmed to have on Monday. After her diagnosis, she isolated herself from her family.

Later that evening, Kali’s grandmother noticed she was sick, and at 2 a.m. found that she had a fever. At 7 a.m., she was found dead in her bed. An autopsy confirmed that Kali also had COVID.

“She was so funny and sassy,” said Karra Harwood, Kali’s mother. “She wasn’t your average little girl. She’d rather play with worms and frogs than wear bows. She was just so pretty and full of life.”

Harwood said she didn’t want people to think of her daughter as an anonymous statistic through sobs Thursday. She wanted people to know who her daughter was.

“I would rather her be a name than just a little girl,” she said. “She was beautiful.”

“I was one of the people that was anti. I was against it,” she said. “Now, I wish I never was.”

Misinformation

A lot of schadenfreude has been spilled in the news on social media after a 2011 study on the Effects of Ivermectin therapy on the sperm functions of Nigerian onchocerciasis patients reemerged. The study found that 85% of men who took ivermectin to treat onchocerciasis (river blindness) suffered from low sperm count and poor sperm quality, rendering them infertile.

The story was widely published, and tonight, many media outlets are retracting the story. We never highlighted this piece of news, and we’re labeling the claim as misinformation.

The problems with the study are numerous. First, it only involved 37 men, which is a very small sample size. Researchers wanted to include more people in the study, but many were disqualified because they already had low sperm count and/or low sperm quality.

The men took ivermectin for 11 months to treat active river blindness, which is longer than almost anyone taking human or animal formulations of ivermectin as a preventative or treatment for COVID (no, it doesn’t do either).

The study found that 85% of the men they observed over the 11 months had poor sperm quality and/or count, rendering them infertile. The study didn’t account for other potential factors, which may have been very likely given so many test subjects were rejected before the study was done because they were already functionally infertile.

Misinformation cuts both ways, and you should always consider your own personal biases when consuming information and deciding what is fact and fiction.