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Health and Lifestyle, Local, National

WA state employee vaccination rates increase significantly – local and national update for October 8, 2021

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) New Covid-19 case rates have dropped to the lowest level since August 17, but you wouldn’t know it in Eastern Washington. Six of the seven lowest vaccinated counties are in the East Hospital Region. Available resources declined in the eastern third of the state while all other Hospital Regions improved. The worsening situation is driven by low vaccination rates, staffing issues caused by working conditions and pay, and people from Idaho crossing the border seeking medical help.

Congressional Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-R) tested positive for Covid-19 in an apparent breakthrough case.

The latest data from the state indicates almost 90% of all employees are fully vaccinated, a significant increase from a week ago.

There have been 400 million Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in the United States, and your chances of experiencing a serious adverse reaction are about equal to your chances of drowning.

Among area schools, the Bellevue School District had a rough week with a significant number of new Covid-19 cases, while Northshore improved.

The City of Kirkland will be holding a health fair and vaccination clinic on November 6, and it is possible that vaccinations for 5 to 11-year-olds will be approved by that time.

Customs and Border Patrol agents have a severe case of hypocrisy when it comes to getting vaccinated.

Given the worsening situation in Eastern Washington, we have extended a recreational travel advisory to nine counties.

The five states with the highest rate of new Covid-19 cases tonight are Montana, Alaska, Idaho, Wyoming, and North Dakota. In Anchorage, Alaska, City Hall has descended into chaos, while in Idaho, Janice McGeachin managed to stay out of the news.

This update uses the latest data from the Washington State Department of Health (WSDOH), released on October 8, 2021.

vaccinationhospitalsschoolslocalnationalmisinformation

Washington State Update for October 8, 2021

Washington state Covid-19 update

New cases are now lower than August 17, when we started our daily coverage of the Delta surge. New cases were statistically unchanged or down in all but the least vaccinated counties, where new Covid-19 cases increased again.

Percent of Total Population Fully VaccinatedAverage 14-Day New Case Rate (unadjusted)
60.00% or above (4)203.9
50.00% to 59.99% (13 counties)501.8
40.00% to 49.99% (14 counties)598.4 (down)
29.30% to 39.99% (8 counties)754.6 (up)
14-Day New Covid-19 Cases per 100K average by Vaccination Rate, Not Adjusted for Population

Through October 7, Washington’s statewide 14-day rolling average is 387.4. Covid-19 cases per 100K.

Ferry County was unchanged, with 1,137.8 new cases per 100K residents.

Counties in the 800.0 to 999.9 per 100K range include Columbia, Garfield, Grant, Klickitat, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, and Stevens. New cases in Columbia county have grown significantly this week, and it is just under the 1,000 threshold.

Counties in the 600.0 to 799.9 per 100K range include Asotin, Benton, Chelan, Columbia, Franklin, Grays Harbor, Mason, Okanogan, and Walla Walla. Adams, Cowlitz, Douglas, and Lewis counties are close to the 600 threshold – however, the four counties showed improvement this week.

New cases by age group drifted downward while hospitalizations were unchanged or down for all age groups except 35 to 49-year-olds.

Age Group7-Day Case Rate7-Day Hospitalization Rate
Ages 0-11160.20.8
Ages 12-19188.10.9
Ages 20-34157.83.9 (down)
Ages 35-49174.89.2 (up)
Ages 50-64119.515.5
Ages 65-7987.4 (down)15.2 (down)
Ages 80+100.438.8
7-day case rate and 7-day hospitalization rate is per 100K within the age group – the target for 7-day case rate is <25.0, but there are other factors such as vaccination rates within the age groups, how many total tests within the 7-day period, and the positivity rate within each age group

The USA Today COVID Tracker reported 55 deaths yesterday. The state of Washington is not reporting the percentage of positive cases.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers test positive for Covid-19

Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-R), 52, reported on her website she has experienced a breakthrough case of Covid-19.

“Yesterday, despite being fully vaccinated, I tested positive for COVID-19. My symptoms are mild and I am quarantining at home and following CDC and local health guidelines. My offices in Spokane, Walla Walla, Colville, and Washington, D.C. remain open and are continuing to work for the people of Eastern Washington. As I have said for months, I encourage everyone in Eastern Washington to talk to your doctor about getting the vaccine if you haven’t already.”

With 10 days to go, almost 90% of all Washington state employees are fully vaccinated

Vaccination rates across most Washington state departments and divisions increased significantly this week as data was processed. The Department of Corrections jumped to 89%, the Department of Social and Health Services is 91% inoculated, Washington State University employees 88%, Washington State Ferries reported 90%, and the Department of Children, Youth, and Families increased to 87%.

On September 22 a survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau indicated only 8.2% of Washingtonians would not, or were very unlikely to, get the Covid-19 vaccination.

Hawaii mandated vaccination for more than 14,000 state employees, and the last update indicated almost 93% were fully or partially vaccinated. For colleges, private employers, and hospital systems, final vaccination rates have ranged from 94% to virtually 100%.

Travel Advisories

Due to an increase in acute care hospitalizations, we’re adding a recreational travel advisory to the East Hospital Region. This includes Adams, Asotin, Ferry, Garfield, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Spokane, Stevens, Wahkiakum, and Whitman counties. Acute care and ICU capacity have become limited, and the ratio of Covid-19 patients to other hospital patients is extremely high. Please reconsider non-essential travel plans to these counties.

We strongly advise against all nonessential travel to Alaska, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Hospital resources in these regions are constrained, and you may receive inadequate care if you experience a serious medical emergency.

We are also not adding a travel advisory for the Northwest Hospital Region which includes Clallam, Jefferson, Kitsap, and Mason counties but don’t recommend engaging in risky recreational behavior on the Olympic Peninsula. Although hospitals are very constrained, the region is adjacent to the Puget Sound and West Hospital Regions, which have adequate resources.

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!

In August, King County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin mentioned the N95 Project as a trusted source for N95 masks. A check on the website showed that a 50 count box of United States manufactured N95 masks are available for $40.00. We recommend wearing N95 masks indoors as they provide the best protection against COVID when properly fitted.

No promotional consideration has been given, or requested from the n95 project or any manufacturer of masks

Vaccination

400 million Covid-19 vaccine doses administered

The U.S. surpassed 400 million coronavirus vaccinations Friday after a nearly year-long mass vaccination drive, the largest in the nation’s history — and though more than 65% of Americans have received at least one dose, some states still haven’t vaccinated close to half their population.

According to the CDC, through October 4 and 396 million doses administered there have been 1,172 incidents of serious complications and 4 confirmed vaccine-related deaths. There have been 906 confirmed myocarditis and pericarditis cases, mostly among adolescent and young men who received the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna. There have been 219 cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome, mostly among men under 50 and who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Additionally, there have been 47 incidents of VITT, mostly among women of childbearing years who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Among the 47 incidents of VITT, there have been 4 deaths, including Jessica Berg-Wilson of Seattle.

The odds of experiencing a serious adverse event from the various Covid-19 vaccines are similar to the odds of drowning in the United States. The odds of dying from a COVID vaccine are infinitesimal.

Pfizer vaccine booster shots are now available

Booster shots for eligible individuals are now available statewide. Individuals who received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine more than six months ago, are 65 or older, or are immunocompromised can receive their third dose immediately.

In the Kirland-Bellevue-Woodinville area, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Bartell’s, and QFC are offering booster shots. Additionally, the third dose is available at the CVS located within the Target store at 17,700 NE 76th Street in Redmond.

Most locations require an appointment, which can be scheduled online.

King County, Washington is reporting over 86.7% of age eligible residents are vaccinated with at least one dose. The highest rates of positivity are in areas with low vaccination rates statewide. The FDA has provided full approval of the Pfizer vaccine for anyone 16 and over and EUA approval for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

COVID vaccines are free for anyone over 12 years old, and no appointment is necessary at most locations. Lyft and Hopelink provide free transportation, and KinderCare, the Learning Care Group, and the YMCA offer free childcare during vaccination appointments or recuperation.

For information on getting a vaccination in King County, you can visit the King County Department of Public Health website.

Malcontent News

Hospital Status

According to the DoH COVID Dashboard, 91% of all staffed acute care beds are occupied, and 17.1% of patients have Covid-19. Statewide, hospitals have the staff to support approximately 649 additional acute care patients. ICUs are at 87.4% of capacity statewide, with 30.0% of ICU patients fighting Covid-19 – an estimated 353 patients with 52% on ventilators. The state has the staff to support approximately 150 additional ICU patients.

The 7-day rolling average hospital admission rate for new COVID patients was 121. The Department of Health reported 1,207 Covid-19 patients statewide on October 7, with 185 requiring ventilators.

Hospital RegionCountiesICU OccupancyICU COVID PatientsAcute Care OccupancyAcute Care COVID Patients
EastAdams, Asotin, Ferry, Garfield, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Spokane, Stevens, Wahkiakum, Whitman92.9%47.1%90.1%27.6%
NorthIsland, San Juan, Skagit, Whatcom73.7%33.6%86.4%13.0%
North CentralChelan, Douglas, Grant, Okanogan81.9%47.1%75.2%20.9%
NorthwestClallam, Jefferson, Kitsap, Mason91.4%43.1%95.9%27.3%
Puget SoundKing, Pierce, Snohomish91.7%24.8%94.6%13.7%
South CentralBenton, Columbia, Franklin, Kittitas, Walla Walla, Yakima88.8%33.2%84.2%21.3%
SouthwestClark, Cowlitz, Klickitat, Skamania 71.3%32.2%87.4%20.2%
WestGrays Harbor, Lewis, Pacific, Thurston77.3%20.7%85.1%15.4%
Hospital status by region – ICU Occupancy should be below 80%, ICU COVID Patients should be below 20%, Acute Care Occupancy should be below 80%, and Acute Care COVID Patients should be below 10%

Every region except the East showed improvement in the last week.

Back to School

School DistrictStatusLess than 10 Active Cases10 or More Active Cases
BellevueYELLOW– Ardmore (2*)
– Bellevue (7**)
– Big Picture (1*)
– Cherry Crest (1*)
– Chinook (4*)
– Eastgate (1*)
– Enatai (3*)
– Highland (9**)
– Interlake (3*)
– Lake Hills (4*)
– Newport (4*)
– Newport Heights (1*)
– Puesta del Sol (1*)
– Sammamish (4*)
– Sherwood Forest (2*)
– Spiritridge (1*)
– Stevenson (2*)
– Tillicum (1*)
– Wilburton (3*)
– Woodridge (3*)		None
Lake WashingtonYELLOW– Bell Elementary (1*)
– Barton Elementary (1*)
– Dickinson/Explorer Elementary (1*)
– Ella Baker Elementary (1*)
– Eastlake High (2*)
– Finn Hill Middle School (3*)
– Franklin Elementary (2*)
– Frost Elementary (2*)
– ICS (1*)
– Inglewood Middle School (1*)
– Juanita Elementary (1*)
– Kamiakin Middle School (4*)
– Keller Elementary (2*)
– Kirkland Middle School (1* see notes)
– Lakeview Elementary (4*)
– McAuliffe Elementary (1*)
– Muir Elementary (1*)
– Northstar Middle (1*)
– Redmond Elementary (2*)
– Redmond Middle School (1*)
– Redmond High School (2*)
– Renaissance Middle School (1*)
– Rosa Parks Elementary (1*)
– Rush Elementary (1*)

see notes below		None
NorthshoreYELLOW– Arrowhead Elementary (6)
– Bothell High School (37**)
– Canyon Creek Elementary (18)
– Canyon Park Middle School (5)
– Cottage Lake Elementary (3)
– Crystal Springs Elementary (24)
– East Ridge Elementary (2)
– Fernwood Elementary (1)
– Frank Love Elementary (21)
– Hollywood Hills Elementary (34)
– Inglemoor High School (1)
– Innovation Lab High School (2)
– Kenmore Elementary (3)
– Kenmore Middle School (18)
– Kokanee Elementary (6)
– Leota Middle School (3)
– Lockwood Elementary (30**)
– Maywood Hills Elementary (12**)
– Moorlands Elementary (2)
– North Creek High School (14**)
– Northshore Middle School (14)
– Secondary Academy for Success (3)
– Shelton View Elementary (6)
– Skyview Middle School (14)
– Sunrise Elementary (8)
– Timbercrest Middle School (6)
– Wellington Elementary (36**)
– Westhill Elementary (52)
– Woodin Elementary (5)
– Woodinville High School (11)
– Woodmoor Elementary (21**)		None
Local Districts Scorecard – * indicates positive cases only ** indicates 5 or more confirmed positive cases

We redefined the school district statuses. Information for classroom and building closures has been a challenge to obtain, both for closures and reopening. We are adopting moving any school with more than 10 active COVID cases reported into the red, and we’ve adjusted the third column to reflect this change.

We have a parent confirmed report of a single Covid-19 case at Kirkland Middle School, with an additional 17 students quarantined.

We multiple parents e-mailed us about two confirmed Covid-19 cases at Juanita High School. However, because the district sent the e-mail on Monday, we cannot confirm if these are new or included in the last dashboard update.

We continued to encourage parents to request improved daily data reporting from the Lake Washington School District.

Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville

The Kirkland Health Fair and Community Vaccination Event will be held on Saturday, November 6, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m at Juanita High School. Hosted by the City of Kirkland in partnership with Public Health – Seattle and King County, the event will provide Covid-19 vaccination, information, education, and more.

In-language assistance will be available in Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Russian, and Chinese.

National Round-Up

Johns Hopkins University Cumulative Case Tracker is reporting 100,083 new cases and 2,392 deaths nationwide on Thursday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection fighting against federal vaccination mandate

President Biden’s order mandating federal employees to be fully vaccinated next month has generated anger in CBP’s ranks, particularly among conservative-leaning U.S. Border Patrol agents and the union that represents them. The Washington Post reported that In recent weeks, leaders at the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) have joined Republican lawmakers who allege the Biden administration is allowing migrants to spread the coronavirus in the United States and placing the CBP workforce at greater risk, while also opposing his vaccination order.

At least 47 CBP employees have died of covid-19 as of Tuesday , according to the agency, including one Border Patrol agent last month who was days from retirement. More than 11,400 have been infected with the deadly pathogen, about 19 percent of the workforce.

Editor’s Note: If it isn’t that big of a deal, and migrants should be required to get vaccinated, then why…

Alaska

New cases in Alaska continue to decline and dropped to the second-highest in the United States. The state continues to operate under “crisis standards of care” with 186 Covid-19 patients statewide. Alaska has 129 staffed ICU beds statewide, with 18 available. There were 839 new cases reported today. At the current rate of new cases detected, 1% of Alaska residents are catching Covid-19 every 8 days. Test positivity is now over 10%, as Anchorage struggles with a shortage of test resources.

City Hall in Anchorage was thrown into complete chaos after a sixth hearing on whether to enact a mask mandate in Alaska’s largest city. A fissure formed between Mayor Dave Bronson and the Assembly leadership, which is becoming increasingly supportive of implementing more safety precautions. Public comments devolved into conspiracy theories and shouting matches at times.

The Bronson administration and its allies have been using the hearings to rile up anti-mask and anti-science testimony over the course of the last two weeks. Bronson has been staunchly against any measures to limit the spread of Covid-19, has endorsed the use of ivermectin to treat covid, and has blamed hospitals for being strained by Alaska’s worst-in-the-nation surge.

Part of his platform when he ran for mayor was ending all the city’s Covid-19 orders, including the mask mandate, which remains in effect after others have been revoked. Many of Bronson’s positions run contrary to the advice of public health officials.

On Friday, two “senior members” of Mayor Bronson’s staff tested positive for Covid-19, in apparent breakthrough cases. The Midnight Sun reported the two infected employees are municipal manager Amy Dembroski and municipal attorney Patrick Bergt. Another hearing planned for tonight was canceled. Thursday night’s hearing was packed with hundreds of people, most of who were not masked. Mayor Bronson has never stated if he is vaccinated but calls it “experimental” and claims he had COVID in early 2021.

Hospitals in Anchorage, Bethel, and Valdez continue to be the most impacted by the ongoing surge.

May the odds ever be in your favor.

Idaho

Idaho has reported more than 1,682 new Covid-19 and another 53 deaths today. Idaho has now lost 3,040 residents to coronavirus, passing over 3,000 today. The current surge is so bad, 699 of the 3,040 COVID deaths have occurred since August 30. The average age for new cases is 39.6 years old, and the age group with the most cases is 19 to 29-year-olds.

Dave Jeppesen, Idaho Health & Welfare director, said, “The number of people who have died from COVID-19 in Idaho is frankly too high. It makes me incredibly sad because those are moms and dads and siblings and sons and daughters, and families throughout the state mourn their losses. I mourn with them. And I also want to encourage everyone who can to get vaccinated. It’s your best protection against this unpredictable disease.”

The state continues to operate under crisis standards of care while some facilities are not assisting with load leveling.

Editor’s Note: Congratulations to Janice McGeachin for staying out of the news for 24 hours.

Montana

Montana’s situation continues to worsen with KTVQ reporting 1,315 new Covid-19 cases, 9 deaths, and 463 residents hospitalized. Montana has surpassed Alaska for the highest new case rate in the United States and the planet.

Hospitals in Missoula have been on the razor’s edge during the current surge and set several records this week. There are 56 Covid-19 patients in Missoula hospitals, one short of the previous record.

“While this surge appears to be plateauing in other parts of the nation, health officials warn we may not see that happen in Montana which remains one of the few states in the nation with less than 50% of its population fully vaccinated,” Missoula Public Health said in a release.

St. Peter’s Health reported they had a record number of Covid-19 hospitalizations with 41 patients needing care. The statistic represents around 50 percent of the organization’s acute medical care inpatient beds according to KTVH.

“St. Peter’s does not believe the surge at the hospital is at its peak, as hospitalizations and deaths associated with COVID-19 typically lag case reporting by two to three weeks. Lewis and Clark County has reported high case numbers this week, with Tuesday’s total of 132 new cases representing the highest since December 2020,” St. Peter’s Health wrote in a press release.

Critical care at Bozeman Deaconess Hospital is currently at 95 percent capacity with the National Guard still assisting.

Officials at the hospital have asked for an extension of the National Guard’s help. “We did just request an extension from our initial request from the National Guard,” says Kallie Kujawa, System Director of Quality and Safety. “We are confident that will be granted so that we can continue to use them in the next few weeks,” according to a report by KBZK.

Currently, 148 National Guard servicemembers are assisting 12 medical facilities. In the good news column, vaccinations climbed 42%.

In breaking news, hospital admissions in Montana are at record levels. The 7 day moving average is 113 hospital admission, which almost equals Washington state.

Wyoming

Officials reported 404 confirmed cases, and hospitalizations dropped slightly to 213. Sixteen of 36 hospitals have ICU capacity – with eight having one or two beds remaining each. Additionally, Cheyenne Veterans Affairs Medical Center has three ICU beds remaining.

Covid-19 test positivity improved to 17.05%.

Wyoming officials are drafting a plan for statewide implementation of crisis standards of care.

Misinformation

Taking the day off

Health and Lifestyle, Local, National

New Covid case rate drops to mid-August level – local and national update for October 7, 2021

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) For the first time since August 17, the 14 days moving average for new Covid-19 cases in Washington state dropped below 400. Hospitalizations have only declined slightly. A combination of patients arriving sicker, non-Covid related hospitalizations, and transfer patients both inside and outside of Washington continue to push medical workers to the breaking point.

UW Medicine will no longer do solid organ transplants on patients who refuse the Covid-19 vaccine.

Pfizer applies for Covid-19 vaccine emergency use authorization for children 5 to 11 years old and the FDA will hold a hearing on October 26.

Hospitalizations in Eastern Washington are increasing, and the eastern half of the state continues to see many more new Covid-19 cases versus other regions with higher vaccination rates. Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett reported 30 patients in the emergency department waiting for beds.

Leaders in Alaska, Idaho, and Montana appear to be trying to find new levels of awful in their response, and non-response to the situation in their respective states. Wyoming had a record number of pediatric patients in September, and state officials are drafting a “crisis standards of care” plan.

This update uses the latest data from the Washington State Department of Health (WSDOH), released on October 7, 2021.

vaccinationhospitalsschoolslocalnationalmisinformation

Washington State Update for October 7, 2021

Washington state Covid-19 update

For the first time since August 17, the new case rate is below 400. New cases were down slightly in all but the least vaccinated counties, where new Covid-19 cases increased.

Percent of Total Population Fully VaccinatedAverage 14-Day New Case Rate (unadjusted)
60.00% or above (4)205.3
50.00% to 59.99% (13 counties)513.4
40.00% to 49.99% (14 counties)613.4
29.30% to 39.99% (8 counties)739.7 (up)
14-Day New Covid-19 Cases per 100K average by Vaccination Rate, Not Adjusted for Population

Through October 6, Washington’s statewide 14-day rolling average is 398.0 Covid-19 cases per 100K.

Ferry County continues to get worse, reporting 1,137.8 new cases per 100K residents. This is approaching the same level the county experience in April after a superspreader event in the town of Republic.

Counties in the 800.0 to 999.9 per 100K range include Columbia, Grant, Klickitat, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, and Stevens.

Counties in the 600.0 to 799.9 per 100K range include Adams, Asotin, Benton, Chelan, Columbia, Cowlitz, Franklin, Garfield, Grays Harbor, Mason, Okanogan, and Walla Walla. Douglas and Lewis counties are just under 600.0.

New cases by age group were statistically unchanged while hospitalizations were mixed.

Age Group7-Day Case Rate7-Day Hospitalization Rate
Ages 0-11167.00.8 (down)
Ages 12-19196.10.8
Ages 20-34164.94.6 (down)
Ages 35-49174.88.8
Ages 50-64121.815.8 (up)
Ages 65-7993.616.7 (down)
Ages 80+106.936.6 (up)
7-day case rate and 7-day hospitalization rate is per 100K within the age group – the target for 7-day case rate is <25.0, but there are other factors such as vaccination rates within the age groups, how many total tests within the 7-day period, and the positivity rate within each age group

The USA Today COVID Tracker reported 57 deaths yesterday. The state of Washington is not reporting the percentage of positive cases.

UW Medicine requires Covid-19 vaccine for all solid organ transplant patients

UW Medicine now requires all recipients of solid organ transplants to be vaccinated for Covid-19. The hospital system updated its Covid-19 FAQ yesterday, making a previously reported policy official. The site indicated the policy was put into place because, “After a transplant, your immune system is suppressed and in a prolonged weakened state. This makes you less able to develop an appropriate immune response to the vaccine. It also makes you more vulnerable to infections from viruses like COVID-19 that can lead to severe illness or death.”

Unvaccinated organ transplant patients experience 20% to 30% mortality if they catch Covid-19, which is about the same fatality rate of smallpox or the mild variant of Ebola. Patients who need an organ transplant typically require other vaccines such as an MMR booster, Hepatitis B, and Varicella or Zoster.

Patient compliance with medical instructions pre-transplant weighs into the authorization decision. People who exhibit low compliance pre-transplant typically don’t follow through on their care plan after a transplant. Alcoholics that need a liver transplant are required to be clean and sober for months while lung transplant recipients need to stop using tobacco products.

Additionally, some anti-vaccination followers believe they are part of a “pureblood” movement and are rejecting blood transfusions because the blood supply isn’t separated between vaccinated and unvaccinated. That begs the question if the blood of a vaccinated person isn’t acceptable, why would an organ from a vaccinated person be?

Central Washington University professor dies of Covid-19

58-year-old Dr. Maria Roditeleva-Wibe, scholar and college professor, died of Covid-19 on October 2. Roditeleva-Wibe was a Russian immigrant and had worked at Central Washington University for over 20 years.

In 1999 she accepted a proposal to become an exchange professor at Central Washington University where she began teaching music theory, music history, class piano, and world music. Over the 20 plus years of her stay at Central, Maria regularly accompanied students and faculty members, as well as performing her own piano recitals. In 2006 Central awarded her the Outstanding Non-Tenure Track Teaching Award in recognition of her work; this was followed by Maria’s reception in 2013 of the Distinguished Teaching Award to honor her outstanding contribution to CWU’s academic life.

A former student, who asked not to be identified out of respect for the family, told Malcontent News Roditeleva-Wibe didn’t trust the government and was unvaccinated.

She leaves behind her husband, Mark.

Travel Advisories

We continue to recommend avoiding recreational travel to Spokane County. We strongly advise against all nonessential travel to Alaska, Idaho, and Montana. Hospital resources in these regions are constrained, and you may receive inadequate care if you experience a medical emergency.

The East Hospital Region inched closer to receiving a recreational travel advisory. Hospitals in Eastern Washington are very stressed due to the unvaccinated population east of the Cascade and Idaho residents seeking treatment in Washington state.

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!

In August, King County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin mentioned the N95 Project as a trusted source for N95 masks. A check on the website showed that a 50 count box of United States manufactured N95 masks are available for $40.00. We recommend wearing N95 masks indoors as they provide the best protection against COVID when properly fitted.

No promotional consideration has been given, or requested from the n95 project or any manufacturer of masks

Vaccination

Pfizer applies for Covid-19 vaccine Emergency Use Authorization for children 5-11

Pfizer and BioNTech have asked federal regulators to authorize emergency use of their coronavirus vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11, the companies announced Thursday, according to a report in USA Today.

The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will need to sign off on the vaccine before it becomes available to children of those ages. An independent expert panel will review the data on October 26.

Pfizer vaccine booster shots are now available

Booster shots for eligible individuals are now available statewide. Individuals who received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine more than six months ago, are 65 or older, or are immunocompromised can receive their third dose immediately.

In the Kirland-Bellevue-Woodinville area, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Bartell’s, and QFC are offering booster shots. Additionally, the third dose is available at the CVS located within the Target store at 17,700 NE 76th Street in Redmond.

Most locations require an appointment, which can be scheduled online.

King County, Washington is reporting over 86.7% of age eligible residents are vaccinated with at least one dose. The highest rates of positivity are in areas with low vaccination rates statewide. The FDA has provided full approval of the Pfizer vaccine for anyone 16 and over and EUA approval for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

COVID vaccines are free for anyone over 12 years old, and no appointment is necessary at most locations. Lyft and Hopelink provide free transportation, and KinderCare, the Learning Care Group, and the YMCA offer free childcare during vaccination appointments or recuperation.

For information on getting a vaccination in King County, you can visit the King County Department of Public Health website.

Malcontent News

Hospital Status

According to the DoH COVID Dashboard, 91% of all staffed acute care beds are occupied, and 17.2% of patients have Covid-19. Statewide, hospitals have the staff to support approximately 666 additional acute care patients. ICUs are at 88.1% of capacity statewide, with 30.0% of ICU patients fighting Covid-19 – an estimated 352 patients with 56% on ventilators. The state has the staff to support approximately 145 additional ICU patients.

The 7-day rolling average hospital admission rate for new COVID patients was 123. The Department of Health reported 1,193 Covid-19 patients statewide on October 6, with 197 requiring ventilators.

Hospital RegionCountiesICU OccupancyICU COVID PatientsAcute Care OccupancyAcute Care COVID Patients
EastAdams, Asotin, Ferry, Garfield, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Spokane, Stevens, Wahkiakum, Whitman93.1%46.6%89.2%27.7%
NorthIsland, San Juan, Skagit, Whatcom74.8%34.2%86.2%13.1%
North CentralChelan, Douglas, Grant, Okanogan83.2%48.6%75.1%21.7%
NorthwestClallam, Jefferson, Kitsap, Mason92.2%43.2%95.9%27.2%
Puget SoundKing, Pierce, Snohomish91.0%24.7%94.6%13.5%
South CentralBenton, Columbia, Franklin, Kittitas, Walla Walla, Yakima88.1%33.1%83.6%21.2%
SouthwestClark, Cowlitz, Klickitat, Skamania 72.8%33.1%85.9%21.4%
WestGrays Harbor, Lewis, Pacific, Thurston78.7%21.8%84.5%15.9%
Hospital status by region – ICU Occupancy should be below 80%, ICU COVID Patients should be below 20%, Acute Care Occupancy should be below 80%, and Acute Care COVID Patients should be below 10%

We’re seeing a tale of two Hospital Regions in the data. All four metrics for the West Hospital Region are approaching a level that would trigger a recreational travel advisory. In contrast, The West Hospital Region continues to inch closer to normal. Eastern Washington and the Olympic Peninsula are the two regions holding the rest of the state back. It is important to note that the Puget Sound Region and East Region have a significant number of transfer patients, both from within Washington and out of state.

KING reported that Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett is backed up against a wall. On Wednesday they had 40 boarders, that is patients in the emergency department waiting for a bed, and 30 on Thursday.

“It’s disappointing we’re still in this position,” said Darren Redick, CEO of Providence Northwest Service Area.

“As of yesterday, we’ve opened up a six-bed satellite ICU to care for additional ICU patients, because we’re out of bed capacity in our normal ICU,” Redick explained. The hospital has been forced to cancel elective surgeries due to the surge of patients coming through the doors.

Back to School

School DistrictStatusLess than 10 Active Cases10 or More Active Cases
BellevueYELLOW– Ardmore (2*)
– Bellevue (7**)
– Big Picture (1*)
– Chinook (4*)
– Eastgate (1*)
– Enatai (3*)
– Highland (8**)
– Interlake (3*)
– Lake Hills (4*)
– Newport (4*)
– Newport Heights (1*)
– Puesta del Sol (1*)
– Sammamish (4*)
– Sherwood Forest (2*)
– Spiritridge (1*)
– Stevenson (2*)
– Tillicum (1*)
– Wilburton (3*)
– Woodridge (3*)		None
Lake WashingtonYELLOW– Bell Elementary (1*)
– Barton Elementary (1*)
– Dickinson/Explorer Elementary (1*)
– Ella Baker Elementary (1*)
– Eastlake High (2*)
– Finn Hill Middle School (3*)
– Franklin Elementary (2*)
– Frost Elementary (2*)
– ICS (1*)
– Inglewood Middle School (1*)
– Juanita Elementary (1*)
– Kamiakin Middle School (4*)
– Keller Elementary (2*)
– Kirkland Middle School (1* see notes)
– Lakeview Elementary (4*)
– McAuliffe Elementary (1*)
– Muir Elementary (1*)
– Northstar Middle (1*)
– Redmond Elementary (2*)
– Redmond Middle School (1*)
– Redmond High School (2*)
– Renaissance Middle School (1*)
– Rosa Parks Elementary (1*)
– Rush Elementary (1*)

see notes below		None
NorthshoreYELLOW– Arrowhead Elementary (5)
– Bothell High School (42**)
– Canyon Creek Elementary (19)
– Canyon Park Middle School (4)
– Cottage Lake Elementary (3)
– Crystal Springs Elementary (23)
– East Ridge Elementary (9)
– Fernwood Elementary (1)
– Frank Love Elementary (22)
– Hollywood Hills Elementary (34)
– Inglemoor High School (1)
– Innovation Lab High School (1)
– Kenmore Elementary (2)
– Kenmore Middle School (19)
– Leota Middle School (3)
– Lockwood Elementary (25**)
– Maywood Hills Elementary (11**)
– Moorlands Elementary (2)
– North Creek High School (7)
– Northshore Middle School (2)
– Secondary Academy for Success (4)
– Shelton View Elementary (6)
– Skyview Middle School (11)
– Sunrise Elementary (7)
– Timbercrest Middle School (5)
– Wellington Elementary (31**)
– Westhill Elementary (52)
– Woodin Elementary (5**)
– Woodinville High School (11)
– Woodmoor Elementary (12)		None
Local Districts Scorecard – * indicates positive cases only ** indicates 5 or more confirmed positive cases

We redefined the school district statuses. Information for classroom and building closures has been a challenge to obtain, both for closures and reopening. We are adopting moving any school with more than 10 active COVID cases reported into the red, and we’ve adjusted the third column to reflect this change.

Maywood Elementary in the Northshore School District reported six confirmed Covid-19 cases.

We have a parent confirmed report of a single Covid-19 case at Kirkland Middle School, with an additional 17 students quarantined.

We multiple parents e-mailed us about two confirmed Covid-19 cases at Juanita High School. However, because the district sent the e-mail on Monday, we cannot confirm if these are new or included in the last dashboard update.

We continued to encourage parents to request improved daily data reporting from the Lake Washington School District.

Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville

No update

National Round-Up

Johns Hopkins University Cumulative Case Tracker is reporting 111,503 new cases and 2,556 deaths nationwide on Wednesday. The United States has now lost 704,000 residents to Covid-19 since February 29, 2020. In 2020, when no vaccine was available, 352,000 people died – so far in 2021, with a vaccine, the same number have passed on.

A study out of the U.K., where they keep more detailed records of unvaccinated versus vaccinated fatalities, indicated just 1.2% of deaths since January 1 were among unvaccinated people. Covid-19 data in the United States are recorded at a state level, and some states such as Florida, Idaho, Texas, and Wyoming, don’t track statistics for vaccinated versus unvaccinated.

Alaska

Editor’s Note: I must remain objective. I must remain objective. I must remain objective.

As Alaska experiences the highest Covid-19 new case rate on the planet, Anchorage has been forced to ration Covid-19 testing because of a surprise budget shortfall.

Alaska Public Radio reported a spokesman for Mayor Dave Bronson said the administration plans to ask the city Assembly for additional cash “in the near future.” But for now, it’s scaling back its testing contractor’s hours at multiple sites around the city, with reductions totaling 108 hours a week, the contractor said.

Technically, Anchorage’s purchase order with its testing provider, California-based Visit Healthcare, runs through the end of October. But the city is paying a flat rate of $98 a test, and amid Alaska’s delta variant-driven surge, demand has been so high that without the reduced hours, Bronson’s administration would have exhausted its appropriation from the Assembly by Oct. 18, according to Acting Health Director Joe Gerace.

New cases in Alaska still lead the nation but have declined significantly from last week – but a lack of testing resources helps keep that number down. The state is still operating under “crisis standards of care” with 180 Covid-19 patients statewide. Alaska has 125 staffed ICU beds statewide, with 26 available. There were 842 new cases reported today. At the current rate of new cases detected, 1% of Alaska residents are catching Covid-19 every 8 days, and the state is under testing.

There appears to be a scandal at PeaceHealth Ketchikan. In April, registered nurse Marian Weber started work on the remote island as a traveling nurse. According to KTOO, she was a whistleblower who reported unsafe staffing levels impacting patient care.

“We had one patient that was intubated, and we had one that required continuous BiPAP (a type of ventilator), and these are ICU-level … patients,” she said.

But Weber said they weren’t placed in the intensive care unit — even though there were rooms available in the ICU that she said were equipped to handle COVID-19 patients.

Instead, she said, they were placed with the rest of the hospital’s COVID-19 patients in a section of the medical-surgical unit. And that was a problem, she said, because it meant critically ill patients couldn’t be monitored effectively from outside their rooms.

She was told to report the situation to a hospital administrator. On August 24, four days after reporting her concerns and just after signing a four-month contract extension, she was fired. On September 28, the hospital reported Sherry Dunlay, interim director of acute care, had abruptly departed.

Hospitals in Anchorage, Bethel, and Valdez continue to be the most impacted by the ongoing surge.

Idaho

Idaho has reported more than 1,321 new Covid-19 and another 24 deaths today. The state continues to see 1/2 of 1% of all residents infected every 7 days. In good news, the positivity rate dropped to 14.6%, however, it is likely higher with almost 8,000 tests awaiting processing.

Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin’s Indoctrination Task Force lost a member to Covid-19 this week. The task force was created to monitor and prevent critical race theory in Idaho schools, and other non-patriotic ideologies.

Pete Coulson, 67, was a member of the task force and told people he was “vaccinated by Christ.” After a three-week battle, he died of Covid-19.

“I am deeply saddened at the loss of Pete Coulson, as I’m sure everyone in (the) Treasure Valley is,” McGeachin wrote in a prepared statement Thursday. “He was loved by everyone who knew him, and he will be greatly missed. I’m praying for his family.”

If you’ve been following our coverage and thinking McGeachin’s beliefs and values are concerning, you’re not alone. According to a report in the News & Observer, a group of Republicans in Idaho have had enough.

Prominent mainstream Republicans, worried the state’s hard-right drift could scuttle their efforts to grow Idaho’s economy, are asking Democrats and Independents to register as Republicans to vote in the party’s May primary. “Everybody and their dog ought to get out to the primary and have their say so,” said Jim Jones, a former chief justice of the Idaho Supreme Court and former Republican Idaho attorney general. “That’s where your vote counts.”

Kootenai Health told KTVB they set a record for the number of pregnant women hospitalized and saw a sharp increase in stillbirths.

“We have definitely seen more pregnant hospitalization in the ICU,” said Robert Scoggins, Kootenai Health’s ICU medical director. “You are really taking care of two people and I think that’s a really difficult situation, makes us all very nervous but so far we have been lucky.”

But not all of Idaho’s hospitals are so lucky. St. Luke’s Magic Valley in Twin Falls is reporting more stillbirths.

“We are seeing more stillbirths, unexplained stillbirths and towards the end of the pregnancy,” said Dr. Stacy Seyb, who specializes in Maternal-Fetal Medicine.

Dr. Seyb said in April there were 18 confirmed cases of COVID cases in pregnant women across all St. Luke’s locations. September saw 150 confirmed cases. and 97% of hospitalized pregnant women are unvaccinated.

“If you are pregnant, you are three to five times more likely to be hospitalized and twice as likely to succumb to the process and die,” Dr. Seyb said. “The thing about COVID is it causes issues with blood clotting and placentas are very vulnerable to blood clots and I think we can see smaller babies that aren’t growing well as well and so those are the types of things we see overall.”

May the odds ever be in your favor.

Montana

Montana’s situation continues to worsen with KTVQ reporting 1,301 new Covid-19 cases and 21 more hospitalizations, increasing the number to 465. At the current rate of new confirmed cases, 1% of all Montanans are infected with Covid-19 every eight days. With a hospitalization rate of 5%, Montana does not have the staffing or facility resources to meet the current surge.

Hospitalizations have increased 40% in the last month and Billings Clinic is having to pay traveling staff as much as $200 an hour to work in the struggling hospital.

According to Montana Public Radio, the Montana Hospital Association has asked the Gianforte administration to use federal COVID relief dollars to contract traveling staff like nurses and respiratory therapists, especially for small critical access hospitals that can’t afford them right now. Gianforte’s administration declined to do that. Spokesperson Jack O’Brien says the administration will find other ways to help hospitals obtain staffing, though no additional details were provided.

ICU nurse Laurie Sutphin had this to say. “The worst thing is that we had so much hope when the vaccine came out. We thought we’d never be here again.”

Wyoming

Officials reported 681 confirmed cases, and hospitalizations grew to 217. Wyoming had 12 pediatric Covid-19 patients in September, beating the record set in August according to the Star Tribune.

Ten Wyoming facilities reported a critical staffing shortage Thursday. Eleven reported anticipating such a shortage within the week.

According to Oil City News, seven hospitals had zero available ICU beds available and four had only one ICU bed available. While ICU beds are not exclusively used to treat COVID-19 patients, when hospitals deal with surges in these patients, that can put a strain on their ability to care for other types of critical-needs patients.

Wyoming officials are drafting a plan for statewide implementation of crisis standards of care.

Misinformation

Taking the day off

Health and Lifestyle, Local, National

Idahoans are overwhelming Eastern Washington hospitals – local and national update for October 6, 2021

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 are starting to feel the crush of transfer patients and Idahoans seeking medical treatment in Washington state. As new cases decline statewide, hospitalizations have plateaued, with Eastern Washington taking on the brunt of new cases.

More Seattle Police Officers provided proof of vaccination while city officials forged a plan for October 18. In contrast, over 93% of Washington State Patrol employees are vaccinated, including more than 90% of commissioned officers. A King County Sheriff Office Sergeant did a reply-all e-mail about the vaccine mandate that was full of conspiracy theories – it’s a sad story.

In Eastern Washington, 19 municipal and state employees filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the looming vaccine mandate.

There were new Covid-19 cases reported in all three school districts we track.

Nationally, a Maryland man killed his pharmacist brother and two other people due to his alleged belief in Covid-19 vaccine conspiracies.

Scientists learn the secrets of Covid Toe and how to treat it. In another study, researchers find increasing proof that Covid-19 can damage the pancreas, leading to a sudden onset of diabetes.

Alaska, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming continue to have hospitals operating under crisis standards of care protocols. In Coeur d’Alene, Kootenai Health has been using those protocols for almost a month.

A 51-year-old man whose wife sued to treat him with ivermectin in an Ohio hospital died in late September.

A common objection to receiving the Covid-19 vaccine is the belief that the government assumes no liability. Is it true? We tackle that issue in misinformation.

This update uses the latest data from the Washington State Department of Health (WSDOH), released on October 6, 2021.

vaccinationhospitalsschoolslocalnationalmisinformation

Washington State Update for October 6, 2021

Washington state Covid-19 update

New cases in Washington state continue to decline slowly. We’re adding some new metrics. A combination of increasing vaccination rates, mask wear, and the Delta variant running out of new hosts contributes to the slowdown.

Percent of Total Population Fully VaccinatedAverage 14-Day New Case Rate (unadjusted)
60.00% or above (4)212.0 (down)
50.00% to 59.99% (13 counties)515.1 (down)
40.00% to 49.99% (14 counties)624.1 (down)
29.30% to 39.99% (8 counties)713.3 (up)
14-Day New Covid-19 Cases per 100K average by Vaccination Rate, Not Adjusted for Population

Through October 5, Washington’s statewide 14-day rolling average is 403.8 Covid-19 cases per 100K.

Ferry County reported 1,011.4 new cases per 100K residents.

Counties in the 800.0 to 999.9 per 100K range include Grant, Klickitat, Lincoln Pend Oreille, and Stevens.

Counties in the 600.0 to 799.9 per 100K range include Asotin, Benton, Chelan, Columbia, Cowlitz, Franklin, Garfield, Grays Harbor, Mason, Okanogan, and Walla Walla. Franklin County remained just under 800 while Adams, Douglas, Lewis, and Spokane counties were just under 600.0.

New cases were down from birth to 34 years old and statistically unchanged for 35 and above. Pediatric and adolescent hospitalizations were up, along with ages 50 to 64 and over 80.

Age Group7-Day Case Rate7-Day Hospitalization Rate
Ages 0-11170.3 (down)1.1 (up)
Ages 12-19202.1 (down)0.8 (up)
Ages 20-34166.1 (down)5.0
Ages 35-49173.98.4
Ages 50-64120.115.1 (up)
Ages 65-7997.617.4
Ages 80+109.835.2 (up)
7-day case rate and 7-day hospitalization rate is per 100K within the age group – the target for 7-day case rate is <25.0, but there are other factors such as vaccination rates within the age groups, how many total tests within the 7-day period, and the positivity rate within each age group

The USA Today COVID Tracker reported 53 deaths yesterday. The state of Washington is not reporting the percentage of positive cases.

Idahoans seeking medical care pushing Eastern Washington hospitals to the brink

Dr. Dan Getz, the chief medical officer of Providence Medical Center in Spokane, Washington, said patients from Idaho are pushing Providence Medical toward capacity limits, leaving hospitals scrambling for options. KATC reported hospitals have had to pause some surgeries to create space.

“Idaho is currently in crisis standards of care where they basically said, ‘We can’t deliver normal care for people in our state,’ and they’re looking at rationalizing things,” Getz said. “We are not in that crisis in Washington state — however if we continue to see increasing cases and we are not able to care for our community, that’s always a potential.”

At Multicare Deaconess Hospital in Spokane, the staff says they are spread thin.

Luke Eckoff, a Covid-19 ICU nurse at Multicare Deaconess Hospital, said, “Flight teams are bringing patients from outlying hospitals — and that’s putting more strain on us. These rural hospitals don’t have the capacity we do to take care of these patients. What that’s doing is putting further pressure on our hospital and resources. It’s hard at the end of the day when you have to put that patient in the body bag. And that’s happening more and more.”

More SPD officers present proof of vaccination

The number of Seattle Police Department officers who haven’t confirmed being fully vaccinated dropped to 292 today. Brandi Kruse of KCPQ tweeted that an additional 101 SPD officers have requested vaccination exemptions.

Nationally, law enforcement officers are one of the lowest vaccinated professions. Mike Solan, president of the Seattle Police Officer Guild (SPOG), spoke with KING 5.

“The problem is they’re using bully tactics to force their employees to get this, and that’s what’s led to this disconnect,” Solan said. “Right now, more than ever, our community’s begging for police officers to stop the rise in crime. And we need politicians who are willing to understand the public safety staffing crisis that they created. They’re in charge, they can change this.”

It’s hard to benchmark where the final numbers will land on October 18. The San Francisco Police Department has 2,140 officers. With a Covid-19 vaccine deadline looming on October 23, 267 remained unvaccinated.

According to the national police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, 716 law enforcement officers have died in the line of duty from Covid-19 since March 2020.

Over 93% of Washington State Patrol workers provided proof of vaccination

The Washington State Patrol reported Wednesday that more of its workers are providing proof they are vaccinated, according to a report by KXLY.

Only seven percent of its employees hadn’t been vaccinated or turned in proof they got the shot. That means 152 of its 2,184 employees could face getting fired if they do not meet the vaccine mandate deadline of October 18. Of those, only 91 are commissioned troopers.

King County Sheriff Deputy sends department-wide reply all e-mail against vaccine mandate

Sergeant Cameron Lefler of the King County Sheriff Department sent a department-wide e-mail on Monday, responding to an e-mail sent by three KCSO leaders, blasting the vaccine mandate and sharing conspiracy theories. The South Seattle Emerald received a copy of the original e-mail and Lefler’s response.

The original e-mail sent on Monday reminded KCSO employees they needed to submit their vaccination status so the department could make a staffing plan.

“Our planning process is hampered by lack of complete information because some have not yet provided evidence of vaccination,” the chiefs’ e-mail reads. “Again, we are hopeful that you have the required information but have not yet shared it with HR. One of our goals is to plan for possible separation in a way that is least likely to disrupt your city or precinct, and it is hard to do that without all the information.”

In his reply, Lefler indicated he had requested an exemption but had not gotten a response from King County, adding, “What [is[ King County is going to do about the thousands of us who have requested medical and/or religious exemptions.”

He then stated that being a sheriff deputy was equal to being under constant siege in war, called out King County Executive Dow Constantine, and called for the entire department to quit. Lefler then suggested that the vaccine mandate would lead to gun control and remove “CPO” (conceal carry permits).

“Anything goes once the precedent is set. I will fight for what is right, and you reading this know in your gut that I am right,” Lefler continues. “It’s not just about a jab in the arm. It’s about our very freedoms. This is about our right to self-determination and choice. God gave us these rights, but only if we are willing to fight for them.”

The term “jab” is common in Europe and widely used in Covid-19 misinformation, particularly Russian-backed sources. Multiple articles starting in January 2021 outlined the Kremlin-backed disinformation campaigns designed to sow mistrust in European and North American-created vaccines.

According to the website Together We Served, Lafer was in Marine Corps from 2001 to 2005 and served in Iraq. The unit he was with deployed to Fallujah and Ramadi during his tour at the height of the Iraqi insurrection. It is worth noting that Lefler would have been required to take the Emergency Use Authorized Anthrax vaccine as part of his military service and could have used Nerve Agent antidotes as part of his military tour.

All US service members are required to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by December.

Sgt. Tim Meyer e-mailed the South Seattle Emerald after the original story was published.

“KCSO appreciates Sgt. Lefler’s years of service and the difficult decision he is trying to make for himself and his family,” Meyer’s e-mail to the Emerald reads. “We do not have ‘thousands’ of deputies, rather we employ roughly 750. We hope we don’t lose any of them. As our members struggle with the decision to comply with the Executive’s mandate, we know some would like to believe that the Sheriff and her command staff have the power to get the mandate rescinded. That is not possible.”

Approximately 100 KCSO employees have applied for Covid-19 vaccine exemptions.

19 state and municipal workers file lawsuit over vaccine mandate

A new lawsuit was filed on October 5 by 19 employees claiming their civil rights are being violated by the looming vaccination mandate, in a story reported by KXLY.

The suit lists as defendants Governor Inslee, Spokane Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer, Washington State Patrol  Chief John Batiste, and other leaders of state agencies.

The suit claims “the plaintiffs are on the brink of having adverse employment action against them. It claims that in each case, “a form of disability or sincere religious belief requires them to decline vaccination.”

The group of workers comprises Washington State Patrol troopers, Spokane firefighters, and employees of other state agencies, including the Department of Social and Health Services.

Virtually none of the lawsuits filed at a federal level have been successful at blocking a vaccine mandate. The 1905 United States Supreme Court ruling of Jacobson versus Massachusetts cemented the rights of municipalities, counties, and states to mandate vaccines and other public health measures.

Federal medical team of 8 nurses and 10 certified nursing assistants deployed in Spokane

A medical team available through the federal government arrived at a Spokane care facility to help with Covid-19-related care on Wednesday, KREM reported.

The team of eight nurses and 10 certified nursing assistants (CNA), and eight nurses will be deployed to the Avalon Care Center in North Spokane. The medical staff is from ACI Federal, according to the Washington Department of Health (DOH). According to the DOH, these are not federal resources but are available through a federal contract. Avalon Care Center will pay for the nurses. 

Travel Advisories

Today, we are lifting our travel advisory to Yakima, Klickitat, Benton, Franklin, and Walla Walla Counties. We continue to recommend when visiting those counties, you use reasonable caution and don’t engage in dangerous activities.

We continue to recommend avoiding recreational travel to Spokane County. We strongly advise against all nonessential travel to Alaska, Idaho, and Montana. Hospital resources in these regions are constrained, and you may receive inadequate care if you experience a medical emergency.

We continue to monitor the situation in the East Hospital Region and may expand our travel advisory beyond Spokane County.

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!

In August, King County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin mentioned the N95 Project as a trusted source for N95 masks. A check on the website showed that a 50 count box of United States manufactured N95 masks are available for $40.00. We recommend wearing N95 masks indoors as they provide the best protection against COVID when properly fitted.

No promotional consideration has been given, or requested from the n95 project or any manufacturer of masks

Vaccination

Pfizer vaccine booster shots are now available

Booster shots for eligible individuals are now available statewide. Individuals who received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine more than six months ago, are 65 or older, or are immunocompromised can receive their third dose immediately.

In the Kirland-Bellevue-Woodinville area, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Bartell’s, and QFC are offering booster shots. Additionally, the third dose is available at the CVS located within the Target store at 17,700 NE 76th Street in Redmond.

Most locations require an appointment, which can be scheduled online.

King County, Washington is reporting over 86.7% of age eligible residents are vaccinated with at least one dose. The highest rates of positivity are in areas with low vaccination rates statewide. The FDA has provided full approval of the Pfizer vaccine for anyone 16 and over and EUA approval for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

COVID vaccines are free for anyone over 12 years old, and no appointment is necessary at most locations. Lyft and Hopelink provide free transportation, and KinderCare, the Learning Care Group, and the YMCA offer free childcare during vaccination appointments or recuperation.

For information on getting a vaccination in King County, you can visit the King County Department of Public Health website.

Malcontent News

Hospital Status

According to the DoH COVID Dashboard, 91% of all staffed acute care beds are occupied, and 17.4% of patients have Covid-19. Statewide, hospitals have the staff to support approximately 665 additional acute care patients. ICUs are at 88.1% of capacity statewide, with 30.0% of ICU patients fighting Covid-19 – an estimated 353 patients with 57% on ventilators. The state has the staff to support approximately 142 additional ICU patients.

The 7-day rolling average hospital admission rate for new COVID patients was 123. The Department of Health reported 1,199 Covid-19 patients statewide on October 5, with 200 on ventilators.

Hospital RegionCountiesICU OccupancyICU COVID PatientsAcute Care OccupancyAcute Care COVID Patients
EastAdams, Asotin, Ferry, Garfield, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Spokane, Stevens, Wahkiakum, Whitman92.6%45.5%88.7%27.0%
NorthIsland, San Juan, Skagit, Whatcom74.8%33.4%86.0%13.2%
North CentralChelan, Douglas, Grant, Okanogan85.1%50.2%75.6%22.2%
NorthwestClallam, Jefferson, Kitsap, Mason92.2%42.8%96.0%27.0%
Puget SoundKing, Pierce, Snohomish91.3%24.6%94.5%13.6%
South CentralBenton, Columbia, Franklin, Kittitas, Walla Walla, Yakima87.9%33.8%84.1%21.7%
SouthwestClark, Cowlitz, Klickitat, Skamania 72.6%32.9%86.4%22.2%
WestGrays Harbor, Lewis, Pacific, Thurston81.6%23.1%85.5%17.0%
Hospital status by region – ICU Occupancy should be below 80%, ICU COVID Patients should be below 20%, Acute Care Occupancy should be below 80%, and Acute Care COVID Patients should be below 10%

There was very little change in the status of Hospital Regions overnight, with the East and Northwest Hospital Regions below the threshold of issuing a travel advisory.

Back to School

School DistrictStatusLess than 10 Active Cases10 or More Active Cases
BellevueYELLOW– Ardmore (1*)
– Bellevue (7**)
– Big Picture (1*)
– Chinook (3*)
– Eastgate (1*)
– Enatai (3*)
– Highland (8**)
– Interlake (3*)
– Lake Hills (4*)
– Newport (4*)
– Newport Heights (1*)
– Puesta del Sol (1*)
– Sammamish (4*)
– Sherwood Forest (2*)
– Spiritridge (1*)
– Stevenson (1*)
– Tillicum (1*)
– Wilburton (3*)
– Woodridge (3*)		None
Lake WashingtonYELLOW– Bell Elementary (1*)
– Barton Elementary (1*)
– Dickinson/Explorer Elementary (1*)
– Ella Baker Elementary (1*)
– Eastlake High (2*)
– Finn Hill Middle School (3*)
– Franklin Elementary (2*)
– Frost Elementary (2*)
– ICS (1*)
– Inglewood Middle School (1*)
– Juanita Elementary (1*)
– Kamiakin Middle School (4*)
– Keller Elementary (2*)
– Kirkland Middle School (1* see notes)
– Lakeview Elementary (4*)
– McAuliffe Elementary (1*)
– Muir Elementary (1*)
– Northstar Middle (1*)
– Redmond Elementary (2*)
– Redmond Middle School (1*)
– Redmond High School (2*)
– Renaissance Middle School (1*)
– Rosa Parks Elementary (1*)
– Rush Elementary (1*)

see notes below		None
NorthshoreYELLOW– Arrowhead Elementary (4)
– Bothell High School (42**)
– Canyon Creek Elementary (23)
– Canyon Park Middle School (6)
– Cottage Lake Elementary (3)
– Crystal Springs Elementary (26)
– East Ridge Elementary (12)
– Fernwood Elementary (1)
– Frank Love Elementary (17)
– Hollywood Hills Elementary (27)
– Inglemoor High School (1)
– Innovation Lab High School (1)
– Kenmore Elementary (3)
– Kenmore Middle School (25)
– Leota Middle School (4)
– Lockwood Elementary (40**)
– Maywood Hills Elementary (29)
– Moorlands Elementary (1)
– North Creek High School (5)
– Northshore Family Partnership (30)
– Northshore Middle School (2)
– Secondary Academy for Success (5)
– Shelton View Elementary (5)
– Skyview Middle School (12)
– Sunrise Elementary (9)
– Timbercrest Middle School (5)
– Wellington Elementary (26)
– Westhill Elementary (50)
– Woodin Elementary (16**)
– Woodinville High School (11)
– Woodmoor Elementary (12)		None
Local Districts Scorecard – * indicates positive cases only ** indicates 5 or more confirmed positive cases

We redefined the school district statuses. Information for classroom and building closures has been a challenge to obtain, both for closures and reopening. We are adopting moving any school with more than 10 active COVID cases reported into the red, and we’ve adjusted the third column to reflect this change.

Bellevue School District added two more confirmed Covid-19 cases at Highland Middle School, for a total of eight. Additionally, a confirmed case was reported at Ardmore Elementary School.

The Northshore School District added multiple schools to their report. Lockwood Elementary reported three more confirmed cases this morning, bringing the count to nine. Bothell High School and Woodin Elementary each have six confirmed cases.

We have a parent confirmed report of a single Covid-19 case at Kirkland Middle School, with an additional 17 students quarantined.

We multiple parents e-mailed us about two confirmed Covid-19 cases at Juanita High School. However, because the district sent the e-mail on Monday, we cannot confirm if these are new or included in the last dashboard update.

We continued to encourage parents to request improved daily data reporting from the Lake Washington School District.

Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville

The City of Kirkland has rolled out additional phases of its COVID-19 relief program to provide immediate financial assistance for small businesses, thanks to funding available through the American Rescue Plan Act. A limited number of $1,000 to $10,000 grants are now available for small Kirkland-based businesses behind on rent for the commercial properties they lease. To start the application process, businesses should go to www.kirklandwa.gov/business-help to complete and submit the intake form between October 5 – October 19, 2021. Program funds may only be used as a payment against a small business tenant’s past-due rent due to COVID-19 economic hardship experienced between March 1, 2020, to September 30, 2021. Note that the application process requires the cooperation of tenants and landlords, and payments will be made to the landlord.

“The pandemic has had a profound impact on many of our businesses, making it difficult for some to keep up with rent and stay in their current locations,” said Deputy Mayor Jay Arnold. “Our hope is that by passing federal relief funding directly to businesses and landlords that these businesses can get the foothold they need to thrive in our Kirkland community.”

For questions about the small business rent relief grant program, contact businesssupport@kirklandwa.gov  (425) 587-3266 or the City’s Business Response Team at (206) 686-3424.

National Round-Up

Johns Hopkins University Cumulative Case Tracker is reporting 95,756 new cases and 1,916 deaths nationwide on Wednesday. As of October 4, the CDC reported 65,162 hospitalized Covid-19 patients in the United States, down 13.6% from the week before. The number of Covid-19 related deaths decreased 3.3%, indicating that the Delta variant surge is ending.

Maryland man accused of killing 3 due to alleged belief of Covid-19 vaccine conspiracies

Three people are dead across two counties in Maryland and Jeffrey Allen Burnham, 46, is in jail after he confronted his brother for administering Covid-19 vaccines, according to a report by WTTG.

According to arrest documents, Burnham’s mother told investigators that he wanted to confront his brother – a pharmacist – because he purportedly helped administer vaccines.

Burnham had told their mother he believed the government was poisoning people with vaccines, and he “repeatedly stated, “Brian knows something!” – police say.

Investigators say a tipster alerted Maryland State Police that Burnham had arrived at his home in a red Corvette, and said that “his brother had been ‘killing people with the COVID shot.'”

Burnham has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder and the use of a handgun in the commission of a crime.

Covid long haulers are developing diabetes

As early as June 2020, scientists were alarmed to discover that Covid-19 was damaging the pancreases of some patients and triggering Type I insulin-dependent diabetes. When the Delta variant exploded in India, doctors saw a dramatic increase in sudden onset diabetes among Covid-19 patients. New research indicates that after recovery from Covid-19, a growing number of people are suffering from damage to their pancreas, according to a report in Yahoo!News.

“Clearly there’s a link, there’s some sort of mechanism that makes the diseases fuel one another,” Francesco Rubino chair of metabolic surgery at King’s College London, told Insider. “The question is whether new-onset diabetes could be caused by this virus.”

One theory was that the body could be confusing pancreas cells for the coronavirus, and trying to destroy them. This would disrupt insulin supply and cause diabetes, the scientists thought.

Remember “Covid Toe?” Doctors may have figured out what causes it

A small study published in the British Journal of Dermatology reported that researchers had identified the cause of Covid Toe and how to treat it.

Based on blood and skin tests, these latest study findings suggest two parts of the immune system may be at play.

According to a report by the BBC, both causes involve how the body fights Covid-19.

One is an antiviral protein called type 1 interferon, and the other is an antibody that mistakenly attacks the person’s own cells and tissues, not just the invading virus.

Cells lining small blood vessels supplying the affected areas are also involved, say the investigators from the University of Paris, France.

The researchers studied 50 people with suspected Covid toe in the spring of 2020 and 13 others with similar lesions not linked to Covid infections because they occurred long before the pandemic began.

Alaska

New cases in Alaska still lead the nation but have declined significantly from last week. The state is still operating under “crisis standards of care” with 184 Covid-19 patients statewide. Alaska has 126 staffed ICU beds statewide, with 28 available. There were 867 new cases reported today, about equal to Tuesday. Over 10% of Covid-19 tests are coming back positive, indicating under testing is accelerating.

Before the current surge hit Alaska, it had the third-lowest death per capita in the United States. Six weeks later, the state is ranked 25th. More than 25% of all Covid-19 deaths reported in Alaska happened after August 1, 2021, despite the widespread availability of vaccines.

Hospitals in Anchorage, Bethel, and Valdez continue to be the most impacted by the ongoing surge.

Officials are also concerned by a rising test positivity rate, which is just below 10%.

California

Los Angeles leaders on Wednesday approved one of the nation’s strictest vaccine mandates — a sweeping measure that would require the shots for everyone entering bars, restaurants, nail salons, gyms, or even a Lakers game.

According to a report by NBC News, the City Council voted 11-2 in favor of the ordinance that will require proof of full vaccination by Nov. 4.

The move came after the council postponed a vote last week to deal with concerns ranging from who could be fined for violations to whether employees could end up in fist-fights when they have to serve as vaccine door monitors.

Florida

According to The Palm Beach Post, six weeks after Tamara Drock was admitted to Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, the 47-year-old Loxahatchee woman is in a medically induced coma and tethered to a ventilator.

It was an outcome that her husband, Ryan, tried to prevent.

“No ventilators,” he said of his orders to the hospital staff.

With his hope and his wife’s options running out, Drock on Friday filed suit in Palm Beach County Circuit Court to force the hospital to give his wife the drug that he believes helped him and others recover from the highly contagious respiratory disease.

“I think it’s worth a shot,” Drock said. “I don’t have anything to lose.”

The second-largest study to date for the effectiveness of ivermectin against COVID, which has received multiple peer reviews, indicated that ivermectin had no meaningful impact and for sicker patients created worse outcomes. The study done in Argentina was randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled – the gold standard. The report concluded the only statistical difference was subjects taking ivermectin who became moderately to severely ill required mechanical ventilation much sooner than the placebo group.

Only one court case in Ohio successfully forced a hospital to administer ivermectin, and two weeks later, the judge reversed his decision.

Idaho

Governor Brad Little reversed Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin’s executive orders banning vaccine passports or mandatory Covid-19 testing at K-12 schools and universities in Idaho, eight minutes after he landed in Boise.

McGeachin also tried to activate the National Guard to deploy Idaho troops, already assisting with the Covid-19 surge, to the Mexico border. According to The Independent, the commanding general of the Idaho National Guard told McGeachin she can’t activate troops to send to the U.S.-Mexico border.

While Idaho tries to out-Florida, Florida, the state crossed the grim milestone of 3,000 Covid-19 related deaths, reporting another 47 fatalities today. Compared to Washington, Idaho’s mortality rate is almost double with no end in sight to the current surge.

Idaho has reported more than 1,000 new Covid-19 cases per day for the last 27 days. The 7 day moving average has reached 1,320.6 cases per day and is likely higher due to a backlog of more than 8,200 tests.

Idaho now has 715 Covid-19 patients, down from a peak of almost 800 at the end of September. The state has 170 staffed ICU beds and reported 184 ICU patients. At St. Luke’s, the mortality rate for people in the ICU has reached 40%, and 98% of ICU patients are unvaccinated.

Almost a month after Kootenai Health declared it was moving to crisis standards of care, the number of Covid-19 patients they are treating has increased, according to a report by KTVB.

“150 COVID patients is about 75 percent of our normal pre-COVID bed capacity for med surge admissions,” said Jeremy Evans, Kootenai Health’s Chief Regional Operations Officer. “Today, we have got 44 critical care patients and 17 on ventilators. It continues to amaze me how our medical staff, our clinical staff, and our leaders, are able to accommodate this surge.”

Evans added that around 10 to 20 patients are admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 treatments each day.

“We have seen a lot of deaths, we are averaging about one a day in the COVID population, I spent the last week in the ICU and it’s a very hard place to work right now it’s just a constant struggle to take care of these patients on a daily basis,” said Robert Scoggins, the Medical Director of the ICU.

According to Boise Public Radio, unvaccinated Idahoans continue to be hospitalized at five and a half times the rate of vaccinated people, straining the hospital systems and overwhelming health care workers. Yet, misinformation and anger continue to spread throughout the state — with hateful acts targeted at the doctors and nurses working to treat those infected.

Boise Public Radio’s program Idaho Matters was joined by Dr. David Pate, former CEO of St. Luke’s Health System and a current member of the Idaho Coronavirus Task Force, and Dr. Frank Johnson, Chief Medical Officer for St. Luke’s Boise, Elmore and McCall.

You can read the transcript here.

May the odds ever be in your favor.

Montana

While Alaska appears to have peaked and Idaho is on a plateau, Montana continues to deteriorate. According to KPAX, the state has 11,550 active cases and added 30 more hospitalized patients overnight, raising the number to 444 – a new record. Over 5% of Montanans who have tested positive for Covid-19 have ended up hospitalized.

St. Peter’s Health in Helena, which has been operating under crisis standards of care for weeks, reported 31 patients hospitalized with Covid-19, and the ICU was at full capacity, with 87% of all ICU patients infected with Covid-19. On Sunday, 14 out of the 18 rooms in the emergency department had seriously ill Covid-19 patients in them.

National Guard troops have been deployed to Great Falls and Livingston to aid with expanding surge of cases.

Ohio

Jeffrey Smith, 51, who was at the center of a lawsuit forcing a Cinncinati hospital to treat him with ivermectin, died on September 25 of Covid-19, according to KXAN.

Jeffrey Smith’s wife, Julie Smith, claimed she offered to sign documents releasing all other parties, doctors, and the hospital from all liability related to the Ivermectin treatment and dosage. But the hospital declined. Smith said her husband, who was on a ventilator, had a very slim chance of survival, and she was willing to try anything to keep him alive.

Judge Gregory Howard ordered West Chester Hospital to give Smith 30 milligrams of ivermectin every day for three weeks, even though there is no supporting evidence that it treats Covid-19.

Another Butler County judge reversed Howard’s decision in September, saying ivermectin didn’t show “convincing evidence” in treating COVID-19. Butler County Judge Michael Oster said in his ruling, “judges are not doctors or nurses… public policy should not and does not support allowing a physician to try ‘any’ type of treatment on human beings.”

Wyoming

Officials reported another 483 confirmed cases, and hospitalizations grew to 201. Over 40% of patients are in two hospitals – Casper’s Wyoming Medical Center and Cheyenne Regional Medical Center.

Like Alaska, Montana, and Idaho, hospitals are tipping over into “crisis standards of care.” Cody Regional Health and Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County reported they continue to move from “contingency care” to “crisis standards of care” as the situation changes.

Misinformation

A common reason for refusing to get vaccinated is the belief that the government is mandating vaccination but does not accept any liability for vaccine injuries. Is that true?

The short answer, no.

The Health Resources and Services Administration is a federal program that provides compensation to people who have suffered a serious vaccine injury or surviving family members. The program has existed for years and is known as the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).

Federal declarations issued by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services specify the countermeasures covered by the Program. Declarations have been issued for medical countermeasures against the following vaccinations.

  • COVID-19
  • Marburg
  • Ebola
  • Nerve Agents and Certain Insecticides (Organophophorus and/or Carbamate)
  • Zika
  • Pandemic Influenza
  • Anthrax
  • Acute Radiation Syndrome
  • Botulinum Toxin
  • Smallpox

People who have a documented vaccine injury can start the claim process online at the HRSA Injury Compensation Programs page.

Claims filed under CICP for lost income are capped at $50,000 per year and won’t provide compensation for pain, suffering, emotional distress, or similar damages. According to the Washington Post, there have been 686 claims filed in CICP.

Health and Lifestyle, Local, National

Washington records 4th vaccine death in U.S. – local and national update for October 5, 2021

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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) Dr. Umair A. Shah, Washington State Secretary of Health, confirmed the death of a Seattle woman who suffered serious complications after receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Jessica Berg-Wilson received the single-dose vaccination on August 26 and died of complications on September 7.

New COVID cases continue to decline statewide, while the gap between the least and most vaccinated counties is starting to narrow.

Seattle Police Officer Eric Whitehead, who refused to wear a mask at a Seattle hospital on January 15, was disciplined after the OPA determined he had acted unprofessionally. SPD also announced that more than 350 officers had not submitted proof of vaccination to city officials.

Less than 9% of Washingtonians say they will never get the Covid-19 vaccine, down by almost half from six weeks ago. According to the Washington Department of Health, over 70% of all Washingtonians over 11 years old are fully vaccinated.

The Lancet released a study on natural immunity to Covid-19 and how long it lasts. Researchers came up with a wide range, but the average is just 16 months.

Highland Middle School in the Bellevue School District and Lockwood Elementary in the Northshore School District reported six active Covid-19 cases in both facilities.

The City of Kirkland has funds available from the American Rescue Plan Act to aid small businesses behind on commercial property rent.

Nationally, the CDC pulled the holiday travel guidance they published on Friday, saying it was outdated information posted by mistake. The Department of Justice will start investigating the most egregious threats, and violent acts at school board meetings after multiple states pleaded for aid.

If you’ve got a home rapid Covid-19 test from the company Ellume, it might be under recall due to a high rate of false positives.

New York City Department of Education, Kaiser Permanente, and Northwell Health, representing more than 475,000 employees across the United States, reported vaccination rates from 95% to 99%. For the 8,000 New York DoE workers who so far are refusing to get vaccinated, some took to direct action in Union Square.

Alaska, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming continue to demonstrate the impact of laisse faire public health strategies. Again, in Idaho, Janice McGeachin goes full awful, while Wyoming state senator Anthony Bouchard pushes Covid-19 misinformation and argues with a Tik Tok influencer on Twitter.

We lift our travel advisory to the South Central Hospital Region but continue to keep a close eye on the east.

This update uses the latest data from the Washington State Department of Health (WSDOH), released on October 5, 2021.

vaccinationhospitalsschoolslocalnationalmisinformation

Washington State Update for October 5, 2021

Washington state Covid-19 update

New cases in Washington state continue to decline slowly. We’re adding some new metrics. A combination of increasing vaccination rates, mask wear, and the Delta variant running out of new hosts contributes to the slowdown.

Percent of Total Population Fully VaccinatedAverage 14-Day New Case Rate (unadjusted)
60.00% or above (4)212.0 (down)
50.00% to 59.99% (13 counties)533.1 (down)
40.00% to 49.99% (14 counties)650.1 (down)
29.30% to 39.99% (8 counties)679.0 (down)
14-Day New Covid-19 Cases per 100K average by Vaccination Rate, Not Adjusted for Population

Through October 4, Washington’s statewide 14-day rolling average is 417.1 Covid-19 cases per 100K, the lowest number since August 18.

For the second time in three days, no counties reported more than 1000 new cases per 100K residents.

Counties in the 800.0 to 999.9 per 100K range include Ferry, Grant, Grays Harbor, Klickitat, Lincoln Pend Oreille, and Stevens.

Counties in the 600.0 to 799.9 per 100K range include Adams, Asotin, Benton, Chelan, Columbia, Cowlitz, Franklin, Mason, Okanogan, and Walla Walla. Franklin County remained just under 800 while Spokane, Lewis, Douglas, Garfield, and Chelan counties were just under 600.0.

New cases were up for all people under 80 years old were down, and unchanged for those 80 and above. Hospitalizations were mixed. Down for children and adolescents, up for age 35 to 49, and down for ages 65 to 79.

Age Group7-Day Case Rate7-Day Hospitalization Rate
Ages 0-11185.2 (down)0.7 (down)
Ages 12-19220.8 (down)0.4 (down)
Ages 20-34183.5 (down)5.4
Ages 35-49183.2 (down)8.4 (up)
Ages 50-64127.9 (down)14.3
Ages 65-7998.9 (down)17.7 (down)
Ages 80+111.233.3
7-day case rate and 7-day hospitalization rate is per 100K within the age group – the target for 7-day case rate is <25.0, but there are other factors such as vaccination rates within the age groups, how many total tests within the 7-day period, and the positivity rate within each age group

The USA Today COVID Tracker reported 42 deaths yesterday. The state of Washington is not reporting the percentage of positive cases.

Washington Department of Health confirms Johnson & Johnson vaccine related death

Washington Secretary of Health Dr. Umair A. Shah confirmed today that a Seattle resident became the fourth person to die in the United States from a vaccine-related injury. Jessica Berg Wilson, 37, received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on August 26. On September 7, she died after a Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia (VITT) formed.

VITT is an extremely rare condition identified in April 2021, specifically to adenovirus-vector vaccines such as Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. The FDA suspended emergency use authorization of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on April 23 after reports of blood clots and six possible deaths.

During a five-week pause, researchers determined the incident rate was less than 3 per million people. In contrast, the risk for serious blood clots due to a Covid-19 infection is 207 per one million. Additionally, doctors determined that common emergency room strategies for treating blood clots, such as using the anti-clotting drug heparin, were contraindicated. The CDC created updated guidelines on identifying and properly treating VITT in patients and reauthorized the single-dose vaccine.

As of June 30, the CDC has confirmed 35 incidents of VITT and three fatalities after 12. 5 million doses were administered. Berg-Wlson is the fourth Covid-19 vaccine-related death in the United States, where 185 million people are fully vaccinated, and approximately 15.4 million have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The Seattle Times reported 47 incidents of VITT through the end of September in a separate article.

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People who follow #truth and #science are never afraid of reality. #sayyes #vax #greenscreen

♬ Emotional Piano Instrumental In E Minor – Tom Bailey Backing Tracks

Yesterday we reported that the VAERS database indicated a 30 to 39-year-old female from Washington state who received the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine had died. Twitter created a firestorm on Sunday night and Monday morning when the social media platform labeled her death as misinformation.

VITT has only been documented with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the United States. The condition is very rare, with similar odds to dying from snakebite in the United States. It is more prevalent among women from 30 to 50 years old. Hormone-based contraceptives can slightly increase risk, along with a personal or family history of blood clotting disorders. The condition will typically appear two to three weeks after inoculation but can occur as far as seven weeks out.

If you are still choosing to get vaccinated, talk to your healthcare professional about which vaccine is best for you. Additionally, if you have recently received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, learn the symptoms to watch for. Be sure that your medical provider is aware you were recently vaccinated if you got to an emergency room.

SPD Officer who refused to wear a mask at hospital emergency department suspended one day

The Seattle Office of Police Accountability (OPA) recommended officer Eric Whitehead receive a one-day suspension over his refusal to wear a mask at an area Hospital on Friday, January 15, 2021, while Washington state was experiencing a Covid-19 surge.

A five-month investigation determined that Whitehead violated only one rule, Standards and Duties 5.001.10, to be professional. The investigation also recommended administrative changes in how SPD Human Resources documents medical waivers issued to officers and communicates acceptance of the request.

On January 15, Whitehead was called to an unnamed area hospital to assist with a disruptive suspect in the Emergency Department. Four other SPD officers were present, and all were wearing masks. Whitehead was given a mask by a nurse but refused to wear it. He told the nurse, “I hear that. I’m here doing a job. I’m talking to my squadmate about what we got going on. You want me to wear a mask or whatever. We can entertain that idea later on, okay. I just wanna do my job right now, just like you.”

The nurse contacted the charge nurse, who reported the issue to a nursing security supervisor. The supervisor again asked Whitehead to wear a mask, who responded with, “Is she all in a tizzy about it?”

Whitehead expressed concern that the surgical mask could be used as a weapon against him. Whitehead ultimately put on the mask when talking with the detainee, and after some other action, left the hospital.

The entire incident was filmed on security cameras and Whitehead’s body camera. The OPA found that Whitehead was not honest with investigators. He told the OPA he maintained social distance from other people and said the hospital staff he was medically exempt from wearing a mask. The videos and testimony from the hospital staff and other officers indicated he did neither.

When asked why he never told the hospital about his exemption and the discrepancy in his testimony, he changed his story, indicating the “interaction had become contentious.” Whitehead told investigators he had a medical exemption from SPD, allowing him not to wear a mask.

According to the OPA report, “A copy of a memorandum that Named Employee 1 submitted to the HR Lieutenant on June 28, 2020. In that memorandum, he stated that he had a medical condition that prevented him from wearing facemasks and asserted that he was entitled to not do so by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). He noted in the memorandum that wearing the facemask caused him mental and physical strain, as well as increased respiratory distress. He wrote that he tried using a variety of different facemasks but stopped doing so as they continued to cause him problems.“

Whitehead did receive an e-mail saying that state and city could grant an exemption, but it never stated he had been given one. Whitehead presented the OPA with letters from two doctors. One letter claims he has a dermatological condition that is exacerbated by mask wear.

Despite his claims that any mask caused “mental and physical” strain, Whitehead was on duty for multiple protests during the summer of 2020. During his service, he was exposed to pepper spray, OC, and blast balls, while wearing a full-face respirator, ballistic vest, and riot gear as part of his duties without issue.

OPA Director Andrew Myerberg has come under fire for failing to enforce existing SPD department rules and working too closely with SPOG in an Office of Inspector General complaint. Director Myerberg is currently interviewing for a different job in Arizona and planning to leave the OPA.

SPOG estimates as many as 200 SPD officers will voluntarily separate from the department after the October 18 vaccine mandate deadline. The Seattle Police Department reported tonight that 354 sworn officers had not submitted proof of vaccination. While vaccination rates for hospital staff, educators, and skilled workers such as pilots, bankers, flight attendants, and computer programmers, have ranged from 95% to 99.5%, law enforcement officers remain one of the lowest vaccinated groups.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has refused to indicate if she will fire the unvaccinated officers after October 18 or leave the issue for the next mayor.

Editor’s Note: Our Chief Content Officer is listed as a party in an ongoing OPA investigation into the conduct of SPOG President Mike Solan. One of our Senior Staff was listed as a part of a closed OPA investigation for the excessive use of force.

Less than 9% of Washingtonians say they will never get the Covid-19 vaccine

According to a recent survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, 8.2% of the 18 and older population in Washington state say they will either probably or definitely not get the vaccination. This is down almost by half from approximately six weeks ago—the survey, published on September 22.

Travel Advisories

Today, we are lifting our travel advisory to Yakima, Klickitat, Benton, Franklin, and Walla Walla Counties. We continue to recommend when visiting those counties, you use reasonable caution and don’t engage in dangerous activities.

We continue to recommend avoiding recreational travel to Spokane County. We strongly advise against all nonessential travel to Alaska, Idaho, and Montana. Hospital resources in these regions are constrained, and you may receive inadequate care if you experience a medical emergency.

We continue to monitor the situation in the East Hospital Region and may expand our travel advisory beyond Spokane County.

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!

In August, King County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin mentioned the N95 Project as a trusted source for N95 masks. A check on the website showed that a 50 count box of United States manufactured N95 masks are available for $40.00. We recommend wearing N95 masks indoors as they provide the best protection against COVID when properly fitted.

No promotional consideration has been given, or requested from the n95 project or any manufacturer of masks

Vaccination

Over 70% of elgible Washington state residents are fully vaccinated

The Washington Department of Health reported that as of October 4, 2021, 70.7% of all residents 12 and older are fully vaccinated against Covid-19. An additional 6.4% have received at least one dose. Concern over the Delta variant, dwindling vaccine hesitancy, and multiple vaccine mandates have significantly increased the number of people vaccinated.

Tracking statewide data, counties where 60% or more of all residents are fully vaccinated have dramatically lower rates of new Covid-19 cases.

Large comparative study indicates natural immunity from Covid-19 fades after 5 to 6 months

The Lancet published a study that reported natural immunity for Covid-19 fades after 148 to 185 days on average. The report, The durability of immunity against reinfection by SARS-CoV-2: a comparative evolutionary study, was conducted by Yale University, Temple University, and the University of North Carolina.

The report found, “Reinfection by SARS-CoV-2 under endemic conditions would likely occur between 3 and 63 months after peak antibody response, with a median of 16 months. This protection is of less than half the duration revealed for the endemic coronaviruses circulating among humans.”

Three to 63 months is a very wide range, and a serology test that detects the presence of Covid-19 antibodies can’t determine how robust a response the body would make if reinfected. The researchers added, “Relying on herd immunity without widespread vaccination jeopardises millions of lives, entailing high rates of reinfection, morbidity, and death. In areas with low vaccination, our data-driven analysis reinforces the need for continued safety practices such as social distancing, proper indoor ventilation, and mask wearing to avoid reinfection as pandemic conditions continue.”

Other studies have indicated that the combination of vaccination and natural immunity creates a supercharged response to the Covid-19 virus.

Pfizer vaccine booster shots are now available

Booster shots for eligible individuals are now available statewide. Individuals who received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine more than six months ago, are 65 or older, or are immunocompromised can receive their third dose immediately.

In the Kirland-Bellevue-Woodinville area, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Bartell’s, and QFC are offering booster shots. Additionally, the third dose is available at the CVS located within the Target store at 17,700 NE 76th Street in Redmond.

Most locations require an appointment, which can be scheduled online.

King County, Washington is reporting over 86.7% of age eligible residents are vaccinated with at least one dose. The highest rates of positivity are in areas with low vaccination rates statewide. The FDA has provided full approval of the Pfizer vaccine for anyone 16 and over and EUA approval for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

COVID vaccines are free for anyone over 12 years old, and no appointment is necessary at most locations. Lyft and Hopelink provide free transportation, and KinderCare, the Learning Care Group, and the YMCA offer free childcare during vaccination appointments or recuperation.

For information on getting a vaccination in King County, you can visit the King County Department of Public Health website.

Malcontent News

Hospital Status

According to the DoH COVID Dashboard, 17.5% of all acute care patients hospitalized in Washington have Covid-19. Currently, 91% of all staffed acute care beds are occupied statewide, with approximately 654 available. ICUs are at 88.4% of capacity statewide, with 30.0% of ICU patients fighting Covid-19 – an estimated 352 patients with 55% on ventilators. The state has approximately 138 ICU beds available.

The 7-day rolling average hospital admission rate for new COVID patients was 124. The Department of Health reported 1,192 Covid-19 patients statewide on October 4, with 192 on ventilators. The total number of patients for October 3 was adjusted downward slightly, to 1,197.

Hospital RegionCountiesICU OccupancyICU COVID PatientsAcute Care OccupancyAcute Care COVID Patients
EastAdams, Asotin, Ferry, Garfield, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Spokane, Stevens, Wahkiakum, Whitman92.2%46.1%88.6%26.4%
NorthIsland, San Juan, Skagit, Whatcom74.9%32.6%86.9%12.8%
North CentralChelan, Douglas, Grant, Okanogan86.9%51.8%76.8%23.1%
NorthwestClallam, Jefferson, Kitsap, Mason92.5%42.2%96.0%26.4%
Puget SoundKing, Pierce, Snohomish91.6%24.4%94.5%13.8%
South CentralBenton, Columbia, Franklin, Kittitas, Walla Walla, Yakima87.6%34.0%83.5%22.2%
SouthwestClark, Cowlitz, Klickitat, Skamania 72.5%33.4%87.1%22.9%
WestGrays Harbor, Lewis, Pacific, Thurston83.9%24.1%86.2%17.7%
Hospital status by region – September 30, 2021 – ICU Occupancy should be below 80%, ICU COVID Patients should be below 20%, Acute Care Occupancy should be below 80%, and Acute Care COVID Patients should be below 10%

There was very little change in the status of Hospital Regions over the weekend.

Back to School

School DistrictStatusLess than 10 Active Cases10 or More Active Cases
BellevueYELLOW– Bellevue (7**)
– Big Picture (1*)
– Chinook (3*)
– Eastgate (1*)
– Enatai (3*)
– Highland (6**)
– Interlake (3*)
– Lake Hills (4*)
– Newport (4*)
– Newport Heights (1*)
– Puesta del Sol (1*)
– Sammamish (2*)
– Sherwood Forest (2*)
– Spiritridge (2*)
– Stevenson (1*)
– Tillicum (1*)
– Wilburton (2*)
– Woodridge (3*)		None
Lake WashingtonYELLOW– Bell Elementary (1*)
– Barton Elementary (1*)
– Dickinson/Explorer Elementary (1*)
– Ella Baker Elementary (1*)
– Eastlake High (2*)
– Finn Hill Middle School (3*)
– Franklin Elementary (2*)
– Frost Elementary (2*)
– ICS (1*)
– Inglewood Middle School (1*)
– Juanita Elementary (1*)
– Kamiakin Middle School (4*)
– Keller Elementary (2*)
– Lakeview Elementary (4*)
– McAuliffe Elementary (1*)
– Muir Elementary (1*)
– Northstar Middle (1*)
– Redmond Elementary (2*)
– Redmond Middle School (1*)
– Redmond High School (2*)
– Renaissance Middle School (1*)
– Rosa Parks Elementary (1*)
– Rush Elementary (1*)		None
NorthshoreYELLOW– Arrowhead Elementary (3)
– Bothell High School (31)
– Canyon Creek Elementary (26)
– Canyon Park Middle School (6)
– Cottage Lake Elementary (3)
– Crystal Springs Elementary (28)
– East Ridge Elementary (14)
– Fernwood Elementary (1)
– Frank Love Elementary (9)
– Hollywood Hills Elementary (27)
– Inglemoor High School (1)
– Innovation Lab High School (1)
– Kenmore Elementary (3)
– Kenmore Middle School (23)
– Leota Middle School (4)
– Lockwood Elementary (37**)
– Maywood Hills Elementary (28)
– North Creek High School (4)
– Northshore Family Partnership (30)
– Northshore Middle School (2)
– Secondary Academy for Success (4)
– Shelton View Elementary (5)
– Skyview Middle School (12)
– Sunrise Elementary (9)
– Timbercrest Middle School (8)
– Wellington Elementary (21)
– Westhill Elementary (41)
– Woodin Elementary (16**)
– Woodinville High School (11)
– Woodmoor Elementary (11)		None
Local Districts Scorecard – * indicates positive cases only ** indicates 5 or more confirmed positive cases

We redefined the school district statuses. Information for classroom and building closures has been a challenge to obtain, both for closures and reopening. We are adopting moving any school with more than 10 active COVID cases reported into the red, and we’ve adjusted the third column to reflect this change.

Bellevue School District added a 7th confirmed Covid-19 case at Bellevue High School and reported six confirmed cases at Highland Middle School.

The Northshore School District added multiple schools to their report. Lockwood Elementary reported six confirmed cases overnight, putting another 31 students and faculty into quarantine.

The Lake Washington School District updates its Covid-19 dashboard once a week. We received multiple parents confirmed Covid-19 e-mails yesterday. However, Lake Washington updates its dashboards on Monday, and we can’t ensure if the parental reports add to the dashboard numbers or are included in the Monday report.

We continued to encourage parents to request improved daily data reporting from the Lake Washington School District.

Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville

The City of Kirkland has rolled out additional phases of its COVID-19 relief program to provide immediate financial assistance for small businesses, thanks to funding available through the American Rescue Plan Act. A limited number of $1,000 to $10,000 grants are now available for small Kirkland-based businesses behind on rent for the commercial properties they lease. To start the application process, businesses should go to www.kirklandwa.gov/business-help to complete and submit the intake form between October 5 – October 19, 2021. Program funds may only be used as a payment against a small business tenant’s past-due rent due to COVID-19 economic hardship experienced between March 1, 2020, to September 30, 2021. Note that the application process requires the cooperation of tenants and landlords, and payments will be made to the landlord.

“The pandemic has had a profound impact on many of our businesses, making it difficult for some to keep up with rent and stay in their current locations,” said Deputy Mayor Jay Arnold. “Our hope is that by passing federal relief funding directly to businesses and landlords that these businesses can get the foothold they need to thrive in our Kirkland community.”

For questions about the small business rent relief grant program, contact businesssupport@kirklandwa.gov  (425) 587-3266 or the City’s Business Response Team at (206) 686-3424.

National Round-Up

Johns Hopkins University Cumulative Case Tracker is reporting 167,209 new cases and 2,106 deaths nationwide. Tuesday’s update will include numbers from over the weekend.

CDC pulls holiday travel guidance from website

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday took down a page with holiday COVID-19 guidance, saying it was old information posted in error and that updated guidance would be coming soon, according to a report in The Hill.

The page, updated on Friday, gave a range of guidance on holiday gatherings, including that opening windows for indoor gatherings would improve ventilation and noting that virtual or outdoor gatherings are the safest option.

An agency spokesperson said the page “doesn’t reflect the CDC’s guidance ahead of this upcoming holiday season” and added that the agency “will share additional guidance soon.”

At home Covid-19 rapid test recalled due to excessive false positives

The Australian company, Ellume, recalled over 400,000 rapid test kits sold in the United States for an unacceptable level of false positives. The test kits were shipped from April to August, and currently, 200,000 kits remain unused.

In a statement on Ellume’s website, the company wrote, “we noted an increased chance that Ellume COVID-19 Home Tests from specific lots may provide an incorrect positive result. Following a thorough investigation, we isolated the cause and confirmed that this incidence of false positives is limited to specific lots.”

“We worked with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to voluntarily remove affected Ellume tests from the market. Importantly, the reliability of negative results is unaffected by this issue and are not included within this recall.”

In parallel, the FDA released a “Safety Communication” outlining the recall. People who have used one of the Ellume tests and believe they had a false reading are asked to report the incident to MedWatch.

Almost 99% of all Kaiser Permanente employees get vaccinated

Kaiser Permanente has placed more than 2,200 of its employees nationwide, who have refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19, on unpaid administrative leave.

The health care company announced its vaccine mandate on August 2, with a deadline of Sept. 30. It has more than 220,000 employees across the country, with suspensions impacting about 1% of its entire workforce.

Over 98% of Northwell Health employees get vaccinated

New York State’s largest private hospital system laid off 1,400 workers who wouldn’t get vaccinated against Covid-19, a spokesperson for the health care network confirmed Monday afternoon.

Hospital and nursing home workers were required to get at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine by September 27th, under a state mandate first announced in mid-August. Last week, Northwell said it started warning employees and planned layoffs, starting with the highest-paid workers who refused the shots.

The hospital system employed over 76,000 workers, with 98.2% getting vaccinated.

8,000 New York City Department of Education employees on unpaid leave

Almost 95% of New York City’s more than 148,000 Department of Education employees have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. The vaccination rate among teachers exceeded 96%. City leaders reported they don’t anticipate staffing shortages for teachers, while other departments were hit harder.

Approximately 500 cafeteria workers have been put on unpaid leave. Employees on leave who get vaccinated after the deadline can return to work. Additionally, employees that volunteer to quit will be provided healthcare coverage by the city for a year.

Department of Justice addresses violent threats against school officials and teachers

Citing an increase in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school board members, teachers, and workers in our nation’s public schools, today Attorney General Merrick B. Garland directed the FBI and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to meet in the next 30 days with federal, state, Tribal, territorial and local law enforcement leaders to discuss strategies for addressing this disturbing trend. These sessions will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response by law enforcement.   

“Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values,” wrote Attorney General Garland. “Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.”

According to the Attorney General’s memorandum, the Justice Department will launch a series of additional efforts in the coming days designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel. Those efforts are expected to include the creation of a task force, consisting of representatives from the department’s Criminal Division, National Security Division, Civil Rights Division, the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, the FBI, the Community Relations Service, and the Office of Justice Programs, to determine how federal enforcement tools can be used to prosecute these crimes and ways to assist state, Tribal, territorial and local law enforcement where threats of violence may not constitute federal crimes.

The Justice Department will also create specialized training and guidance for local school boards and school administrators. This training will help school board members and other potential victims understand the type of behavior that constitutes threats, how to report threatening conduct to the appropriate law enforcement agencies, and how to capture and preserve evidence of threatening conduct to aid in the investigation and prosecution of these crimes.

As the anti-vaccination and medical freedom movement has gotten smaller, some elements within the movements have become increasingly radicalized. School board meetings have been disrupted nationwide, including the Lake Washington School District. In other communities, fights have broken out in meetings, board members have received death threats, stalked, doxxed, and had their homes vandalized.

Alaska

The mayor of Alaska’s largest city apologized Thursday for his comments supporting some residents’ use of Holocaust imagery to liken a proposed citywide mask mandate to the oppression of Jewish people in Nazi Germany, the Associated Press reported.

Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson has said he staunchly opposes the proposal and initially defended the use of yellow Stars of David worn by other critics this week at heated public hearings. Such imagery has been used by opponents of mask and vaccine mandates across the U.S., drawing condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish organizations.

New cases in Alaska still lead the nation but have declined significantly from last week. The state is still operating under “crisis standards of care” with 194 Covid-19 patients statewide. Alaska has 122 staffed ICU beds statewide, with 19 available.

Hospitals in Anchorage, Bethel, and Valdez continue to be the most impacted by the ongoing surge.

Officials are also concerned by a rising test positivity rate, which is just below 10%.

Idaho

Editor’s Note: I must maintain objectivity. I must maintain objectivity. I must maintain objectivity. I must maintain objectivity.

While his state struggles to deliver medical services and deal with the mounting number of corpses, Idaho governor Brad Little departed the state to visit the U.S.-Mexico border. According to a report by KTVB, less than 24 hours after he left, Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin signed an executive order as acting governor banning vaccine passports or mandatory Covid-19 testing at K-12 schools and universities in Idaho.

In a tweet, McGeachin wrote that she “fixed” Little’s executive order on vaccine passports, which was initially issued in April, to include K-12 schools and universities.

Less than ten minutes after McGeachin announced her executive order, Little responded on Twitter, stating he did not authorize McGeachin to act on his behalf and “I will be rescinding and reversing any actions taken by the Lt. Governor when I return.”

McGeachin also tried to activate the National Guard to deploy Idaho troops, already assisting with the Covid-19 surge, to the Mexico border. According to The Independent, the commanding general of the Idaho National Guard told McGeachin she can’t activate troops to send to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Governor Little issues a terse statement late on Tuesday.

“Attempting to deploy our National Guard for political grandstanding is an affront to the Idaho constitution [sic] and insults the men and women who have dedicated their life to serving our state and the country.”

This isn’t the first time McGeachin has pulled this type of political stunt, as she postures herself as the candidate that Idaho deserves in the upcoming 2022 election.

If you’re wondering why McGeachin is blocking school testing, Kathryn Turner, deputy state epidemiologist, reported the state was allocating $4 million to 19 school districts to aid Covid-19 testing programs. McGeachin’s order, temporary or not, blocks that money.

As of October 2, Idaho had a record 15 pediatric patients fighting Covid-19.

Idaho added 1,835 new cases on Tuesday and reported 11 deaths. The number of hospital beds within the state has improved slightly, Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen said on Tuesday. He added improving bed availability could be, in part, attributed to the high number of deaths recently.

In a briefing on Tuesday, Jeppesen reported 89.1% of all Covid-19 cases are among the unvaccinated, 90.3% of hospitalizations, and 88% of deaths. Officials said that despite the intervention of volunteers, the National Guard, federal resources, and FEMA strike teams, staffing levels remain at crisis standards of care levels.

“Due to COVID patient volume added to non-COVID urgent patient care, we have been forced to care for patients in repurposed clinical areas and a non-clinical space (a hospital gym),” Dr. Steven Nemerson of St. Luke’s Hospital told the Idaho Statesman in an e-mail. The system has been “using ratios of patients to health care team members exceeding contingency standards of care despite staffing resources received through the state of Idaho and FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency).”

May the odds ever be in your favor.

Montana

While Alaska appears to have peaked and Idaho is on a plateau, Montana continues to deteriorate. According to the Billings Gazette, the state has 11,498 active cases, with 419 people hospitalized.

Despite activating the National Guard, asking for FEMA strike teams, and the Veteran’s Administration opening up a hospital to civilians, eight out of 10 large hospitals in the state reported having limited bed availability or nearing capacity. Likewise, eight out of 10 large hospitals reported having limited intensive care unit availability or nearing ICU capacity. 

New York

A video caught the men in Union Square flipping over a table next to a mobile coronavirus testing van, tearing down the tent erected next to it and tossing a chair, before police intervened to stop them permanently destroying any property, according to a report in The Independent.

Protesters at the rally shouted “boo” and “shame on you” at the staff member working at the Covid-19 testing site as they went past, followed by chants of “no vaccine mandate.”

Hundreds of Department of Education staffers were involved in the protest, following the coronavirus vaccine mandate that went into place on Monday.

Wyoming

On September 16, Republican lightning rod, state senator, Ivermectin enthusiast, and 2022 Congressional candidate Anthony Bouchard assembled a panel to discuss Covid-19 vaccine mandates at hospitals. The esteemed group of top experts included Ryne Paulson, D.D.S., Melissa Hieb D.O., Andrew McAfee M.D., and Dena L’Heureux M.D. All four spouted conspiracy theories and anti-vaccination rhetoric and claimed they would medicine if the state passed a vaccine mandate. All of this was political theater if any providers accept or work for an organization that receives federal dollars.

How well is that going?

The Wyoming Medical Center in Casper reported they admitted 17 Covid-19 patients – in 24 hours from Saturday to Sunday. Only one of the recently admitted patients is vaccinated. Wyoming added 627 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, in a state with 578,000 residents. If that pace holds, almost 1% of all Wyomingians will catch Covid-19 this week. Test positivity on Monday was over 18%, which is down from last week.

The state reported 45 new Covid-19 related deaths and breaching 1,000 total deaths since the pandemic started in 2020. Put another way, 1.7% of the entire population of Wyoming has died from Covid-19.

Like Alaska, Montana, and Idaho, hospitals are tipping over into “crisis standards of care.” Cody Regional Health and Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County reported they continue to move from “contingency care” to “crisis standards of care” as the situation changes.

Rural hospitals in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Alaska are dependent on larger hospitals in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Utah to take more challenging patients. Oregon and Washington barely avoided moving to crisis standards of care last month, while Colorado and Utah are dealing with their surges. With interstate transfers gridlocked, states like Wyoming, which only has 37 hospitals, have been forced to make do with their resources.

Misinformation

Taking the day off

Health and Lifestyle, Local, National

A little brown pill could be a giant game changer – local and national update for October 1, 2021

Photo credit: Emory University

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 big news today is about a little brown capsule called molnupiravir. The Phase 3 trial of the oral medication cut COVID hospitalizations and deaths by 50%, and Merck has applied for Emergency Use Authorization with the FDA. The impact of this new medication could go far beyond COVID with researchers at Emory University claiming it could be useful against other viral diseases.

New COVID cases and hospitalizations held steady statewide. A report in the Seattle Times indicated more than half of rural Washington transfer patients ended up in King County hospitals.

The Bellevue School District updated its COVID dashboard and revealed there are 37 confirmed COVID cases. In the Northshore School District, cases continued to grow at Bothell High School and Crystal Springs Elementary School reported 11 confirmed cases.

There are an estimated 604 adult acute care and 132 ICU beds available statewide, and approximately 56% of COVID patients in the ICU are on a ventilator.

The Nisqually Nation was forced to evacuate a COVID quarantine site in Roy, Washington after multiple threats were made. A post on Facebook falsely claimed it was a newly built government quarantine site for rounding up the unvaccinated.

Amazon continues to promote dangerous COVID treatments on its website.

Alaska Air Group announced they will require all employees to get vaccinated, but a hard deadline was not set.

Alaska, Idaho, and Montana continue to struggle with surging COVID cases.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor denied an emergency request by New York educators to block the state’s vaccine mandate. That’s a bigger deal than you think, and it wasn’t unexpected.

In the misinformation section, we tackle “it’s just the flu” very graphically.

This update uses the latest data from the Washington State Department of Health (WSDOH), released on October 1, 2021.

vaccinationhospitalsschoolslocalnationalmisinformation

Washington State Update for October 1, 2021

Washington state COVID update

New cases held steady statewide with no statistical difference from yesterday. In the South Central Hospital Region, which includes Benton, Franklin, Klickitat, Walla Walla, and Yakima counties, the 14 day moving average for new cases increased to 727.9 per 100K. The Puget Sound (Central) Hospital Region, which represents King County, was statistically unchanged at 244.5.

Percent of Total Population Fully VaccinatedAverage 14-Day New Case Rate (unadjusted)
60.00% or above (3)171.9
50.00% to 59.99% (12 counties)506.9
40.00% to 49.99% (15 counties)653.9
28.40% to 39.99% (9 counties)734.4
14-Day New COVID Cases per 100K average by Vaccination Rate, Not Adjusted for Population

Through September 30, Washington’s statewide 14-day rolling average is 426.6 COVID cases per 100K, statistically unchanged from yesterday.

For the first time in over a month, no counties reported a new case rate over 1,000 per 100K residents. Based on this change we are updating how we report county performance.

Counties in the 800.0 to 999.9 per 100K range include Ferry, Frankin, Grant, Grays Harbor, Lincoln, Okanogan, Pend Oreille, and Stevens. Ferry County is a new hot spot, while cases in southeast Washington are on the decline. Stevens County is just under 1,000.

Counties in the 600.0 to 799.9 per 100K range include Adams, Asotin, Columbia, Klickitat, Cowlitz, Benton, Walla Walla, Garfield, Douglas, Lewis, Chelan, and Spokane. Adams County is just under 800 and Yakima County is just under 600.0.

We will keep descending these brackets until most counties fall below 450 per 100K residents. Currently, 28 counties still have widespread transmission of COVID.

New cases were up for 12 to 19-year-olds while hospitalizations were down for the same age group.

Age Group7-Day Case Rate7-Day Hospitalization Rate
Ages 0-11195.00.6
Ages 12-19220.6 (up)1.3 (down)
Ages 20-34191.75.2
Ages 35-49189.88.8
Ages 50-64137.615.2
Ages 65-79104.320.0
Ages 80+108.332.6
7-day case rate and 7-day hospitalization rate is per 100K within the age group – the target for 7-day case rate is <25.0, but there are other factors such as vaccination rates within the age groups, how many total tests within the 7-day period, and the positivity rate within each age group

The USA Today COVID Tracker reported 72 deaths on Thursday. The state of Washington is not reporting the percentage of positive cases.

Nisqually Nation forced to evacuate COVID quarantine site after threats

Because three or four generations can be living under the same roof, a COVID-positive person can have a significant impact on the entire household. The Nisqually Nation started using a 26-acre property in Roy, Washington last year enabling tribal members to quarantine away from family members. The tribe was forced to evacuate the site after an online misinformation campaign labeled the location a concentration camp.

The Facebook group Americans Against 2nd Class Treatment posted on September 28, 2021, about the site, claiming it was a “new COVID quarantine site” and they were “just getting to work on it.” In reality, the site has existed for more than a decade, and the Nisqually Nation bought the 26-acre parcel in 2014. Earlier this month, they cleared some timber between the buildings and Highway 702, making the location more visible from the road.

Comments quickly developed with people calling it a “concentration camp” and a “gulag.” The group went on to post that the Nisqually Nation was forced to hire security and block the access road with boulders due to ongoing threats at the property.

According to KING 5, tribal officials were forced to evacuate the site on Thursday.

“Who does that,” said Nisqually Tribal Councilmember Hanford McCloud, “It’s beyond ridiculous.”

McCloud said about 30 people have stayed on the property in the last 18 months, giving them a safe place to recover and prevent the spread of COVID-19.

A caretaker and his family, along with two COVID-19 patients, were placed in a hotel, said Tribal Health Officer Mary Szafranski.

@malcontentnews

You are not #oppressed there is no #conspiracy and you’re going to get someone yeeted #sayyes #vax #teamhalo

♬ Emotional Piano Instrumental In E Minor – Tom Bailey Backing Tracks

Amazon continues to recommend dangerous COVID treatments on its website

A surge of social media videos in the last two weeks on YouTube and Tik Tok has advocated nebulizing hydrogen peroxide as a preventative and home treatment for COVID. Content creators have danced around guidance medical guidance to spread the misinformation.

For the third time in 60 days, Amazon is at the center of controversy with the AI designed to drive more sales, recommending medical saline and hydrogen peroxide with nebulizer purchases.

Amazon recommendation for hydrogen peroxide and medical saline when purchasing a nebulizer – October 1, 2021

This is not new territory for Amazon. In 2017 the “Frequently Bought Together” recommendation included ingredients to make homemade bombs. The Seattle-based company adjusted the recommendations made by the feature and said they would police recommendations in the future to prevent the recommendation of dangerous combinations.

In August the online behemoth was called out for promoting Ivermectin, and publishing reviews with veiled dosing instructions for humans. A couple of weeks later, Amazon was dinged again for recommending books that spread COVID misinformation.

Multiple medical groups have appealed for people not to drink or nebulize hydrogen peroxide. The human body does not have a finite capacity to process hydrogen peroxide and the solution hasn’t been recommended for wound care in years.

The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America wrote, “A concerning and dangerous trend is circulating on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. People are breathing in hydrogen peroxide through nebulizers to try to prevent or treat COVID-19.”

“DO NOT put hydrogen peroxide into your nebulizer and breathe it in. This is dangerous!”

Alaska Air Group mandates vaccination for all employees

Alaska Air Group joined Delta and Hawaiian Airlines, mandating all employees of Alaska Airlines, Horizon Air, and McGee get vaccinated against COVID. The airline stopped short of setting a hard deadline, but employees who prove they are fully vaccinated by December 1 will receive a $200 bonus. The mandate impacts certain vendors and contractors also.

“Since our company does significant work for the federal government, we have determined that Alaska Airlines, Horizon Air, and McGee employees – all part of Alaska Air Group – do fall under this federal vaccine mandate, along with other major U.S.airlines,” Alaska Air Group said in a statement.

The airline reported on September 1, that 75% of its workforce was already fully vaccinated.

United Airlines reported yesterday that 320 of 67,000 employees decided to quit over the vaccine mandate they implemented earlier this year. Nationally compliance for vaccine mandates has ranged from 89% to virtually 100% across cities, counties, states, schools, hospitals, and private employers.

More than half of rural Washington COVID transfer patients ended up in King County

A Seattle Times analysis found that from July 1 to September 23, 229 of 414 COVID transfer patients in Washington state ended up in King County hospitals. The Seattle Times story is behind a paywall and The Slog written by The Stranger is more politically charged on this topic for our COVID coverage specifically. You can see this summary by the author Joseph O’Sullivan on Twitter.

Travel Advisories

We recommend avoiding recreational travel to Spokane, Yakima, Klickitat, Benton, Franklin, and Walla Walla counties. If the number of new cases in the South Central Hospital Region continues to decline, we will likely lift our advisory for this region in the next 3 to 10 days. We strongly advise against all nonessential travel to Alaska, Idaho, and Montana. Hospital resources in these regions are constrained, and you may receive inadequate care if you experience a medical emergency.

We may implement a travel advisory for Eastern Washington, based upon renewed hospitalization data now available from the Department of Health.

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!

In August, King County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin mentioned the N95 Project as a trusted source for N95 masks. A check on the website showed that a 50 count box of United States manufactured N95 masks are available for $40.00. We recommend wearing N95 masks indoors as they provide the best protection against COVID when properly fitted.

No promotional consideration has been given, or requested from the n95 project or any manufacturer of masks

Vaccination

Deadline for single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine and second dose for Pfizer and Moderna vaccine looms for state workers

Thousands of state workers have until Sunday to receive their second Pfizer or Moderna dose or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Over 68% of state workers reported last week they were fully vaccinated. Data from companies, schools, and other states such as Hawaii and New York, indicates final acceptance would likely exceed 95%.

Multiple unions have reached agreements at a municipal, county, or state level, to extend the deadline past October 18 for individuals who received at least their first dose. Additionally, workers with denied exemptions requests will be given extra time.

Pfizer vaccine booster shots are now available

Booster shots for eligible individuals are now available statewide. Individuals who received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine more than 6 months ago, are 65 or older, or are immunocompromised can receive their third dose immediately.

In the Kirland-Bellevue-Woodinville area, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Bartell’s, and QFC are offering booster shots. Additionally, the third dose is available at the CVS located within the Target store at 17,700 NE 76th Street in Redmond.

Most locations require an appointment, which can be scheduled online.

King County, Washington is reporting over 86.2% of age eligible residents are vaccinated with at least one dose. The highest rates of positivity are in areas with low vaccination rates statewide. The FDA has provided full approval of the Pfizer vaccine for anyone 16 and over and EUA approval for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

COVID vaccines are free for anyone over 12 years old, and no appointment is necessary at most locations. Lyft and Hopelink provide free transportation, and KinderCare, the Learning Care Group, and the YMCA offer free childcare during vaccination appointments or recuperation.

For information on getting a vaccination in King County, you can visit the King County Department of Public Health website.

Malcontent News

Hospital Status

According to the DoH COVID Dashboard, 18.7% of all acute care patients hospitalized in Washington have COVID. Currently, 91% of all staffed acute care beds are occupied statewide with approximately 604 available. ICUs are at 89.0% of capacity statewide, with 30.0% of ICU patients fighting COVID – an estimated 354 patients with 56% on ventilators. The state has approximately 132 ICU beds available.

The 7-day rolling average hospital admission rate for new COVID patients dropped to 105 – finally below the January 7, 2021 peak of 113. The Department of Health reported 1,274 COVID patients statewide on September 30 with 197 on ventilators. Hospitalizations dropped slightly while the number of patients on ventilators is unchanged.

Hospital RegionICU OccupancyICU COVID PatientsAcute Care OccupancyAcute Care COVID Patients
East88.6%44.6%89.6%26.7%
North80.8%28.5%88.0%13.1%
North Central96.4%58.9%75.7%26.3%
Northwest92.3%38.3%95.4%24.6%
Puget Sound91.8%23.4%94.6%14.4%
South Central85.7%34.9%83.2%25.4%
Southwest74.3%37.3%88.3%24.9%
West89.1%31.4%87.6%21.8%
Hospital status by region – September 30, 2021 – ICU Occupancy should be below 80%, ICU COVID Patients should be below 20%, Acute Care Occupancy should be below 80%, and Acute Care COVID Patients should be below 10%

There was very little change in the status of Hospital Regions.

Back to School

School DistrictStatusLess than 10 Active Cases10 or More Active Cases
BellevueYELLOW– Bellevue (6**)
– Big Picture (1*)
– Chinook (1*)
– Eastgate (1*)
– Enatai (3*)
– Highland (3*)
– Interlake (3*)
– Lake Hills (3*)
– Newport (4*)
– Newport Heights (1*)
– Puesta del Sol (1*)
– Sammamish (1*)
– Sherwood Forest (2*)
– Spiritridge (1*)
– Stevenson (1*)
– Tillicum (1*)
– Wilburton (2*)
– Woodridge (3*)		None
Lake WashingtonYELLOW– Alcott Elementary (1*)
– Barton Elementary (1*)
– Dickinson/Explorer Elementary (2*)
– Ella Baker Elementary (3*)
– Eastlake High (1*)
– Evergreen Middle School (1*)
– Franklin Elementary (2*)
– Finn Hill Middle School (1* – see below)
– ICS (1*)
– Inglewood Middle School (2*)
– Juanita Elementary (1*)
– Kamiakin Middle School (3* – see notes below)
– Keller Elementary (2*)
– Kirkland Middle School (1*)
– Lake Washington High (1*)
– Lakeview Elementary (3*)
– Muir Elementary (1*)
– Redmond Middle School (1*)
– Redmond High School (1*)
– Renaissance Middle School (1*)
– Rush Elementary (2*)

See notes below		None
NorthshoreRED– Arrowhead Elementary (14)
– Canyon Creek Elementary (31**)
– Canyon Park Middle School (12**)
– Cottage Lake Elementary (17)
– East Ridge Elementary (16)
– Fernwood Elementary (13**)
– Frank Love Elementary (30)
– Hollywood Hills Elementary (29)
– Inglemoor High School (8)
– Innovation Lab High School (11)
– Kenmore Elementary (13)
– Kenmore Middle School (49**)
– Kokanee Elementary (60)
– Leota Middle School (6)
– Lockwood Elementary (32)
– Maywood Hills Elementary (21**)
– Moorlands Elementary (48)
– North Creek High School (27)
– Northshore Middle School (17**)
– Ruby Bridges Elementary (9)
– Secondary Academy for Success (16)
– Shelton View Elementary (20**)
– Skyview Middle School (63**)
– Sunrise Elementary (23)
– Timbercrest Middle School (44)
– Wellington Elementary (74)
– Westhill Elementary (38)
– Woodin Elementary (17**)
– Woodinville High School (23)
– Woodmoor Elementary (23**)		– Bothell High School (14*/137)
– Crystal Springs Elementary 11*/45)
Local Districts Scorecard – * indicates positive cases only ** indicates 5 or more confirmed positive cases

We redefined the school district statuses. Information for classroom and building closures has been a challenge to obtain, both for closures and reopening. We are adopting moving any school with more than 10 active COVID cases reported into the red, and we’ve adjusted the third column to reflect this change.

in the Northshore School District, Bothell High School currently has 14 confirmed COVID cases between students and faculty and Crystal Springs Elementary has 11. The number of quarantined students at Bothell High school swelled to 137.

The Bellevue School District updated its COVID dashboard overnight. The district will be providing updated data daily, but no longer reports on the number of students and faculty quarantining.

We received a confirmed parent report on Wednesday of one new COVID case at Finn Hill Middle School with 52 students moved to quarantine.

We received a confirmed parent report on Thursday of two new COVID cases at Kamiakin Middle School with 27 additional close contacts.

We received a parent report on Thursday of one new COVID case at Old Redmond Schoolhouse (preschool) with an unknown number of close contacts.

Because Lake Washington doesn’t update its dashboard daily, we are adding these as footnotes. We have not added the Old Redmond Schoolhouse to the scorecard above because it is not officially listed on the Lake Washington School District dashboard.

A 4th-grade teacher in the Kelso School District has died, district officials said, later adding that her classroom of 21 students is quarantining over positive COVID-19 cases through October 11.

Karen James, who taught 4th Grade at Barnes Elementary, died on Monday, September 27, according to the Kelso School District.

A district spokesperson said they could not comment on the cause of death, however, they later said, “Late yesterday [Thursday, Sept. 30] afternoon we learned of one additional positive COVID-19 case in Miss James’ classroom.”

We continued to encourage parents to request improved daily data reporting from the Lake Washington School District.

Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville

No update

National Round-Up

Johns Hopkins University Cumulative Case Tracker is reporting 110,010 new cases, 2,718 deaths nationwide, and 699,000 COVID-related deaths since February 29, 2020. Based on the Johns Hopkins University data, the United States will reach 700,000 confirmed COVID-related deaths tomorrow morning (other dashboards reported 700,000 deaths last night and earlier today).

Merck seeking FDA Emergency Use Authorization for pill that treats mild and moderate COVID

Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics have been studying an oral antiviral medicine called molnupiravir which, during Phase 3 testing, reduced the risk of hospitalization and death by 50%. Phase 3 testing has been so successful Merck is submitting an application for Emergency Use Authorization in the United States and plans to submit marketing applications to other regulatory agencies worldwide.

The test program was a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, multi-site study done in 23 countries across 5 continents. There were 1,550 patients enrolled and to date, they have data from 775 people. Molnupiravir reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by almost 50% compared to the placebo group. Through Day 29, no deaths were reported in patients who received molnupiravir, as compared to 8 deaths in patients who received a placebo.

“More tools and treatments are urgently needed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, which has become a leading cause of death and continues to profoundly affect patients, families, and societies and strain health care systems all around the world. With these compelling results, we are optimistic that molnupiravir can become an important medicine as part of the global effort to fight the pandemic,” said Robert M. Davis, chief executive officer and president, Merck.

Unlike monoclonal antibodies which must be administered in a clinical setting by injection or IV, molnupiravir is a pill that can be prescribed by a doctor and taken at home.

“With the virus continuing to circulate widely, and because therapeutic options currently available are infused and/or require access to a healthcare facility, antiviral treatments that can be taken at home to keep people with COVID-19 out of the hospital are critically needed,” said Wendy Holman, chief executive officer of Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. “We are very encouraged by the results from the interim analysis and hope molnupiravir, if authorized for use, can make a profound impact in controlling the pandemic.”

An Axios report this evening states that in the fall of 2019, an Emory University professor presented the drug to the Trump Administration. The professor reported the school had developed a new powerful antiviral medication that could treat influenza, Ebola, and many other viruses. In February 2020, as COVID arrived in the United States, the professor came forward again, asking for funding for Phase 2 and Phase 3 testing to evaluate the effectiveness of the medication against COVID. The Trump administration declined to fund the research.

Merck, in collaboration with Ridgeback Bio, acquired the drug in July of 2020.

The drug could be a game-changer in the battle against COVID worldwide. Pills are easier to transport and store, don’t need preparation, and don’t need to be administered at a hospital or clinic. The medication is also being tested as an emergency preventative for individuals exposed to COVID but who have not tested COVID positive. The impact for the immunocompromised and elderly could be dramatic.

Approval by the FDA and ramping up distribution is likely months away. If molnupiravir can deliver these results globally, it has the potential to end the ongoing public health crisis. If Emory University has successfully created a broad-spectrum oral antiviral, this discovery has the potential to rival penicillin.

JetBlue requiring employees to get COVID vaccination

JetBlue Airways Corp. told workers that two provisions in a recent federal mandate mean they must get fully vaccinated against COVID-19, possibly as soon as December 8. The east coast-centric airline joins United, Hawaiian Airlines, and Alaska Air Group in mandating vaccination for its employees.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh tests positive for COVID

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has tested positive for COVID-19, according to a story on CNN. This is the first publicly known case of coronavirus among the high court’s justices.

Kavanaugh, who is fully vaccinated, tested positive on Thursday night, the court said in a statement. The justice’s immediate family tested negative and he has no symptoms.

His positive diagnosis for coronavirus means he won’t be on the bench Monday, the start of the new term, and what would be the first in-person session with all nine justices.

Alaska

Alaska reported 1,044 new COVID cases today and a new case rate of 1,066 per 100,000 residents, indicating that the state may have hit a peak. The remote state continues to have the highest new case rate on the planet. Hospitals in Anchorage Bethel, and Valdez continue to operate under crisis standards of care protocols.

The 202 hospitalized COVID patients are essentially unchanged from yesterday. The number of available ICU beds jumped to 23 and the number of ICU patients dropped to 107. There are 83 ICU patients on ventilators, 35 with COVID.

Amanda Frey, a nurse at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, sat down after a long day at work recently and made a brief video describing what it’s like to die with COVID-19: gasping for breath, terrified and beyond comfort.

In a story reported by the Anchorage Daily News, she painted a grim and immediate picture of deaths occurring almost daily at the hospital, largely among unvaccinated people.

“COVID-19 patients that die transition from being OK to actively dying very suddenly, and often without warning. They start to experience a state of panic and air hunger that is very difficult to manage and causes severe anxiety,” Frey says. “The medications that we usually use for patients at the end of life don’t help as much with COVID-19 patients when they’re dying. So what we’re seeing are deaths that are not only isolated but they’re also very traumatic.”

California

California will require students attending school in-person to get vaccinated for Covid-19 after the Food and Drug Administration grants full approval for their age group, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday.

Newsom’s latest order, the first of its kind nationwide, will roll out in two phases for students learning in person. The mandate will first take effect for students ages 12 and over after the FDA grants full approval to that entire age group.

California is the first in the nation with a statewide vaccination mandate for primary school students. Implementation depends upon fully FDA approval of at least one of the COVID vaccines for children 12 to 15. Although no date has been set, full approval is expected during the first half of 2022.

Colorado

At least 92% of Denver’s municipal employees were vaccinated against COVID-19 as of Friday, a day after the city’s vaccine mandate took effect in a bid to slow the spread of the virus during the fall and winter, according to a review of city compliance data.

The AP reported that almost 99% of the city’s 10,869 full-time employees were fully vaccinated or had an exemption accepted.

Idaho

Idaho reported 1,778 new cases yesterday and 24 deaths as the state continue to operate under “crisis standards of care” without a load management agreement between hospitals.

Earlier this week, we blasted Jordan Herget, the CEO of Portneuf Medical Center, for reporting that the hospital in Pocatello was operating normally and they didn’t expect to have to move to crisis standards of care. From ambulance bays to emergency departments, any medical professional can tell you the worst thing you can say aloud is, “gee, it sure is quiet tonight.”

On the afternoon of September 24, PMC had about 10 patients with COVID on ventilators. The number of patients needing mechanical ventilation almost doubled during the ensuing hours. In response, PMC requested seven more ventilators from its parent company, Ardent Health Services, said Dr. Dan Snell, PMC’s chief medical officer.

“Our situation hasn’t improved. A week later we’re very much in an emergency just like we were a week ago and our staff are being pushed to our limits,” Hergett said.

KTVB reported across the St. Luke’s Health System 264 of their 607 patients admitted to the hospital are COVID positive. 66 of the 78 patients in the ICU are COVID patients and 97% of the COVID patients in the ICU are unvaccinated.

“In our adult ICUs, our youngest patient today is 22 years old,” St. Luke’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jim Souza said. “About 70% of our patients are 55 years or younger in the intensive care unit. And in the intensive care unit, 25% are younger than 40. They’re sicker. They’re staying longer. The average length of stay in the ICU is up by two whole days, and their mortality rate is significantly higher than it was in the December surge.”

The VA Hospital in Boise requested a mobile morgue to support the hospital facility which is at capacity. Idaho has struggled with the influx of corpses in the last two weeks. Officials have been forced to stack bodies, store them in railroad cars, and store embalmed bodies in non-refrigerated areas.

Maine

Tom Edge, a retail pharmacy manager for Pen Bay Medical Center in Rockport, Maine, said he’s refused to fill six prescriptions for ivermectin in the last month, according to the Portland Press Herald.

Typically, ivermectin is rarely used on humans, Edge said, and he filled only three legitimate prescriptions for the drug in the past year. The most recent prescriptions he’s received came from out-of-state doctors, he said, “which is always a little bit of a red flag anyway.”

When he looked up one prescriber online, Edge found a list of doctors that people can call and, for a fee, get a consultation over the phone and then a prescription for ivermectin.

Montana

While the hallways of the Billings Clinic are lined with COVID patients and the hospital in Helena has operated under crisis standards of care for two weeks, Elsie Arntzen, the Republican state superintendent at the Montana Office of Public Instruction spoke at a “medical freedom” rally.

Asked later if she felt that speaking at an event where the tone seemed overwhelmingly against school boards that have voted to install mask mandates, Arntzen said, “I don’t believe this disrespects anyone in the educational community.”

“My role is here,” she continued. “My role is, number one, in the healing process in the discord we have between the school board room, where they might be in Montana, and to parents, whoever they might be, and putting the emphasis on children.”

Montana reported 962 new cases and 8 more deaths today, but not much else in the form of data.

New York

The Supreme Court on Friday declined to block New York City’s requirement that public school teachers receive COVID-19 vaccinations, marking the second time the nation’s high court has declined to wade into the issue. 

A group of teachers in New York had asked the Supreme Court for an emergency injunction to block implementation of the mandate, which required them to receive a shot by 5 p.m. Friday or face suspension without pay when schools open Monday.

Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor denied the emergency request without comment. A federal appeals court earlier in the week permitted New York’s mandate.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1905 in Jacobson vs Massachusetts, that municipalities, counties, and states had the power to mandate vaccines as part of public health efforts. The decision has been litigated dozens of times over the last 116 years, as recently as August.

When an emergency filing is made with the court, the Justice that is assigned to that region can render a decision or request that the entire court to hear the case. In August, Associate Justice May Comey-Barrett ruled independently on a challenge filed by students at the University of Indiana. Justice Comey-Barrett also denied the appeal without comment.

In the landmark 1905 case, the Supreme Court ruled that the 10th Amendment gave states the power to make public health decisions.

Wyoming

Wyoming hospitals are reporting 210 COVID patients hospitalized, 50 on ventilators, and 35 ICU beds available statewide. Wyoming has 37 hospitals including Veteran’s Administration facilities and 15 have available ICU beds.

Misinformation

It’s just a cold. It’s just the flu. Content warning, some viewers may find this disturbing.

Tik Tok user Mae Mae documented her hospital journey in August and September after she caught COVID. She was partially vaccinated when she became ill and ended up hospitalized. In her videos, her condition continued to deteriorate, and the cannula she is wearing indicates she was on high flow oxygen.

You read stories from respiratory therapists, nurses, and doctors of COVID patients who become exhausted as they struggle to breathe – but we don’t see it. Mae Mae went to the line of needing to go on a ventilator before she bounced back.

This is COVID – this is what it looks like. It is not a cold, it is not the flu. Mae Mae survived and is still dealing with lingering symptoms.

@_.mae.mae._

#covidisreal #cantbreathe #hospital #vaccinated #bullshit #fyp #viral #nojoke #imscared

♬ original sound – Mae Gen
Health and Lifestyle, Local, National

DOH reporting hospitalization data again – local and national update for September 30, 2021

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) Six days after our story about data missing since August on the COVID dashboard from the Washington Department of Health, a significant amount of information was returned. The appearance of granular hospitalization data has enabled us to better understand the situation in Washington state.

New cases dropped statewide except in the least vaccinated counties. The three most vaccinated counties have new case numbers below 100 (7 day moving average) while the least vaccinated county has the highest new case rate in the state.

There are an estimated 615 acute care and 132 ICU beds available statewide, and approximately 55% of COVID patients in the ICU are on a ventilator.

Organizers of an anti-mandate rally failed to gather a crowd for the planned march, and the day was uneventful on First Hill and at Harborview Medical Center. It’s possible the high vaccination rate among healthcare professionals was a factor.

We received information on new COVID cases in the Lake Washington School District from parents.

In regional news, there is a good news story out of Idaho tonight, although the Hunger Games continue. The surge in Alaska is relentless, while Montana remains on the edge of a knife.

In national news, in-home rapid COVID tests aren’t as accurate as you think, rural America is being decimated by COVID, Health and Human Services clarifies that your employer is not violating HIPAA when it asks to confirm your vaccination status, and another study out about long COVID indicates this will be a problem for years to come.

In misinformation, we examine a Zero Hedge blog that claims that a Pfizer therapeutic in testing for COVID symptoms is essentially the same drug as Ivermectin.

This update uses the latest data from the Washington State Department of Health (WSDOH), released on September 30, 2021.

vaccinationhospitalsschoolslocalnationalmisinformation

Washington State Update for September 30, 2021

Washington state COVID update

Jefferson and King County reported under 100 new COVID cases per 100K residents using the 7 day moving average, joining San Juan County in dropping to double digits. Simply put, the three most vaccinated counties in Washington have the lowest number of new cases.

New cases dropped statewide except in the least vaccinated counties. In the South Central Hospital Region, which includes Benton, Franklin, Klickitat, Walla Walla, and Yakima counties, the 14 day moving average for new cases plunged to 707.1 per 100K. The Puget Sound (Central) Hospital Region, which represents King County, held steady at 245.1.

Percent of Total Population Fully VaccinatedAverage 14-Day New Case Rate (unadjusted)
60.00% or above (3)175.5
50.00% to 59.99% (12 counties)505.4
40.00% to 49.99% (15 counties)645.4 (down)
28.40% to 39.99% (9 counties)735.4 (up)
14-Day New COVID Cases per 100K average by Vaccination Rate, Not Adjusted for Population

Through September 29, Washington’s statewide 14-day rolling average is 422.8 COVID cases per 100K, statistically unchanged from yesterday. New case rates were flat or down for all but the least vaccinated counties.

The only county in the 1,000.0 to 1,399.9 range is Stevens (1,014.8), which is also the least vaccinated. The county’s new case rate is more than 17 times higher than San Juan, the highest vaccinated county in the state.

Counties in the 800.0 to 999.9 per 100K range include Franklin, Garfield, Grant, Grays Harbor, Lincoln, and Okanogan. Adams and Pend Oreille are just under the 800 threshold.

New cases were statistically unchanged in every age group. Hospitalizations were down slightly for ages 20 to 49, and up slightly for ages 65 to 79.

Age Group7-Day Case Rate7-Day Hospitalization Rate
Ages 0-11189.80.7
Ages 12-19206.71.7
Ages 20-34191.25.1 (down)
Ages 35-49192.89.2 (down)
Ages 50-64140.715.1
Ages 65-79100.019.5 (up)
Ages 80+106.931.2
7-day case rate and 7-day hospitalization rate is per 100K within the age group – the target for 7-day case rate is <25.0, but there are other factors such as vaccination rates within the age groups, how many total tests within the 7-day period, and the positivity rate within each age group

The USA Today COVID Tracker reported 63 deaths on Wednesday. The state of Washington is not reporting the percentage of positive cases.

Antivax protest at Swedish and Harborview Medical Center doesn’t materialize

Despite the promotion on multiple websites, coordination by several organizations, and plans shared on Facebook, Telegram, and some dark corners of the web, the anti-vaccination community took a loss today. After a large rally in Spokane and a “Town Hall” in Woodinville over the weekend, organizers could not rally groups to protest at the only Level 1 trauma center in the state.

Lewis County Commissioner Gary Stamper dies of COVID

Q13 Fox is reporting Lewis County Commissioner Gary Stamper died from COVID after a three-week battle at PeaceHealth hospital in Vancouver, he was 67 and vaccinated.

Travel Advisories

We recommend avoiding recreational travel to Spokane, Yakima, Klickitat, Benton, Franklin, and Walla Walla counties. If the number of new cases in the South Central Hospital Region continues to decline, we will likely lift our advisory for this region in the next 4 to 11 days. We strongly advise against all nonessential travel to Alaska, Idaho, and Montana. Hospital resources in these regions are constrained, and you may receive inadequate care if you experience a medical emergency.

We may implement a travel advisory for Eastern Washington, based upon renewed hospitalization data now available from the Department of Health.

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!

In August, King County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin mentioned the N95 Project as a trusted source for N95 masks. A check on the website showed that a 50 count box of United States manufactured N95 masks are available for $40.00. We recommend wearing N95 masks indoors as they provide the best protection against COVID when properly fitted.

No promotional consideration has been given, or requested from the n95 project or any manufacturer of masks

Vaccination

Deadline for single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine and second dose for Pfizer and Moderna vaccine looms for state workers

Thousands of state workers have until Sunday to receive their second Pfizer or Moderna dose or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Over 68% of state workers reported last week they were fully vaccinated. Data from companies, schools, and other states such as Hawaii and New York, indicates final acceptance would likely exceed 95%.

Multiple unions have reached agreements at a municipal, county, or state level, to extend the deadline past October 18 for individuals who received at least their first dose. Additionally, workers with denied exemptions requests will be given extra time.

Pfizer vaccine booster shots are now available

Booster shots for eligible individuals are now available statewide. Individuals who received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine more than 6 months ago, are 65 or older, or are immunocompromised can receive their third dose immediately.

In the Kirland-Bellevue-Woodinville area, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Bartell’s, and QFC are offering booster shots. Additionally, the third dose is available at the CVS located within the Target store at 17,700 NE 76th Street in Redmond.

Most locations require an appointment, which can be scheduled online.

King County, Washington is reporting over 86.2% of age eligible residents are vaccinated with at least one dose. The highest rates of positivity are in areas with low vaccination rates statewide. The FDA has provided full approval of the Pfizer vaccine for anyone 16 and over and EUA approval for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

COVID vaccines are free for anyone over 12 years old, and no appointment is necessary at most locations. Lyft and Hopelink provide free transportation, and KinderCare, the Learning Care Group, and the YMCA offer free childcare during vaccination appointments or recuperation.

For information on getting a vaccination in King County, you can visit the King County Department of Public Health website.

Malcontent News

Hospital Status

The Department of Health is reporting numbers on statewide hospital resources and providing information by Hospital Regions again. We have deep insight into the situation at a state and regional level.

According to the DoH COVID Dashboard, 19.0% of all acute care patients hospitalized in Washington have COVID. Currently, 91% of all staffed acute care beds are occupied with approximately 615 available.

ICUs are at 89.0% of capacity statewide, with 30.0% of ICU patients fighting COVID – an estimated 358 patients with 55% on ventilators. The state has an estimated 132 staffed ICU beds available. On a per-capita basis, staffed ICU bed availability in Washington is only slightly better than in Alaska, so the system remains very stressed.

The 7-day rolling average hospital admission rate for new COVID patients dropped slightly to 133. The Department of Health reported 1,288 COVID patients statewide on September 29 with 197 on ventilators. Both numbers increased slightly from yesterday.

Hospital RegionICU OccupancyICU COVID PatientsAcute Care OccupancyAcute Care COVID Patients
East89.3%45.5%90.1%27.3%
North80.9%27.0%88.4%13.1%
North Central96.9%59.0%75.8%27.2%
Northwest92.5%38.9%95.4%25.0%
Puget Sound91.6%23.4%94.5%14.7%
South Central86.1%36.5%84.3%26.4%
Southwest73.1%38.3%88.1%25.0%
West88.8%32.4%87.7%22.6%
Hospital status by region – September 30, 2021 – ICU Occupancy should be below 80%, ICU COVID Patients should be below 20%, Acute Care Occupancy should be below 80%, and Acute Care COVID Patients should be below 10%

With the return of this critical information, we can better assess region by region status. We will hold our travel advisories and watch for trends in the East, North Central, and South Central Regions. It is very likely we will drop the travel advisory to South Central counties next week, but may add an advisory to the East Region counties.

Back to School

School DistrictStatusLess than 10 Active Cases10 or More Active Cases
BellevueYELLOW– Bellevue (1)
– Eastgate (1)
– Enatai (4)
– Lake Hills (3)
– Sherwood Forest (7)		None
Lake WashingtonYELLOW– Alcott Elementary (1*)
– Barton Elementary (1*)
– Dickinson/Explorer Elementary (2*)
– Ella Baker Elementary (3*)
– Eastlake High (1*)
– Evergreen Middle School (1*)
– Franklin Elementary (2*)
– Finn Hill Middle School (1* – see below)
– ICS (1*)
– Inglewood Middle School (2*)
– Juanita Elementary (1*)
– Kamiakin Middle School (3* – see notes below)
– Keller Elementary (2*)
– Kirkland Middle School (1*)
– Lake Washington High (1*)
– Lakeview Elementary (3*)
– Muir Elementary (1*)
– Redmond Middle School (1*)
– Redmond High School (1*)
– Renaissance Middle School (1*)
– Rush Elementary (2*)

See notes below
NorthshoreRED– Arrowhead Elementary (16)
– Canyon Creek Elementary (25**)
– Canyon Park Middle School (11**)
– Cottage Lake Elementary (15)
– Crystal Springs Elementary (54**)
– East Ridge Elementary (23)
– Fernwood Elementary (13**)
– Frank Love Elementary (29)
– Hollywood Hills Elementary (27)
– Inglemoor High School (8)
– Innovation Lab High School (11)
– Kenmore Elementary (12)
– Kenmore Middle School (49**)
– Kokanee Elementary (61)
– Leota Middle School (5)
– Lockwood Elementary (32)
– Maywood Hills Elementary (21**)
– Moorlands Elementary (49)
– North Creek High School (26**)
– Northshore Middle School (14**)
– Ruby Bridges Elementary (9)
– Secondary Academy for Success (15)
– Shelton View Elementary (20**)
– Skyview Middle School (68**)
– Sunrise Elementary (23)
– Timbercrest Middle School (46)
– Wellington Elementary (74)
– Westhill Elementary (33)
– Woodin Elementary (18**)
– Woodinville High School (20)
– Woodmoor Elementary (22**)		– Bothell High School (13*/124)
Local Districts Scorecard – * indicates positive cases only ** indicates 5 or more confirmed positive cases

We redefined the school district statuses. Information for classroom and building closures has been a challenge to obtain, both for closures and reopening. We are adopting moving any school with more than 10 active COVID cases reported into the red, and we’ve adjusted the third column to reflect this change.

The Northshore School District numbers only wiggled across a number of schools while the Bellevue School District is unchanged from yesterday.

We received a confirmed parent report on Wednesday of one new COVID case at Finn Hill Middle School with 52 students moved to quarantine.

We received a confirmed parent report on Thursday of two new COVID cases at Kamiakin Middle School with 27 additional close contacts.

We received a parent report of one new COVID case at Old Redmond Schoolhouse (preschool) with an unknown number of close contacts.

Because Lake Washington doesn’t update its dashboard daily, we are adding these as footnotes. We have not added the Old Redmond Schoolhouse to the scorecard above because it is not officially listed on the Lake Washington School District dashboard.

We continued to encourage parents to request the Bellevue and Lake Washington School Districts to improve their COVID data reporting.

The Kent Reporter stated the Kent School District closed a classroom at Panther Lake Elementary School due to COVID.

“As of (Wednesday) September 29 one classroom is closed,” according to the district’s COVID-19 dashboard and school status map. “Otherwise, the building is open and offering in-person instruction to students in the remaining classrooms. The school contacted all impacted families of the closed classroom on September 29.”

Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville

No update

National Round-Up

Johns Hopkins University Cumulative Case Tracker is reporting 123,269 new cases and 2,531 deaths nationwide. The United States will reach a tragic milestone of 700,000 confirmed COVID-related deaths since February 29, 2020, this weekend.

At-home rapid tests aren’t as accurate as PCR tests

The at-home antigen tests that produce results in minutes — and are more comfortable because you don’t have to swab your nose deeply — detect certain proteins in the virus. However, the tests can provide false negatives according to a report by the Kansas City Star.

Dr. Rachel Liesman, director of clinical microbiology, said there haven’t been a lot of false positives reported with the rapid tests.

“If you’re symptomatic it will give you a really quick result and that can be helpful,” she said. “But I think given … the potential ramifications of missing a case, I would recommend that if you get a negative (and you have COVID symptoms), you go and get a PCR test because those have much better sensitivity.

Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy report indicates COVID is decimating rural America

Rural Americans are currently twice as likely to die from COVID-19 infections compared with their urban peers, according to Kaiser Health News and data from the Rural Policy Research Institute (RPRI) at the University of Iowa.

Since March 2020, 1 in 434 rural Americans has died from COVID-19, compared with roughly 1 in 513 urban Americans. And unlike deaths in urban areas, the vaccine rollout has not slowed COVID-19 fatalities in rural parts of the country due to low uptake. Short-staffed hospitals and limited access to healthcare are also contributing factors, the researchers say.

Virus incidence rates in September were roughly 54% higher in rural areas than elsewhere, and in 39 states, rural counties had higher rates of COVID than urban counties.

In related news, health officials in Idaho, a predominately rural state with some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, said more kids and babies are being hospitalized with COVID-related complications. As of this week, 1,700 new COVID-19 cases were reported in children in Idaho, according to the Associated Press.

Health and Human Services Releases Guidance on employer verification of vaccination status and HIPAA

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued guidance to help the public understand when the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Rule applies to disclosures and requests for information about whether a person has received a COVID-19 vaccine.

The guidance reminds the public that the HIPAA Privacy Rule does not apply to employers or employment records. This is because the HIPAA Privacy Rule only applies to HIPAA-covered entities (health plans, health care clearinghouses, and health care providers that conduct standard electronic transactions), and, in some cases, to their business associates.

Today’s guidance addresses common workplace scenarios and answers questions about whether and how the HIPAA Privacy Rule applies. This information will be helpful to the public as we continue to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

China study on long COVID mirrors results of similar studies in the United States and U.K.

Among thousands of the earliest survivors of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, nearly half had at least one persistent symptom a full year after being released from the hospital, according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open.

The study followed up with 2,433 adult patients who had been hospitalized in one of two hospitals in Wuhan early on in the pandemic. Most had nonsevere cases, but a small number had severe COVID-19 and required intensive care. All of the patients were discharged between February 12 and April 10, 2020, and the study follow-up took place in March of 2021.

Alaska

Alaska reported 1,270 new COVID cases today and a new case rate of 1,165 per 100,000 residents. The remote state continues to have the highest new case rate on the planet. Hospitals in Anchorage, Bethel, and Valdez are operating under crisis standards of care protocols.

“It’s been Hell,” said Heidi DeCaro, a respiratory therapist at Providence Alaska Medical Center, whose job includes assisting COVID-19 who are struggling to breathe.

In a Thursday interview, DeCaro and a few of her co-workers described generally untenable work conditions. The team has been caring for up to twice their normal patient loads, their shifts have stretched as long as 15 hours, and they’ve lost “about a third” of their co-workers due mainly to burnout, exhaustion, and a demoralizing work environment, they said.

The 203 hospitalized COVID patients are essentially unchanged from yesterday. The number of available ICU beds dropped to 16. Of the 113 ICU patients statewide, 87 are on ventilators, 36 with COVID. The majority of new cases are among people under 40 years old and unvaccinated.

Linda Gaines talked to KTOO about the situation in Haines, Alaska, after her husband was airlifted to Anchorage. Some models are now predicting hospitalizations won’t peak until November, and oxygen supplier Norco, Inc. is already struggling to keep up with demand.

“As I went up into the lobby area, there was probably 50 more people standing to get into the emergency room,” she said. “And then going outside, there was more people in the parking lot, waiting to get up to the main entry to go to the emergency room.”

Doug Williams of Guardian Flight described a similar situation ground ambulances face in urban hotspots. Aircraft that would normally arrive, load, and fly off are forced to wait on the tarmac while doctors try to find a bed for a sick patient. This takes the aircraft offline while it waits, slowing down the entire system.

California

The deadline for healthcare workers to get vaccinated has almost arrived, and in Sacramento, hospitals are preparing to discipline and terminate employees.

Kaiser Permanente said 90% of employees have reported they are vaccinated, including 97% of doctors, in a report by KCRA. Employees still have until December 1 before they risk termination.

Dignity Health also reported about 90% of employees are vaccinated and employees suspensions will start tomorrow. Sutter Health said 98% of employees are vaccinated in a system with more than 55,000 employees. Sutter Health will terminate “out of compliance” employees on October 15.

UC Davis Health told KCRA that 94% of more than 15,000 employees are vaccinated. Between exemption requests and partially vaccinated employees, a spokesperson said about 50 employees have not gotten vaccinated in defiance of the requirement.

Idaho

Idaho reported 1,905 new cases yesterday and 53 deaths. Hospitalizations have dropped to around 750, and the number of patients in the ICU has dropped to just below 200. It is unclear if this improvement is due to deferring patient procedures such as elective surgery, due to crisis standards of care rules, people following misinformation to not go to hospitals or a plateauing of cases.

“While there is not an immediate shortage of oxygen, there is a tremendous amount of growing stress to the supply chain network,” Elias Margonis, President of Norco, Inc. wrote in a letter. “Many hospitals have already pushed their bulk storage systems to limits of requiring emergency upgrades.”

In an interview with the Idaho Statesman, Margonis said Norco’s storage systems are generally designed to require shipments of new oxygen every three weeks or, in some cases, every six weeks. These days, many hospitals that Norco supplies are needing new shipments every three or four days, and some have had to use their reserve tanks.

The gaps between the haves and have nots extend into the universe of COVID. People with means and resources cant get monoclonal antibody treatments through private clinics and send their children to private and charter schools, which ironically, support remotely learning, mask mandates, and vaccination requirements for staff.

Charter school enrollment increased by more than 6,000 students for the 2020/2021 school year–the first academic year fully consumed by the pandemic.

Jenn Thompson, the Director of the Idaho Public Charter School Commission says population growth makes that seem like a big increase, but it’s only a roughly 1% increase from the previous academic year.

“About 60% of the growth we saw last year was very specifically parents enrolling in virtual schools and the data we can look at right now is about half of that is holding,” Thompson said.

Idaho state representative Greg Chaney is mourning the loss of his mother, who died of COVID less than a week after becoming symptomatic. Chaney said his mother, who was 74, was unvaccinated.

“(My mom) wasn’t gullible, and I guess that’s one thing I’ve tried to make clear,” Chaney told KTVB. “She was the first in her family to graduate with a bachelor’s degree, she got a master’s degree, so she was an intelligent person who made her own decision.”

Rep. Chaney said he believes that his mom was misled by misinformation

“I think she was skeptical about whether it was really as bad as it was billed to be,” Rep. Chaney said. “I think she viewed it as ‘I’ve been through a lot of stuff in my time on this planet and this is just another thing in the stuffing box.'”

“I think there was enough out there that validated her skepticism.”

Kay Craig, a physical therapist who has worked for St. Luke’s for more than 28 years, applied for a religious exemption for the COVID vaccination and had it approved.

In an interview with KTVB, she discussed a change of heart after seeing the reality first hand and doing her own research. After Craig traveled out of town for surgery and returned, she saw firsthand how the pandemic was overwhelming Idaho’s hospitals. 

“I didn’t believe them when they said it was 98% or 96% unvaccinated and through my own research, it truly is,” she said. “I looked in the ICU today and it’s 27-year-olds, it’s 33-year-olds, it’s 60-year-olds. I had another good friend and her brother-in-law died at 40.” 

At this point, Craig decided she had seen enough and received the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine.

“I have peace now. It’s funny, there are some like my parents. They never said anything to me but now that I am vaccinated they are like, ‘Phew’ you know? Because you worry about your kids.”

Indiana

The Indy Star is reporting Megan Bournique is suing Ascension St. Vincent hospital for refusing to administer Ivermectin to her critically ill mom.

The emergency lawsuit asks a judge to intervene and order the Indianapolis hospital to respect a prescription for ivermectin issued to Eliot by a physician assistant named Maria Carson, according to the lawsuit.

Marion Superior Judge Kurt Eisgruber ordered Ascension St. Vincent to give Eliot the drug pending a response to the lawsuit by the hospital. After lawyers representing the hospital challenged the order in court Wednesday, Eisgruber backtracked with a new order saying Ascension St. Vincent did not have to give Eliot the drug.

The largest study to date on the effectiveness of Ivermectin found it had no effect and was contraindicated for patients with moderate to severe COVID.

Also reported by the Indy Star, Governor Eric Holcomb renewed the state’s public health emergency order once again on Thursday.

The extension comes one day after state health officials offered cautious optimism with the state’s waning COVID-19 trends, including decreasing cases and hospitalizations. State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box emphasized, however, that they do not expect these declines to be “linear.”

“We may see cases bounce back up and bounce back down,” Box said. “If you look at other states, that’s what they see — kind of a ‘sawtooth’ pattern. That is the nature of this disease.”

Michigan

The Republican legislature put language in the 2022 budget signed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, rescinding funding to any county or school system that independently declares a public health emergency. Multiple counties and school districts are ending quarantine rules and mask requirements out of fear of losing education dollars from the state.

May the odds ever be in your favor.

Montana

Montana reported its 2,000 COVID death last night, with the official total at 2,009 this evening. Governor Greg Gianforte released a statement according to the Montana Free Press. High blood pressure and diabetes were each recorded as a factor in about 1 in 5 of the state’s 2020 COVID-19 deaths. Chronic lung disease was a factor in about 1 in 7. Dementia was a factor in about 1 in 9.

“The governor joins all Montanans whose hearts go out to the family, neighbors, and friends of those we have lost to the virus,” the statement read. “As the governor has said repeatedly, vaccination remains the best solution to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the virus, and we continue to make progress with the millionth dose of vaccine administered in the state yesterday.”

It continues to be very challenging to get meaningful information out of the state of Montana. The state reported 1,217 new cases with 415 hospitalized. The Department of Health and Human Services did report that over 88% of the people hospitalized and 83.5% of confirmed COVID-related deaths were unvaccinated.

New York

Spectrum News reported a group of New York City teachers asked the U.S. Supreme Court for an injunction to stop the city from enforcing its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, court records show.

The emergency injunction request was filed Thursday, a day before Department of Education employees must receive at least their first COVID-19 shot to continue working.

“While a temporary interruption of work is not actionable, the mandate here would have a permanent effect: it is open-ended, where if a teacher never gets vaccinated, he or she will never be able to return to work,” the plaintiffs said in their petition.

The petitioners say an immediate injunction is necessary, arguing the “Court will lose the opportunity to provide meaningful relief” to public school employees if it does not issue an injunction before the Friday 5 p.m. deadline for DOE staff to get their first shot.

The Supreme Court has reviewed other emergency case requests from students and faculty and rebuked all challenges. The Supreme Court case of Jacobson vs. Massachusetts in 1905 found that municipalities, counties, and states can mandate vaccinations as a matter of public health, and the case law has been challenged multiple times.

Oregon

KOIN reported hospitals in Oregon continue to be nearly filled. There are 816 COVID patients hospitalized across the state, with 231 in the ICU. Only 10% of ICU beds are available, and only 8% of non-ICU beds.

The state recorded another 1,896 new cases and 20 deaths.

Oregon also reported similar data to Washington state and national data from the CDC on breakthrough cases. Of all the breakthrough cases, only 4.6% of people were hospitalized and less than 1% died. The average age of vaccinated people who died was 80.5.

Tennessee

Tennessee leads the nation in delicious Whiskey, country music, some of the friendliest people you can meet, Nissan Altimas, and COVID-related school closures. If you think we’re being flippant, the Tennessean shares our tone.

“Unsurprising to many students and parents, Tennessee has seen the most COVID-related school closures so far this school year according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study published.”

From August 2 to September 17, Tennessee saw more than 400 schools close for at least one day, according to the study released last week.

Utah

Utah Governor Spencer Cox said Thursday the state appears to be headed toward the “other side” after several weeks of a COVID-19 surge in a story by KSL.

“Over the last 14 days, our positive tests are down about 20% in the state, and so there are good indicators that we have summited the peak of the delta variant,” Cox said during his monthly PBS news conference.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Utah Department of Health reported 1,704 new coronavirus cases and 12 deaths.

The rolling seven-day average for positive tests is now 1,355 per day, and the percent positivity rate of those tested is 14.2%.

Governor Cox also warned Utah lawmakers if they approve a bill to ban businesses from requiring COVID vaccinations, it won’t make it past his desk. When a reporter asked if the bill landed on his desk if it would be, “dead on arrival,” the governor said, “yes.”

“We support businesses in their decisions on whether or not to require vaccines, and I continue to do that,” the governor said during his monthly PBS Utah news conference.

“I know that position can be maddening to some, and that’s fine. But I’m a huge believer in free markets, and a mandate not to allow businesses to have mandates is a mandate in and of itself, and it’s government still telling businesses what they can and can’t do. And I’m opposed to that. I think that businesses should be able to have a mandate.”

Wisconsin

Wisconsin Public Radio is reporting state senator André Jacque was released from the hospital more than three weeks after being placed on a ventilator because of a COVID-19 infection.

Jacque, a Republican from De Pere who has been a vocal opponent of mask and vaccine mandates, tested positive for the virus last month.

“He and his family wish to thank everyone for the prayers and good wishes that are making his recovery possible,” a spokesperson for the senator said Tuesday. “Sen. Jacque is doing much better; he is in touch with his staff on legislative and district issues, and he is reaching out to his friends and colleagues.”

Jacque will continue respiratory and occupational therapy, but he’s feeling well mentally, the spokesperson said in a statement.

While he was hospitalized his wife, Renée Jacque, appealed for people to get vaccinated and to place “their trust in medical professionals.”

Wyoming

Wyoming hospitals are reporting 211 COVID patients hospitalized, 43 on ventilators, and only 33 ICU beds available statewide. Wyoming has 37 hospitals including Veteran’s Administration facilities. Only 13 have available ICU beds. More alarming, over 21% of COVID tests performed at hospitals are positive.

Misinformation

The latest one on social media is a drug that Pfizer is studying that is “suspiciously similar” to Ivermectin. The misinformation is coming from a blog on Zero Hedge that claims the Pfizer drug is essentially the same as Ivermectin.

The blog post is based on an article from the Reuters news agency about a Pfizer drug known as PF-07321332. The article said Pfizer has begun a study of the pill in up to 2,660 healthy adults who live in the same household as someone with a confirmed symptomatic COVID-19 infection.

Pfizer described the drug as a protease inhibitor, which is “designed to block the activity of the main protease enzyme that the coronavirus needs to replicate.” That would stop symptoms from worsening, a spokesperson said.

Zero Hedge seized on the protease inhibitor fact, claiming “that’s exactly what ivermectin” does.

Pfizer’s protease inhibitor is not similar to that of animal medicine and does not use the same mechanism, a Pfizer spokesperson told us. 

Benjamin Neuman, the chief virologist at Texas A&M University’s Global Health Research Complex, said ivermectin’s main job is to block ion channels that parasites use to store up positively and negatively charged atoms. SARS-CoV-2 does not have any ion channels like the ones that ivermectin blocks, so there is not an obvious way for ivermectin to work in COVID-19, he said.

You can read more at Politifact, but the bottom line is, the claim is untrue.

Health and Lifestyle, Local, National

Antivax protests ramp up as cases go down – local and national update for September 29, 2021

Photo credit – University of Washington Medicine

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 most vaccinated county in Washington, San Juan, became the first county to see the number of new COVID cases drop into an acceptable range today. Across Washington, the number of new COVID cases and hospitalizations continues to decline.

The percentage of acute care patients treated for COVID dropped below 20% for the first time in weeks, adding more evidence that the fifth wave peaked.

Protesters plan to try and enter Swedish and Harborview Medical Center tomorrow as part of a protest against vaccine mandates for healthcare workers. A large anti-mandate protest is scheduled for Sunday in Olympia and includes speakers from The Post Millenial, Turning Point USA, and failed gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp.

Washington state will start disciplining doctors and nurses who spread COVID misinformation.

The CDC urges pregnant women to get vaccinated, reporting 97% of pregnant people hospitalized are unvaxxed. The deadline to get vaccinated to meet the Washington state employee mandate arrives on Sunday.

A new study out of the U.K. indicates 36% of people who have symptomatic cases of COVID become long haulers, in the most extensive study to date.

Alaska has two more hospitals move to crisis standards of care, Idaho continues the Hunger Games while Montana takes a bold new approach to its COVID problem – stop reporting data.

If Alaska were a country, it would have the highest COVID infection rate on the planet, and if Idaho were a country, it would have the highest COVID death rate on the planet.

In misinformation, we do a rerun to the questions, “what about Israel?”

This update uses the latest data from the Washington State Department of Health (WSDOH), released on September 29, 2021.

Editor’s Note: A security upgrade took our site offline for a few hours last night. We apologize for any inconvenience. This was not related to any malicious activity but was required to fix a critical security flaw.

vaccinationhospitalsschoolslocalnationalmisinformation

Washington State Update for September 29, 2021

Washington state COVID update

The first wave has ended in San Juan County, where 73.2% of the eligible population was vaccinated. The 7 day moving average for new cases dropped to 23.1 today, showing the archipelago has COVID under control.

New cases continued to drop statewide. In the South Central Hospital Region, which includes Benton, Franklin, Klickitat, Walla Walla, and Yakima counties, the 14 day moving average for new cases decreased to 742.9 per 100K. The Central Hospital Region, which represents King County, declined to 245.1.

Percent of Total Population Fully VaccinatedAverage 14-Day New Case Rate (unadjusted)
60.00% or above (3)172.2 (down)
50.00% to 59.99% (12 counties)509.3 (down)
40.00% to 49.99% (15 counties)660.3 (down)
28.40% to 39.99% (9 counties)724.7 (down)
14-Day New COVID Cases per 100K average by Vaccination Rate, Not Adjusted for Population

Through September 28, Washington’s statewide 14-day rolling average is 429.8 COVID cases per 100K, the lowest number since August 18. Counties in the 1,000.0 to 1,399.9 range include Lincoln (1,049.8) and Stevens (1,069.3), the least vaccinated county in Washington. Counties in the 800.0 to 999.9 per 100K range include Franklin, Garfield, Grant, Grays Harbor, and Okanogan.

New cases were down for all ages except 50 to 64 years old, which was statistically unchanged. Pediatric patients increased while geriatric patients decreased.

Age Group7-Day Case Rate7-Day Hospitalization Rate
Ages 0-11194,8 (down)0.7 (up)
Ages 12-19213.0 (down)1.7
Ages 20-34200.7 (down)5.6
Ages 35-49201.5 (down)9.9
Ages 50-64142.815.0
Ages 65-79102.5 (down)18.5 (down)
Ages 80+106.5 (down)31.5 (down)
7-day case rate and 7-day hospitalization rate is per 100K within the age group – the target for 7-day case rate is <25.0, but there are other factors such as vaccination rates within the age groups, how many total tests within the 7-day period, and the positivity rate within each age group

The USA Today COVID Tracker reported 63 deaths on Tuesday, with data from the weekend included in the number. The state of Washington is not reporting the percentage of positive cases.

“We’re seeing some hopeful signs, and disease is still very, very high. Hospitalizations are still very, very high. Hospital admissions are still significantly higher than they were at the peak of the 3rd wave. And those are new admissions every day, and so that means occupancy is still very high. It continues to be high. And so, hospitals continue to they’re having to delay care for non-urgent procedures,” said Lacy Fehrenbach, Deputy Secretary for COVID-19 Response at the Washington State Department of Health.

Antivax protesters plan to enter Swedish and Harborview Medical Center tomorrow

At least one promoter of the Waking up Washington “Seattle March for Healthcare Workers Against COVID Mandates” is calling for marchers to enter Swedish and Harborview Medical Center to force people to “hear inconvenient truths.”

The march will start at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow, with protesters against vaccine mandates told to gather at Swedish before marching through Seattle to Harborview Medical Center.

On September 21, organizer Palmer Davis shared with her followers, “If our goal is to demand action from those inside the building, standing outside [emphasis hers] of it is kind of a waste of time.”

“What works is to get inside.” [emphasis hers]

“Face-to-face discussion forces people to hear inconvenient truths and answer inconvenient questions.”

Ms. Davis provided no additional specifics on what action could happen when they enter the hospitals, but she didn’t indicate they plan to disrupt patient care.

Available data doesn’t support large-scale resistance among the medical community over receiving the COVID vaccination. New York was the first to reach the deadline for a statewide mandate for healthcare workers. Over 92% of the state’s 692,326 impacted healthcare workers had received at least a first dose by Monday. More than 15,000 additional workers have told officials they will start their vaccination series.

Vaccination rates among patient-facing staff are even higher. The vaccination rate for nurses is estimated to exceed 97% and for doctors was almost 100%,

Large anti-vaccination protest planned in Olympia on Sunday

Local activists are planning a large anti-vaccination mandate rally at the Washington State Capitol on Sunday. Listed speakers include Ari Hoffman, writer at the Post Millenial, Katie Daviscourt of Turning Point USA, serial lawsuit filer Glen Morgan, Loren Culp, the former police chief of Republic, Washington State Representative Jim Walsh, and Winlock mayor Brandon Svenson.

“October 4s the deadline to receive the 2nd dose of the MRNA injection in order to be considered “fully vaccinated” by October 18 [sic] OctoOctober [sic] 3 thousands of State Workers and others from 1–4 p.m. as we stand united against this unreasonable and un-American mandate. Only by standing together do we have any hope of pressuring this Governor to reverse course. If he will not, then we must demand that our Representatives in the Legislature hold a special session to end this lawless and harmful action.”

The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1905 vaccination mandates at the municipal, county, and state levels are Constitutional. The court’s finding has been litigated dozens of times in the 116 years since, including August of this year. Several students at the University of Indiana filed a case with the Supreme Court over the university’s vaccine mandate. Justice Amy Coney-Barrett issued a ruling in favor of the school after determining it didn’t warrant an emergency hearing with the entire court.

About 1,700 state employees have had exemptions approved but could still lose their jobs if a non-public facing position can’t be found for them.

Washington doctors face discipline for spreading COVID misinformation

The Washington Medical Commission says practitioners who misrepresent prevention measures, including vaccines and mask-wearing or prescribe non-approved medications such as Ivermectin, will be subject to disciplinary action.

Patients concerned about a provider’s conduct can file a complaint with the commission.

Washington nurses will face the same action.

Travel Advisories

We recommend avoiding recreational travel to Spokane, Yakima, Klickitat, Benton, Franklin, and Walla Walla counties. If the number of new cases in the South Central Hospital Region continues to decline, we will likely lift our advisory for this region in the next 5 to 12 days. We strongly advise against all nonessential travel to Alaska, Idaho, and Montana. Hospital resources in these regions are constrained, and 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!

In August, King County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin mentioned the N95 Project as a trusted source for N95 masks. A check on the website showed that a 50 count box of United States manufactured N95 masks are available for $40.00. We recommend wearing N95 masks indoors as they provide the best protection against COVID when properly fitted.

No promotional consideration has been given, or requested from the n95 project or any manufacturer of masks

Vaccination

CDC urges pregnant women to get vaccinated as deaths, premature births, and stillbirths rise among the unvaccinated

The CDC strongly recommends COVID-19 vaccination either before or during pregnancy. As of SeptemSeptember 27, more than 125,000 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported in pregnant people, including more than 22,000 hospitalized cases and 161 deaths. The highest number of COVID-19-related deaths in pregnant people in a single month was reported in August 2021. Data from the COVID-19-Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network (COVID-NET) indicate almost 97% of pregnant people hospitalized (either for illness or for labor and delivery) with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection were unvaccinated.

In addition to the risks of severe illness and death for pregnant and recently pregnant people, there is an increased risk for adverse pregnancy and neonatal outcomes, including preterm birth and admission of their babies to an ICU. Other negative consequences, such as stillbirth, have been reported. Despite the known risks of COVID-19, as of SeptemSeptember 18, 31.0% of pregnant people were fully vaccinated before or during their pregnancy.

Although the absolute risk is low, compared with non-pregnant symptomatic people, symptomatic pregnant people have more than a two-fold increased risk of requiring ICU admission, invasive ventilation, ECMO, and a 70% increased risk of death.

Deadline for single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine and second dose for Pfizer and Moderna vaccine looms for state workers

Thousands of state workers have until Sunday to receive their second Pfizer or Moderna dose or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Over 68% of state workers have reported they are fully vaccinated, and data from companies, schools, and other states such as Hawaii and New York, indicated that final acceptance would exceed 95%.

Multiple unions have reached agreements at a municipal, county, or state level, to extend the deadline past October 18 for individuals who received at least their first dose. Additionally, workers with denied exemptions requests will be given extra time.

Pfizer vaccine booster shots are now available

Booster shots for eligible individuals are now available statewide. Individuals who received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine more than 6 months ago, are 65 or older, or are immunocompromised can receive their third dose immediately.

In the Kirland-Bellevue-Woodinville area, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Bartell’s, and QFC are offering booster shots. Additionally, the third dose is available at the CVS located within the Target store at 17,700 NE 76th Street in Redmond.

Most locations require an appointment, which can be scheduled online.

King County, Washington is reporting over 86.2% of age eligible residents are vaccinated with at least one dose. The highest rates of positivity are in areas with low vaccination rates statewide. The FDA has provided full approval of the Pfizer vaccine for anyone 16 and over and EUA approval for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

COVID vaccines are free for anyone over 12 years old, and no appointment is necessary at most locations. Lyft and Hopelink provide free transportation, and KinderCare, the Learning Care Group, and the YMCA offer free childcare during vaccination appointments or recuperation.

For information on getting a vaccination in King County, you can visit the King County Department of Public Health website.

Malcontent News

Hospital Status

According to the DoH COVID Dashboard, 19.5% of all acute care patients hospitalized in Washington have COVID. This is the first time the Washington state hospital system is not under “severe stress” in weeks. ICUs are at 89.3% of capacity statewide, with 30.5% of ICU patients fighting COVID. Although these numbers are very encouraging, thousands of vital surgeries and other medical procedures have been delayed for months. Some hospitals are starting to do elective procedures again, which will continue to keep ICU beds full.

The 7-day rolling average hospital admission rate for new COVID patients dropped to 137. The Department of Health reported 1,267 COVID patients statewide on SeptemSeptember 2897 on ventilators.

Hospitals in Eastern and Southwest Washington remain very strained due to low vaccination rates and, to a far lesser extent, out-of-state transfer patients.

Back to School

School DistrictStatusLess than 10 Active Cases10 or More Active Cases
BellevueYELLOW– Bellevue (1)
– Eastgate (1)
– Enatai (4)
– Lake Hills (3)
– Sherwood Forest (7)		None
Lake WashingtonYELLOW– Alcott Elementary (1*)
– Barton Elementary (1*)
– Dickinson/Explorer Elementary (2*)
– Ella Baker Elementary (3*)
– Eastlake High (1*)
– Evergreen Middle School (1*)
– Franklin Elementary (2*)
– Finn Hill Middle School (1* – see below)
– ICS (1*)
– Inglewood Middle School (2*)
– Juanita Elementary (1*)
– Kamiakin Middle School (3*)
– Keller Elementary (2*)
– Kirkland Middle School (1*)
– Lake Washington High (1*)
– Lakeview Elementary (3*)
– Muir Elementary (1*)
– Redmond Middle School (1*)
– Redmond High School (1*)
– Renaissance Middle School (1*)
– Rush Elementary (2*)

See notes below
NorthshoreRED– Arrowhead Elementary (16)
– Canyon Creek Elementary (25)
– Canyon Park Middle School (11**)
– Cottage Lake Elementary (13)
– Crystal Springs Elementary (52**)
– East Ridge Elementary (21)
– Fernwood Elementary (13**)
– Frank Love Elementary (25)
– Hollywood Hills Elementary (26)
– Inglemoor High School (8)
– Innovation Lab High School (11)
– Kenmore Elementary (12)
– Kenmore Middle School (50**)
– Kokanee Elementary (62)
– Leota Middle School (5)
– Lockwood Elementary (31)
– Maywood Hills Elementary (21**)
– Moorlands Elementary (51)
– North Creek High School (26**)
– Northshore Middle School (13**)
– Ruby Bridges Elementary (9)
– Secondary Academy for Success (12)
– Shelton View Elementary (18**)
– Skyview Middle School (75**)
– Sunrise Elementary (21)
– Timbercrest Middle School (46)
– Wellington Elementary (77)
– Westhill Elementary (30)
– Woodin Elementary (17**)
– Woodinville High School (19)
– Woodmoor Elementary (21**)		– Bothell High School (13*/121)
Local Districts Scorecard – * indicates positive cases only ** indicates 5 or more confirmed positive cases

We redefined the school district statuses. Information for classroom and building closures has been a challenge to obtain, both for closures and reopening. We are adopting moving any school with more than 10 active COVID cases reported into the red, and we’ve adjusted the third column to reflect this change.

Bellevue School District went back to status yellow, with 10 confirmed COVID cases between students and staff in the district.

We received a confirmed parent report of one new COVID case at Finn Hill Middle School with 52 students moved to quarantine. Because Lake Washington doesn’t update its dashboard daily, we are adding this as a footnote.

Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville

No update

National Round-Up

Johns Hopkins University Cumulative Case Tracker is reporting 111,162 new cases and 2,543 deaths nationwide. COVID-related hospitalizations have declined to 79,000. The Pacific Northwest and Appalachia have become the new COVID hotspots, while Alabama leads the nation in per capita COVID deaths.

Dwindling COVID data is hampering efforts to track and report the real situation

The Johns Hopkins COVID Dashboard is struggling to get meaningful data, as more states purposely stop reporting.

“The fact that they created it, the infrastructure sits there, they put resources towards it, and then they decided not to make it sustainable is really concerning and just disheartening,” says Lauren Gardner, an associate professor of engineering at Johns Hopkins University. “It’s like they started going down the right path and then pulled back.”

By the first week of June, 24 U.S. states reported cases and deaths less than seven times a week, and four states reported only one to three times a week, according to JHU. More states followed suit, even as cases began to rise again due to the Delta variant. Currently, 36 states have pulled back from daily reporting, and seven of them are reporting only three times a week or less, including hard-hit Florida, which is reporting weekly.

New study finds 36% of people who had COVID are long haulers

In a study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, researchers found that about 36% of those studied still reported COVID-like symptoms three and six months after diagnosis. Most previous studies have estimated lingering post-COVID symptoms in 10% to 30% of patients.

The study, led by University of Oxford scientists in the United Kingdom, searched anonymized data from millions of electronic health records, primarily in the United States, to identify a study group of 273,618 patients with COVID-19 and 114,449 patients with influenza as a control.

Alaska

If Alaska were a country, it would have the highest new COVID case rate on the planet, and the 1,172 new cases per 100,000 people is an improvement from yesterday. Two more hospitals, Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. in Bethel and the 11-bed Providence Valdez Medical Center, announced they were implementing crisis standards of care. In Valdez, crisis standards of care only apply to patients requiring oxygen due to a shortage.

Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. made the crisis care decision as many of the hospitals that typically take patient transfers in Anchorage and elsewhere continue to operate at capacity, officials said Wednesday. Hospitals in outlying areas already say they have to treat more challenging patients in-house because they can’t move them out for higher levels of care.

Dr. John Cullen described the likelihood of a much higher mortality rate “similar to a battlefield scenario” until COVID-19 cases start to drop to the Valdez City Council.

Alaska has 207 COVID patients hospitalized and 22 ICU beds available statewide – both numbers are an improvement from yesterday. Of the 106 patients in the ICU, a staggering 84 are on ventilators.

Twenty-seven-bed Fairbanks Memorial Hospital reported an infant was hospitalized with COVID, and 3 deaths overnight ranging in age from 40 to 55 years old.

More than 300 Alaska doctors and other medical professionals, who are frustrated about inaction and incivility around COVID-19, signed an open letter this week asking people to think of what’s best for their fellow Alaskans and consider getting vaccinated.

The letter signers also say they stand in solidarity with their colleagues who spoke at an Anchorage Assembly meeting earlier this month after their impassioned testimony was met with jeers and denials.

Robin Ninefeldt told Alaska Public Media, “I personally know a young gentleman who lost his life because the health aide clinic ran out of a supply of oxygen. That’s a reality. And when I talk with my colleagues who are in the ICU, you’re dealing with the people doing your very best to keep them alive through supportive therapies, watching them pass away, watching families literally erupt into screams in tears because it is tragic to have someone taken from you so quickly.”

Idaho

Boise State University has provided insight into how much impact “crisis standards of care” are having in Idaho. At the start of the surge tearing through the state, 4.04% of residents who became infected with COVID died. This is well above the region and national average and exacerbated by distrust in the medical community, uninsured residents, and significant comorbidities in the state. Today, the rate is over 9% – if Idaho were a country, it would rival Peru.

The state reported another 1,684 confirmed cases, 90 new hospitalizations, and 24 deaths today. The average age of a person with COVID has dropped to 39.7 years old, with most new cases among 18 to 29-year-olds. The situation may be worse, with the Idaho Division of Public Health needing to process 11,500 outstanding positive cases.

That backlog not only limits the accuracy of reported COVID-19 cases in real-time but also limits local public health districts in their ability to contact trace properly. According to local health districts, this backlog of cases has developed due to a lack of necessary staffing to process cases in real-time. However, hiring more staff hasn’t been easy.

“There is a stigma against public health across much of Idaho, including our district, which makes it so people don’t want to work for public health simply because they don’t want to face the harassment public health workers are facing right now,” said Brianna Bodily, public information officer for South Central Public Health District.

Idaho Governor Brad Little toured the monoclonal treatment site at the Kootenai County Fair Grounds.

“I want to remind everybody the monoclonal antibody treatment is a second to people getting vaccinated. We’ve got to get our numbers down.”

“Compared to the vaccines we’ve had before, there’s been more follow up on this vaccine than anything in history,” Gov. Little said.

Hospital officials describe border communities, like Spokane and Coeur d’Alene, as the ‘stopgap’ for ineffective Covid practices in Idaho, which Gov. Inslee mentioned during his trip to Spokane.

As nurses and doctors fought to keep a critically ill woman alive at St. Luke’s McCall Medical Center, which has just 15 beds, someone was busy painting swastikas outside. The staff is now demoralized and fearful.

“It was heartbreaking,” said Paddy Kinney, a physician and the on-duty hospitalist that night. “The timing of it was tough. Anytime you leave the hospital after you’ve worked all night trying to save somebody and you go home to your family, it’s hard to leave the hospital. You’re wondering if you could have done more or if that person is going to ultimately survive the night.

“But then to leave and be faced with that on your way out the door was really heartbreaking for people.”

“It’s disheartening to hear that our healthcare workers went from feeling like heroes to feeling at risk,” Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) Director Dave Jeppesen told reporters Tuesday.

Kootenai Health, in northern Idaho, increased security after people got into disputes with staff over masking requirements and staged protests outside the hospital. “I mean, we had a protest outside the hospital against masks and vaccines a couple of weeks ago that the patients that were dying of COVID inside could see,” Kootenai Health chief of staff Dr. Robert Scoggins said. “I think that was awful.”

Dr. Ryan Cole, who heads the public health efforts in Ada County, was blasted for making false claims that the COVID vaccine caused a twentyfold increase in cancer rates.

Cole claimed that he saw an uptick in cancers in vaccinated people, such as a “20 times increase in endometrial cancer”. However, he offered nothing in the way of data to support his claim, meaning that viewers only have his word for it.

Public health authorities haven’t reported a sudden cancer surge since the COVID-19 vaccination campaign began in the U.S. in December 2020. Furthermore, the spike that Cole alleged to be occurring would also have been observed worldwide if it were true. Yet, no reports have been corroborating Cole’s claim that people are now developing cancer at record rates.

The number of children and teens in Idaho hospitals for COVID-19 at the end of this summer was five times higher than what hospitals were seeing in June, according to data presented Wednesday afternoon in a briefing with doctors representing Saint Alphonsus, St. Luke’s, and Primary Health.

The number of hospitalized infants and children younger than five years old was ten times higher during the last week of August compared to June.

“That’s a scary figure,” said Dr. David Peterman, CEO of Primary Health Medical Group, who’s also a pediatrician.

Kentucky

Wednesday marks the highest day of COVID-19 deaths in Kentucky with 82. The second highest was on JanuarJanuary 28, with 69 deaths.

Michigan

Two Michigan residents, including a registered nurse, were arrested on Wednesday and charged with selling fraudulent COVID-19 vaccine cards.

Bethann Kierczak, 37, faces charges of theft or embezzlement related to a healthcare benefit program and theft of government property.

The complaint alleges that starting as early as May, the registered nurse distributed and sold real COVID-19 cards that had either been stolen or embezzled from a Veterans Affairs hospital. For the cards to look even more authentic, Kierczak used stolen or embezzled vaccine lot numbers for the cards, prosecutors say. Kierczak is accused of using Facebook’s Messenger feature to connect with potential buyers and sell the cards for between $150 and $200 each.

Montana

It continues to be very challenging to get meaningful information out of the state of Montana, beyond multiple hospitals operating at crisis standards of care or right to the line. The state reported more than 1,300 new cases but provided no information on total hospitalizations, ICU capacity, or the number of people on ventilators.

New Hampshire

Governor Chris Sununu condemned the actions of protesters that caused the postponement of Wednesday’s Executive Council. The protesters, part of an escalating COVID protest movement, were opposed to a state contract to expand vaccination efforts. The protesters’ yelling and threats led several state health department employees to leave the meeting under police escort.

“We will not allow our state employees to be put in harm’s way for simply doing their jobs,” Sununu said, echoing a statement he released earlier in the day. “That is not what New Hampshire is about.”

New York

Disney’s Aladdin on Broadway canceled tonight’s performance – the show’s first since reopening last night – after breakthrough COVID cases were detected within the musical’s company.

In a tweet posted shortly before 7 p.m. E.T., the production stated, “Through our rigorous testing protocols, breakthrough COVID-19 cases have been detected with the company of Aladdin at The New Amsterdam Theatre. Because the wellness and safety of our guests, casts, and crew are our top priority, tonight’s performance, Wednesday, September 29 has been canceled.”

North Carolina

3 Doors Down have begun canceling concerts on their ongoing The Better Life 20th anniversary U.S. tour that will require all artists, crew, and attendees to show proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or a recent negative COVID test. Two shows have been canceled so far.

Those concerts were originally scheduled for October 7 at the Red Hat Amphitheater in Raleigh, N.C., and October 9 at Cadence Bank Amphitheatre in Atlanta.

Virginia

A 10-year-old girl in Suffolk died Monday from COVID-19 after being tasked to walk sick children in her class to the clinic, her mother wrote on Facebook. She is the 12th youth under the age of 20 in the state to die of the virus.

Teresa Makenzie Sperry, a student at Hillpoint Elementary School, was admitted to Children’s Hospital of Kings Daughters in Norfolk and died after her heart failed, her mother, Nicole Sperry, wrote.

Misinformation

“Look at Israel.” This is a common refrain from people who claim that vaccinations don’t work. They cite Israel’s high vaccination rate and the hospitalization rate among the vaccinated population. We wrote about the data fallacy when looking at percentages for new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths when evaluating vaccination performance. Let’s pull these claims apart.

Israel is highly vaccinated. In April 2021, that statement is correct. Israel was the global leader in vaccination. By the time Delta surged in Israel, the nation had dropped to 32nd place. Today Israel is tied with Saudia Arabia and Germany in 21st place, with 67% of the population with at least one dose, narrowly ahead of the United States and behind Sweden. Globally, there are 17 nations with a vaccination rate of 70% or higher.

The United Arab Emirates, where 84% of the population is fully vaccinated, has a population similar to Michigan. The Middle East nation is reporting under 300 new COVID cases a day. The country never had a significant Delta surge.

For our analysis, we went straight to the source – The Israel Ministry of Health COVID website and its COVID Control Panel.

Israel vaccination rate from JuJune 30o September 232021

The first graphic shows the vaccination rate in Israel stalled out and barely changed over three months. The booster shot program started on JuJuly 302021, and about half of the previously vaccinated residents had received the first dose by the end of September.

Severely ill patients over 60 years old by immunization status previous 90 days

The next chart shows the impact of the Delta wave as it rolled through Israel. The number of severely ill patients, defined differently than the United States, rises quickly among the unvaccinated, representing only 33% to 36% of the population, depending on the time within the surge.

The number of severely ill patients also increases at just 25% of the peak level among the unvaccinated, despite representing 64% to 67% of the population. Finally, the number of severely ill patients over the last 3 months is negligible among residents who received a booster shot.

We know that most breakthrough cases are among people over 65 years old. Israeli doctors found the same situation.

Around half of the country’s 600 patients presently hospitalized with severe illness (AuAugust 202021) have received two doses of the Pfizer Inc shot, a rare occurrence out of 5.4 million fully vaccinated people.

The majority of these patients received two vaccine doses at least five months ago, are over the age of 60, and have chronic illnesses known to exacerbate a coronavirus infection. They range from diabetes to heart disease and lung ailments, as well as cancers and inflammatory diseases that are treated with immune-system suppressing drugs, according to Reuters interviews with 11 doctors, health specialists, and officials.

Deaths by immunization status in Israel, last 90 days, under 60 years old

What about those under 60 years old? The overall rate of death among those under 60 is almost negligible. Unvaccinated residents have a slightly higher occurrence versus those who receive two doses. Once again, the unvaccinated group represents a much smaller number of people, about 3.3 million, versus the vaccinated group of 6.5 million. There is one more thing in this graph, in the last 90 days, the total number of deaths among residents under 60 who received a booster shot is 3.

Current hospitalizations “seriously” ill patients in Israel by age and vaccination status

The last chart shows the current situation among “seriously ill” patients in Israel. The majority of the 660 hospitalized patients are under 70 years old, and a vast majority are unvaccinated. It isn’t until you get to 80 and above that, the number of breakthrough cases comes close to the number of unvaccinated patients.

Of the 660 seriously ill patients, 285 are in the ICU, and 227 are on respirators, and the chart above shows, a vast majority are unvaccinated.

The argument that the vaccine didn’t work in Israel is a data fallacy. The vaccine is highly effective at preventing severe COVID and death, even when facing the Delta variant and an aged population. In the last 90 days, based on data from Israel, only 3 people who received booster shots died from COVID.

Health and Lifestyle, Local, National

Washington is on the other side of the fifth wave – local and national update for September 28, 2021

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) New cases, hospitalizations, and deaths all declined, providing the clearest evidence yet that Washington state is coming out of the fifth wave. Even the beleaguered South Central Hospital Region reported significant improvement.

Pfizer submitted its data from the Phase 3 vaccination trial of 5 to 11-year-olds to the FDA. Experts are hopeful that with approval, vaccination could begin in November.

Alaska and Idaho continue to operate under crisis standards of care. The situation in District 1 Idaho has deteriorated to the point the Gem State has more ICU patients than Washington.

In misinformation, we tackle the questions, “what about Israel?”

This update uses the latest data from the Washington State Department of Health (WSDOH), released on September 28, 2021.

vaccinationhospitalsschoolslocalnationalmisinformation

Washington State Update for September 28, 2021

Washington state COVID update

Data points to another plateau, following the pattern of the last three weeks. In the South Central Hospital Region, which includes Benton, Franklin, Klickitat, Walla Walla, and Yakima counties, the 14 day moving average for new cases is 764.3 per 100K, the lowest it has been in three weeks. The Central Hospital Region, which represents King County, is 254.1.

Percent of Total Population Fully VaccinatedAverage 14-Day New Case Rate (unadjusted)
60.00% or above (3)177.6
50.00% to 59.99% (12 counties)523.8 (down)
40.00% to 49.99% (15 counties)689.9 (down)
28.40% to 39.99% (9 counties)736.3 (down)
14-Day New COVID Cases per 100K average by Vaccination Rate, Not Adjusted for Population

Through September 27, Washington’s statewide 14-day rolling average is 441.7 COVID cases per 100K, the first time the rate has been below 450 since late August. Counties in the 1,000.0 to 1,399.9 range include Lincoln (1,104.1) and Stevens (1,036.6). Counties in the 800.0 to 999.9 per 100K range include Adams, Franklin, Garfield, Grant, Grays Harbor, Okanogan, and Pend Oreille. Franklin reported 982.8, just under the 1,000 threshold.

New cases were down for individuals under 65 years old. Hospitalizations for pediatric patients from birth to 11 dropped significantly while increasing for geriatric patients over 79.

Age Group7-Day Case Rate7-Day Hospitalization Rate
Ages 0-11210.4 (down)0.4 (down)
Ages 12-19224.2 (down)1.6
Ages 20-34220.1 (down)5.8
Ages 35-49214.3 (down)10.1
Ages 50-64150.3 (down)14.6
Ages 65-79109.619.3
Ages 80+114.135.5 (up)
7-day case rate and 7-day hospitalization rate is per 100K within the age group – the target for 7-day case rate is <25.0, but there are other factors such as vaccination rates within the age groups, how many total tests within the 7-day period, and the positivity rate within each age group

The USA Today COVID Tracker reported 34 deaths on Monday. The state of Washington is not reporting the percentage of positive cases.

Spokane Fire Fighters go door-to-door to bring vaccination to rural areas

It’s almost hard to imagine now, but there was once an intense demand for the COVID-19 vaccine.

In northeast Washington, the desire for doses exceeded the capacity of the local health care system.

Thus, the Northeast Tri-County Health District needed a boost to its efforts to vaccinate people against COVID-19 earlier this year.

“We realized that as much as we were trying to do, it was not going to keep up with the demand within our communities for vaccine availability,” said Matt Schanz, administrator of the Northeast Tri-County Health District.

It found help in local fire departments. The Spokane Fire Department delivered almost 16,000 doses through the federally backed program.

Western Washington University vaccination rates are high as October 18 deadline looms

Western Washington University reported in its Monday newsletter that 96% of registered students are fully vaccinated. Also, 92% of WWU’s employees report they are fully vaccinated. Western’s permanent employees, who make up more than 75% of the staff, have reached a verified 95% vaccination rate.

Travel Advisories

We recommend avoiding recreational travel to Spokane, Yakima, Klickitat, Benton, Franklin, and Walla Walla counties. If the number of new cases in the South Central Hospital Region continues to decline, we will likely lift our advisory for this region in the next 6 to 13 days. We strongly advise against all nonessential travel to Alaska, Idaho, and Montana. Hospital resources in these regions are constrained, and 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!

In August, King County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin mentioned the N95 Project as a trusted source for N95 masks. A check on the website showed that a 50 count box of United States manufactured N95 masks are available for $40.00. We recommend wearing N95 masks indoors as they provide the best protection against COVID when properly fitted.

No promotional consideration has been given, or requested from the n95 project or any manufacturer of masks

Vaccination

Pfizer submits Phase 3 5 to 11 year old vaccination trial findings to the FDA

Pfizer has submitted research to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine in children, but the shots may not be available until November.

The company said Tuesday it provided health regulators with data from a recent study of its vaccine in children 5 to 11 years old. Officials had previously stated they would apply with the FDA to authorize use in the coming weeks.

Once the company files its application, U.S. regulators and public health officials will review the evidence and consult with their advisory committees in public meetings to determine if the shots are safe and effective enough to recommend use.

Pfizer vaccine booster shots are now available

Booster shots for eligible individuals are now available statewide. Individuals who received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine more than 6 months ago, are 65 or older, or are immunocompromised can receive their third dose immediately.

In the Kirland-Bellevue-Woodinville area, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Bartell’s, and QFC are offering booster shots. Additionally, the third dose is available at the CVS located within the Target store at 17,700 NE 76th Street in Redmond.

Most locations require an appointment, which can be scheduled online.

King County, Washington is reporting over 86.2% of age eligible residents are vaccinated with at least one dose. The highest rates of positivity are in areas with low vaccination rates statewide. The FDA has provided full approval of the Pfizer vaccine for anyone 16 and over and EUA approval for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

COVID vaccines are free for anyone over 12 years old, and no appointment is necessary at most locations. Lyft and Hopelink provide free transportation, and KinderCare, the Learning Care Group, and the YMCA offer free childcare during vaccination appointments or recuperation.

For information on getting a vaccination in King County, you can visit the King County Department of Public Health website.

Malcontent News

Hospital Status

According to the DoH COVID Dashboard, 20.1% 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 89.1% of capacity statewide, with 31.1% of ICU patients fighting COVID. Hospitalizations continue to trend downward.

The 7-day rolling average hospital admission rate for new COVID patients was down to 149, which is statistically unchanged from yesterday. The Department of Health reported 1,308 COVID patients statewide on September 27 and 218 on ventilators. Total hospitalizations are down 13.5% in the last 7 days.

Back to School

School DistrictStatusLess than 10 Active Cases10 or More Active Cases
BellevueGREEN– Bellevue (1)
– Eastgate (1)
– Enatai (4)
– Sherwood Forest (7)		None
Lake WashingtonYELLOW– Alcott Elementary (1*)
– Barton Elementary (1*)
– Dickinson/Explorer Elementary (2*)
– Ella Baker Elementary (3*)
– Eastlake High (1*)
– Evergreen Middle School (1*)
– Franklin Elementary (2*)
– Finn Hill Middle School (1*)
– ICS (1*)
– Inglewood Middle School (2*)
– Juanita Elementary (1*)
– Kamiakin Middle School (3*)
– Keller Elementary (2*)
– Kirkland Middle School (1*)
– Lake Washington High (1*)
– Lakeview Elementary (3*)
– Muir Elementary (1*)
– Redmond Middle School (1*)
– Redmond High School (1*)
– Renaissance Middle School (1*)
– Rush Elementary (2*)
NorthshoreRED– Arrowhead Elementary (21)
– Canyon Creek Elementary (23)
– Canyon Park Middle School (11**)
– Cottage Lake Elementary (15)
– Crystal Springs Elementary (55**)
– East Ridge Elementary (26)
– Fernwood Elementary (13**)
– Frank Love Elementary (32)
– Hollywood Hills Elementary (20)
– Inglemoor High School (8)
– Innovation Lab High School (11)
– Kenmore Elementary (11)
– Kenmore Middle School (45**)
– Kokanee Elementary (61)
– Leota Middle School (5)
– Lockwood Elementary (21)
– Maywood Hills Elementary (19**)
– Moorlands Elementary (38)
– North Creek High School (26**)
– Northshore Middle School (13**)
– Ruby Bridges Elementary (9)
– Secondary Academy for Success (11)
– Shelton View Elementary (18**)
– Skyview Middle School (75**)
– Sunrise Elementary (25)
– Timbercrest Middle School (45**)
– Wellington Elementary (76)
– Westhill Elementary (26)
– Woodin Elementary (19**)
– Woodinville High School (19)
– Woodmoor Elementary (21**)		– Bothell High School (13*/120)
Local Districts Scorecard – * indicates positive cases only ** indicates 5 or more confirmed positive cases

We redefined the school district statuses. Information for classroom and building closures has been a challenge to obtain, both for closures and reopening. We are adopting moving any school with more than 10 active COVID cases reported into the red, and we’ve adjusted the third column to reflect this change.

Little has changed from yesterday in the area schools. Northshore School District has 127 students with confirmed COVID cases and another 782 in quarantine.

We recommend that parents in the Bellevue and Lake Washington School District request better transparency on their publicly facing COVID dashboards.

Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville

No update

National Round-Up

Johns Hopkins University Cumulative Case Tracker is reporting 185,088 new cases and 2,394 deaths nationwide. These numbers would include weekend data.

Alaska

Anchorage’s public health division manager has resigned, leaving the post temporarily empty as an ongoing COVID-19 surge triggers record-level infections and strains the city’s short-staffed hospitals.

According to an Anchorage Health Department spokesperson, Christy Lawton resigned Monday from the position she’d held since February 2019. Municipal officials declined to provide any additional details, citing confidentiality concerns.

“I’m proud of the work that myself and the team at AHD accomplished and have deep admiration for all the public health professionals in our community who have worked tirelessly throughout this pandemic,” Lawton wrote. “I strongly encourage our city’s residents to set aside politics and focus on what it’s going to take to truly get back to ‘normal.’ That means more of us getting vaccinated and continuing diligent mitigation measures in the meantime. We are not safe until the majority of us are protected.”

Maybe she was motivated to quit after Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson attacked some of the city’s hospitals for requiring vaccines. Following the state’s announcement last week that Alaska is activating crisis standards of care for hospitals statewide, Bronson thanked the governor for “taking practical action to get our hospitals the help they need.”

The mayor has long opposed COVID-19 restrictions and mask mandates and earlier this month said he “will not comply” with President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate.

Last weekend, the mayor and members of his administration attended an hours-long, invitation-only meeting in the Assembly chambers where a group of health care workers and other residents spoke in opposition to vaccine requirements.

Hospitals in Alaska are treating 215 COVID patients as the 7 day moving average for new cases climbed to the stratosphere – 1,225 cases per 100,000K people. Put another way, 1 in 86 Alaskan residents were confirmed to have COVID in the last 7 days. Almost 3 out of 4 new cases are among people under 50 years old.

There are 18 ICU beds available statewide, unchanged from yesterday. Of the 112 patients in the ICU (COVID and non-COVID combined), a staggering 71% are on ventilators.

Idaho

As people die at home and in hospital waiting areas and bodies are placed in railroad cars, Idaho Governor Brad Little and Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin run their own version of the Hunger Games while ruling over District 1.

Lt. Governor McGeachin is running against Governor Little, forcing the conservative governor to take distasteful actions to placate an ultra-conservative base. Governor Little said he was “exploring legal action to protect the rights of business owners and their employees” from “President Joe Biden’s plan to fine private employers with 100 or more employees that do not mandate the COVID-19 vaccine or routine testing.”

Voters from all sides are unhappy. Today a woman named “Gloria” spoke with the governor and blasted him along with the unvaccinated.

The surge in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations forced the expansion of crisis standards of care statewide. Overburdened by too many sick people and too few staffed beds, several Idaho medical facilities have moved to cancel or postpone all non-emergency surgeries, like the one Gloria needs for her damaged hip.

“I am laying here in pain, and I can’t get an operation to get it fixed because you’re holding these hospitals open for all of these unvaccinated,  selfish, ignorant people who wouldn’t get a shot,” she said. 

Is that fair? she demanded to know. 

No, Little told her. It’s not.

“It’s not fair at all, and I feel sorry for you,” he said.

The number of ICU patients in Idaho surged to 252 – in a state with 170 ICU beds.

New models indicate that a peak in hospitalizations may not come until late November. If the model of 1,900 COVID patients in Idaho becomes a reality, it would almost equal the number of COVID patients in Washington and Idaho combined. The 40 COVID-related deaths reported today are more than in Washington state.

May the odds ever be in your favor.

Montana

The hospital in Helena continues to operate in crisis standards of care, while hospitals in Bozeman, Missoula, and Billings are running right to the very edge of contingency care. Unlike Idaho, where hospitals are being forced to stand on their own, Montana is working to load level, as the rural state struggles to care for 427 COVID patients.

St. James Healthcare in Butte has come to help. The hospital has accepted several COVID patients from outside the county, in addition to their Butte-Silver Bow County patients.

“As the regional referral center in southwest Montana, St. James has always supported our surrounding communities,” wrote a spokesperson from St. James. “At this time, we can help our neighboring hospitals throughout the state by accepting patient transfers, if requested.”

The numbers are beginning to add up. Less than two weeks ago, the COVID hospitalizations at St. James totaled nine. As of Tuesday, that number has more than doubled to 19.

St. James will continue to make its best efforts to house patients.

The hospital in Butte isn’t as strained due to the 64% vaccination rate in the Butte-Silver Bow County area.

Oregon

The number of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 across Oregon is 822, which is 44 fewer than Monday. There are 237 COVID-19 patients in intensive care unit (ICU) beds, six fewer than Monday.

There are 53 available adult ICU beds out of 645 total (8% availability) and 341 available adult non-ICU beds out of 4,238 (8% availability). The state reported 41 deaths.

There have been at least 49 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 tied to the annual rodeo, which attracted thousands of people to a rural corner of Oregon. Most of the cases were reported in Umatilla County, Wallowa County, and southeastern Washington.

Brown had said she would not attend the event, which she enjoys, due to her concerns about community spread.

Joe Fiumara, Umatilla County’s public health director, said some people who attended the rodeo were sick but chose to go anyway.

Misinformation

“Look at Israel.” This is a common refrain from people who claim that vaccinations don’t work. They cite Israel’s high vaccination rate and the hospitalization rate among the vaccinated population. We wrote about the data fallacy that happens when looking at percentages for new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths when evaluating vaccination performance. Let’s pull these claims apart.

Israel is highly vaccinated. In April 2021, that statement is correct. Israel was the global leader in vaccination. By the time Delta surged in Israel, the nation had dropped to 32nd place. Today Israel is tied with Saudia Arabia and Germany in 21st place, with 67% of the population with at least one dose, narrowly ahead of the United States and behind Sweden. Globally, there are 17 nations with a vaccination rate of 70% or higher.

The United Arab Emirates, where 84% of the population is fully vaccinated, has a population similar to Michigan. The Middle East nation is reporting under 300 new COVID cases a day. The country never had a significant Delta surge.

For our analysis, we went straight to the source – The Israel Ministry of Health COVID website and its COVID Control Panel.

Israel vaccination rate from June 30 to September 23, 2021

The first graphic shows the vaccination rate in Israel stalled out and barely changed over three months. The booster shot program started on July 30, 2021, and about half of the previously vaccinated residents had received the first dose by the end of September.

Severely ill patients over 60 years old by immunization status previous 90 days

The next chart shows the impact of the Delta wave as it rolled through Israel. The number of severely ill patients, defined differently than the United States, rises quickly among the unvaccinated, representing only 33% to 36% of the population, depending on the time within the surge.

The number of severely ill patients also increases at just 25% of the peak level among the unvaccinated, despite representing 64% to 67% of the population. Finally, the number of severely ill patients over the last 3 months is negligible among residents who received a booster shot.

We know that most breakthrough cases are among people over 65 years old. Israeli doctors found the same situation.

Around half of the country’s 600 patients presently hospitalized with severe illness (August 20, 2021) have received two doses of the Pfizer Inc shot, a rare occurrence out of 5.4 million fully vaccinated people.

The majority of these patients received two vaccine doses at least five months ago, are over the age of 60, and also have chronic illnesses known to exacerbate a coronavirus infection. They range from diabetes to heart disease and lung ailments, as well as cancers and inflammatory diseases that are treated with immune-system suppressing drugs, according to Reuters interviews with 11 doctors, health specialists, and officials.

Deaths by immunization status in Israel, last 90 days, under 60 years old

What about those under 60 years old? The overall rate of death among those under 60 is almost negligible. Unvaccinated residents have a slightly higher occurrence versus those who receive two doses. Once again, the unvaccinated group represents a much smaller number of people, about 3.3 million, versus the vaccinated group of 6.5 million. There is one more thing in this graph, in the last 90 days, the total number of deaths among residents under 60 who received a booster shot is 3.

Current hospitalizations “seriously” ill patients in Israel by age and vaccination status

The last chart shows the current situation among “seriously ill” patients in Israel. The majority of the 660 hospitalized patients are under 70 years old, and a vast majority are unvaccinated. It isn’t until you get to 80 and above that, the number of breakthrough cases comes close to the number of unvaccinated patients.

Of the 660 seriously ill patients, 285 are in the ICU, and 227 are on respirators, and the chart above shows, a vast majority are unvaccinated.

The argument that the vaccine didn’t work in Israel is a data fallacy. The vaccine is highly effective at preventing severe COVID and death, even when facing the Delta variant and an aged population. In the last 90 days, based on data from Israel, only 3 people who received booster shots died from COVID.

Health and Lifestyle, Local, National

Nurses threatened at Harborview – local and national update for September 27, 2021

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) Cases moved upward while hospitalizations declined in Washington state. The number of COVID positive students in the Bellevue School District dropped significantly, while cases and quarantines expanded in Northshore, particularly at Bothell High School.

The rollout of additional monoclonal antibody clinics in Washington remains hobbled due to a tight supply and ongoing negotiations with potential locations.

Over 4,000 people joined Turning Point USA and former Washington state representative Matt Shea for a “medical freedom” rally in Spokane. An anti-vaccination rally is planned for September 30 at Swedish Hospital and Harborview Medical Center. At Harborview, staff spoke out over the weekend about getting threats from family members of COVID patients.

A 38-year old Washington State Trooper died of COVID over the weekend, leaving behind a wife and two children.

Vaccination rates in Washington climbed again but appeared to be slowing in many counties. The number of vaccinated adolescents in the Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville area increased dramatically last week.

Alaska and Idaho continue to operate under crisis standards of care. Help came to Montana in the form of the Veteran’s Administration opening its doors to non-veteran patients. We’ve added Wyoming to a state we’re tracking and consider it at risk of expanding crisis standards of care.

This update uses the latest data from the Washington State Department of Health (WSDOH), released on September 27, 2021.

vaccinationhospitalsschoolslocalnationalmisinformation

Washington State Update for September 27, 2021

Washington state COVID update

Data points to another plateau, following the pattern of the last three weeks. In the South Central Hospital Region, which includes Benton, Franklin, Klickitat, Walla Walla, and Yakima counties, the 14 day moving average for new cases is 797.4 per 100K, statistically unchanged from Friday. The Central Hospital Region, which represents King County, is 275.3, a slight increase. We have broken out the counties that have 60% or more of their residents vaccinated. The new case rate is 416% higher in counties that are under 40% vaccinated.

Percent of Total Population Fully VaccinatedAverage 14-Day New Case Rate (unadjusted)
60.00% or above (3)182.6
50.00% to 59.99% (12 counties)560.7
40.00% to 49.99% (15 counties)730.6 (up)
28.40% to 39.99% (9 counties)760.5
14-Day New COVID Cases per 100K average by Vaccination Rate, Not Adjusted for Population

Through September 26, Washington’s statewide 14-day rolling average is 463.9 COVID cases per 100K, indicating newly detected cases jumped over the weekend. Counties in the 1,000.0 to 1,399.9 range include Lincoln (1,257.9), Franklin (1.056,5), Okanogan (1,066.5), and Stevens (1,104.1). Counties in the 800.0 to 999.9 per 100K range include Adams, Asotin, Garfield, Grant, and Pend Oreille. Adams reported 978.0, and Grant reported 976.7 per 100K, putting the two counties just under the 1,000 threshold.

New cases were up in every age group, while hospitalizations were down for pediatric and geriatric patients.

Age Group7-Day Case Rate7-Day Hospitalization Rate
Ages 0-11231.9 (up)0.7 (down)
Ages 12-19245.8 (up)1.7
Ages 20-34234.3 (up)5.4
Ages 35-49231.7 (up)10.1
Ages 50-64160.8 (up)14.4
Ages 65-79115.6 (up)19.5 (down)
Ages 80+118.1 (up)31.5 (down)
7-day case rate and 7-day hospitalization rate is per 100K within the age group – the target for 7-day case rate is <25.0, but there are other factors such as vaccination rates within the age groups, how many total tests within the 7-day period, and the positivity rate within each age group

The USA Today COVID Tracker did not provide a number for reported deaths in Washington state. The state of Washington is not reporting the percentage of positive cases.

Expansion of monoclonal antibody treatment clinics in Washington remains stalled out

We reported last week that Washington state was dealing with a restricted supply of monoclonal antibodies, and the situation hasn’t improved in the previous week. Cassie Sauer, CEO of the Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA), fielded a question during today’s briefing.

She said that the state was still working to identify partners that could provide the early stage COVID treatment outside of a hospital or urgent care setting.

Monoclonal antibodies are lab-engineered immune system proteins developed using similar processes as the FDA-approved mRNA Pfizer vaccine. For COVID-positive patients with mild symptoms and who don’t require supplemental oxygen, the therapy has shown to be highly effective in triggering a strong immune response. However, the treatment is not recommended for symptomatic cases that have lasted more than a week with worsening symptoms.

They are not an effective treatment for people who have been symptomatic for more than a week, have moderate or severe symptoms, or require oxygen therapy. Ms. Sauer said that some people were using the treatment as a “get out of jail free card” versus getting vaccinated.

Anti-vaccination protests planned at Swedish Hospital and Harborview Medical Center

Waking up Washington plans a “Seattle March for Healthcare Workers Against COVID Mandates” for September 30. The group announced they would march through Seattle from Swedish Hospital to Harborview Medical Center during the lunch hour.

Vaccination rates for doctors and nurses are high nationwide, with 97% doctors and 88% of nurses fully vaccinated. So far, hospital systems that have mandated vaccinations have seen very little attrition among the highest skilled workers.

Staff threatened at Harborview Medical Center over COVID treatment and mask wear

KING 5 reported over the weekend that family members of COVID patients were verbally and physically assaulting nurses at Harborview Medical Center.

“At first, there was a feeling of camaraderie and people really applauding health care workers,” said Sam Conley, a neuroscience acute care nurse at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. 

But nearly two years after the pandemic began, amid a new period of vaccine requirements, mask enforcement, and staff shortages, Conley said the strains of the job have been as difficult as ever.

“It’s the verbal and physical abuse from visitors and family members that’s been some of the most challenging aspects of providing care,” Conley said. “I’ll have to ask visitors several times, ‘Hey, I need you to put that mask back on.'”

38-year old Washington State Trooper dies of COVID

On Sunday morning, the Washington State Patrol reported that Detective Eric Gunderson, a 16-year veteran of the WSP, died of COVID. The department indicated that Detective Gunderson contracted COVID “in service to the state of Washington.”

The WSP would not comment on how long he was sick, or if he worked while COVID positive, or his vaccination status. COVID has been the leading killer of law enforcement since 2020.

According to KOIN, Gunderson became ill on a business trip. Gunderson was assigned to District 1, which serves Pierce and Thurston Counties. He left behind a wife and two sons.

The Seattle Times reported that 68% of all Washington state workers impacted by the October 18 vaccination deadline are fully inoculated and have submitted their documentation.

Turning Point USA and former state rep Matt Shea lead anti-government/anti-vaccination rally in Spokane

Turning Point USA, founded by Charlie Kirk in 2021, created an offshoot organization called Turning Point Faith, collaborated with On Fire Ministries for an anti-vaccination rally in Spokane. An estimated 4,000 people gathered at Riverfront Park to hear Dr. Ryan Cole, Ada County, Idaho health officer, Leslie Monookian of Health Freedom Defense Fund, and former state representative Matt Shea. Washington state representative Jenny Graham (R-Spokane) was expected to speak but was a no-show at the rally.

Matt Shea’s speech was about freedom. He says getting fired from your job is good because you are standing up for your “rights.” 

Ms. Monookian advocated for ceasing all doctor visits, told the crowd that they and their children would be raped and murdered soon if this continues, and shared many comparisons to Nazis.

Matt Shea recently formed his own church, On Fire Ministries, after a schism with Ken Peters and the so-called Church at Planned Parenthood (TCAPP). TCAPP, along with Covenant Church, was ordered by a judge last week to stop protests outside of the Planned Parenthood Clinic after a year-long legal battle.

Matt Shea has been a subject of controversy for over a decade. While serving in Iraq, his commander had to disarm him due to “anger management issues.” In 2018 he distributed a manifesto titled Biblical Basis for War. The Spokane County Sheriff reported Shea to the FBI and said the manifesto was racist, anti-Semitic, and based on the white supremacist ideology of Christian Identity. The group wants to create a white-ethnostate based on Christian dogma in the Pacific Northwest.

Dr. Ryan Cole is antimask, called the COVID vaccine, “needle rape,” and leads the public health efforts in Ada County, Idaho, where Boise is located.

On the same day, Turning Point USA hosted a “medical freedom” rally in Enumclaw.

The anti-vaccination movement has increasingly aligned with anti-government and white nationalist groups. Organizations like Christian Identity and the Proud Boys using the messages of government overreach and defending freedom as recruiting tools.

Travel Advisories

We recommend avoiding recreational travel to Spokane, Yakima, Klickitat, Benton, Franklin, and Walla Walla counties. If the number of new cases in the South Central Hospital Region continues to decline, we will likely lift our advisory for this region in the next 7 to 14 days. We strongly advise against all nonessential travel to Alaska, Idaho, and Montana. Hospital resources in these regions are constrained, and 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!

In August, King County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin mentioned the N95 Project as a trusted source for N95 masks. A check on the website showed that a 50 count box of United States manufactured N95 masks are available for $40.00. We recommend wearing N95 masks indoors as they provide the best protection against COVID when properly fitted.

No promotional consideration has been given, or requested from the n95 project or any manufacturer of masks

Vaccination

Number of vaccinated Washington state residents continues to rise

The Washington State Department of Health released updated vaccination numbers for the state and its 39 counties. On Monday, 76.4% of all residents 12 and over have received at least one dose, and 69.7% were fully vaccinated.

The number of people fully vaccinated slowed down last week. All but one county, Skamania, reported at least a modest increase. With 73.2% of residents fully vaccinated, San Juan County continues to lead the state. At 28.4%, Stevens County was in last and is the only county with less than 30% of residents fully vaccinated.

The two counties have a stark difference in the number of new COVID cases. On Monday, San Juan County was down to 51.9 cases per 100K people, while Stevens County was 1,104.1.

Pfizer vaccine booster shots are now available

Booster shots for eligible individuals are now available statewide. Individuals who received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine more than 6 months ago, are 65 or older, or are immunocompromised can receive their third dose immediately.

In the Kirland-Bellevue-Woodinville area, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Bartell’s, and QFC are offering booster shots. Additionally, the third dose is available at the CVS located within the Target store at 17,700 NE 76th Street in Redmond.

Most locations require an appointment that can be set up online.

King County, Washington is reporting over 85% of age eligible residents are vaccinated with at least one dose. The highest rates of positivity are in areas with low vaccination rates statewide. The FDA has provided full approval of the Pfizer vaccine for anyone 16 and over.

COVID vaccines are free for anyone over 12 years old, and no appointment is necessary at most locations. Lyft and Hopelink provide free transportation, and KinderCare, the Learning Care Group, and the YMCA offer free childcare during vaccination appointments or recuperation.

For information on getting a vaccination in King County, you can visit the King County Department of Public Health website.

Malcontent News

Hospital Status

According to the DoH COVID Dashboard, 20.6% 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 89.4% of capacity statewide, with 31.7% of ICU patients fighting COVID. The number of ICU patients dropped significantly from last week.

The 7-day rolling average hospital admission rate for new COVID patients was down to 147, which is still higher than the January 2021 peak. The Department of Health reported 1,329 COVID patients statewide on September 26 and 220 on ventilators. Monday data is typically incomplete, so expect to see those numbers change tomorrow. If that number holds, hospitalizations have dropped 15%.

The number of patients at EvergreenHealth in Kirkland dropped 26% from last week. Currently, the hospital is treating 29 patients, 78% fully vaccinated (one patient, under 12, is not eligible). The ICU is caring for 9 patients, 78% fully vaccinated, with five on ventilators – none vaccinated. Only one vaccinated patient is under 60 years old. There was no additional information on the pediatric patient.

Cassie Sauer, CEO of the Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA), indicated she was “cautiously optimistic” about the declining number of hospitalizations. However, she cautioned that the future is uncertain with the arrival of cooler weather and, eventually, flu season.

At the same briefing, Dr. Radha Agrawal with Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue said the patients she is treating are younger, sicker, and not responding to treatment. 

“Once they get on a ventilator, the rate of success has been really, really low,” she said, adding, “We’re seeing so many younger people this year. It’s tragic, and it’s tragic for the patients, and it’s tragic for the families, and it’s tragic for the people taking care of them.”

KING also spoke with Dr. Todd Freudenberger, who works at Overlake Medical Center, about the stress and burnout staff are experiencing.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Dr. Freudenberger. “It’s particularly bad among our nursing staff.”

He said the start of every day involves assessing how short of staff they will be and how they will staff a constant influx of new COVID-19 positive patients. 

Unlike Idaho, Washington state has not declared what’s called ‘crisis standards of care,’ which is a decision that would force health care providers to systematically ration care because of a lack of space and resources.

“We are on a razor’s edge of that,” Dr. Freudenberger. “That would get at the very core of what we do as health care providers.”

Back to School

School DistrictStatusLess than 10 Active Cases10 or More Active Cases
BellevueGREEN– Bellevue (1)
– Eastgate (1)
– Enatai (4)		None
Lake WashingtonYELLOW– Alcott Elementary (1*)
– Barton Elementary (1*)
– Dickinson/Explorer Elementary (2*)
– Ella Baker Elementary (3*)
– Eastlake High (1*)
– Evergreen Middle School (1*)
– Franklin Elementary (2*)
– Finn Hill Middle School (1*)
– ICS (1*)
– Inglewood Middle School (2*)
– Juanita Elementary (1*)
– Kamiakin Middle School (3*)
– Keller Elementary (2*)
– Kirkland Middle School (1*)
– Lake Washington High (1*)
– Lakeview Elementary (3*)
– Muir Elementary (1*)
– Redmond Middle School (1*)
– Redmond High School (1*)
– Renaissance Middle School (1*)
– Rush Elementary (2*)
NorthshoreRED– Arrowhead Elementary (19)
– Canyon Creek Elementary (24)
– Canyon Park Middle School (8**)
– Cottage Lake Elementary (15)
– Crystal Springs Elementary (47**)
– East Ridge Elementary (22)
– Fernwood Elementary (13**)
– Frank Love Elementary (31)
– Hollywood Hills Elementary (19)
– Inglemoor High School (7)
– Innovation Lab High School (10)
– Kenmore Elementary (16)
– Kenmore Middle School (41**)
– Kokanee Elementary (51)
– Leota Middle School (5)
– Lockwood Elementary (20)
– Maywood Hills Elementary (20**)
– North Creek High School (21**)
– Northshore Middle School (12**)
– Ruby Bridges Elementary (9)
– Secondary Academy for Success (10)
– Shelton View Elementary (18**)
– Skyview Middle School (77**)
– Sunrise Elementary (20)
– Timbercrest Middle School (32**)
– Wellington Elementary (67)
– Westhill Elementary (19)
– Woodin Elementary (16**)
– Woodinville High School (20)
– Woodmoor Elementary (20**)		– Bothell High School (13*/102)
Local Districts Scorecard – * indicates positive cases only ** indicates 5 or more confirmed positive cases

We redefined the school district statuses. Information for classroom and building closures has been a challenge to obtain, both for closures and reopening. We are adopting moving any school with more than 10 active COVID cases reported into the red, and we’ve adjusted the third column to reflect this change.

The Bellevue School District moved back to green status while new confirmed COVID cases were reported in four Lake Washington schools.

The number of positive cases between staff and students grew to 13 at Bothell High School over the weekend, with another 102 students are quarantined. The NECS reports the school has 1,607 students, and the Northshore School District website reports 236 faculty. Although the numbers in the district may appear to be bad, it is the only school district we are monitoring that is performing weekly universal COVID testing.

King County COVID vaccination rates – at least one dose ages 12 to 19 – by zip code as of September 27, 2021

Vaccination rates among adolescents 12 to 19 jumped significantly throughout the Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville area, although the sharp divide between the northern and southern half remains. Every zip code below 80% vaccinated for the age group saw an increase of at least 5% in a week.

We recommend that parents in the Bellevue and Lake Washington School District request better transparency on their publicly facing COVID dashboards.

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, Bothell, and Kenmore, continue to lag behind the rest of the local area.

King County, Washington, at least one dose of COVID vaccine, all eligible ages, as of September 27, 2021
Zip CodePercent vaccinated, at least one dose, 12 and older
9815592.7%
9802889.5%
9801185.9%
9803484.7%
9803392.3%
9807290.4%
9805294.8%
98004>95.0%
9803993.7%
9800594.6%
9800789.2%

Vaccination rates for those 12 and older by zip code – at least one dose

National Round-Up

Johns Hopkins University Cumulative Case Tracker is reporting 30,952 new cases and 286 deaths nationwide. Most states do not provide reporting over the weekend, so a significant amount of data is missing.

President Joe Biden got his Pfizer vaccine booster shot today in a live broadcast.

“Boosters are important, but the most important thing we need to do is get more people vaccinated,” Biden said before receiving his injection.

“The vast majority of Americans are doing the right thing. Over 77% of adults have gotten at least one shot,” he said. “About 23% haven’t gotten any shots. And that distinct minority is causing an awful lot of damage for the rest of the country. This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. That’s why I’m moving forward with vaccination requirements wherever I can.”

Life expectancy in the United States declined 1.5 years in 2020, the most significant drop since World War II. COVID deaths drove the decrease, with the life expectancy of men dropping 2.2 years.

Alaska

COVID is spinning out of control in Alaska, with the state reporting 21 COVID deaths on Monday and almost 4,000 new cases from Friday to Sunday. The state is leading the United States for new COVID cases with a staggering 7 day moving average of 1,225 new cases per 100K residents. Once the top state for vaccination, since April, it has slid to 32nd place.

Hospitals are currently treating 215 COVID patients, which is more than half of the state’s largest hospital capacity. Statewide there are only 18 ICU beds available.

The first 100 hospital workers from FEMA arrived in the state today.

Arizona

 On Monday, a Maricopa County judge struck down Arizona’s ban on face-mask mandates by school districts as unconstitutional, just two days before the ban was to have become law. 

Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper ruled the ban on certain COVID-19 mitigation measures violated the so-called “single-subject rule” for legislation by being inserted into a state budget bill. 

“The bill is classic logrolling – a medley of special interests cobbled together to force a vote for all or none,” Cooper said in her 17-page ruling. 

Ninety minutes after the decision was released, Gov. Doug Ducey’s spokesman said the ruling by a “rogue judge” would be challenged:

Idaho

While Dr. Ryan Cole was exporting COVID misinformation in Spokane on Sunday, the Gem State set new records. The state is now treating 774 COVID patients, a new record. Among the 774, 207 in the ICU – Idaho only has 170 ICU beds.

St Luke’s Health was treating 303 COVID patients statewide and reported every ICU patient was unvaccinated.

Idaho is seventh in the nation for new COVID cases, and models don’t expect peak hospitalizations to come until late October.

Federal taxpayers have had to shell out $1.9 million in FEMA assistance to 331 families looking for aid with funeral expenses with almost 300 more applications in the pipeline.

For the week ending Sunday, the state reported another 1,516 cases involving 5- to 17-year-olds. That’s a 10% increase from the previous week, as K-12-aged children continue to account for a growing share of Idaho’s coronavirus caseload. Nine children were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the past week. 

Montana

Montana hospitals have more patients in the ICU than they did during the previous record peak over the winter. Hospitals averaged 109.3 COVID patients in the ICU per day last week, almost 15 a day higher than the previous record. Nearly half of all ICU patients are fighting COVID, and nearly none of them are vaccinated.

In Yellowstone County, 129 people are hospitalized with COVID-19. Of those, 111 are unvaccinated. Between the two hospitals, 30 patients are in the ICU, and 20 are on ventilators. Of those, all are unvaccinated.

FEMA approved the use of the Fort Harrison Veterans Affairs Medical Center for non-veteran patients.

“With more hospital beds available, hospitals now have another tool in their toolbox to treat Montanans in need of care as their systems are strained,” Gov. Greg Gianforte said Friday in a statement.

Montana has the fifth-highest rate of new COVID cases in the country, with 15% to 19% of all tests coming back positive.

New York

The deadline for 450,000 healthcare workers to get vaccinated has arrived in New York with a wide range of reports from hospital systems across the state. Statewide, over 95% of nurses and almost all doctors got vaccinated or had an exemption approved. Hospital systems are reporting a wide range of results from “total compliance” to 15% attrition. The number of clinicians that left has been reported to be low statewide.

The hardest-hit system appears to be Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo. The hospital announced it has suspended elective inpatient surgeries and stopped accepting intensive-care patients as it prepares to fire “hundreds of unvaccinated employees,” a spokesman Peter Cutler said.

In New York City, up to 11% of the 43,000 public health system employees refused to get vaccinated.

Ohio

The world-renowned Cleveland Clinic is now seeing its highest volume of COVID-19 patients since last winter, causing long wait times in Clinic emergency departments and fewer nonessential surgeries.

About 460 patients — including 135 in intensive care units — are in the Clinic’s Ohio hospitals. This is more than double the number of patients that were hospitalized with COVID-19 at the Clinic one month ago. The majority of these patients are unvaccinated, the hospital system said.

Statewide, unvaccinated people account for close to 94% of recent coronavirus hospitalizations, according to data from the Ohio Department of Health.

Oregon

To our south, Oregon has 886 COVID patients hospitalized, which is an increase of 11 from over the weekend. Almost a quarter of all COVID patients are in the ICU, and although that number declined by 25 over the weekend, most of that was due to patients succumbing to COVID.

Oregon hospitals will continue to remain under severe strain from the current surge of COVID-19 cases well into the fall, according to an updated forecast released today from Oregon Health & Science University.

The current surge, fueled by the highly contagious delta variant, is slowly beginning to abate as the virus finds fewer people who aren’t immune either through vaccination or recent infection. However, the new forecast indicates that hospitalizations will remain at extremely high levels until October 5 and will stay high well into December.

Wyoming

The Wyoming Department of Health reported an additional 854 confirmed COVID-19 cases. The number of COVID-19 patients in Wyoming hospitals fell below 200 on Sunday to 198 and dropped further to 192 on Monday, according to the WDH. The most recent peak in COVID-19 hospitalizations occurred on September 8, when there were 233 COVID-19 patients in Wyoming hospitals.

Five hospitals had zero available intensive care unit beds. Four had only one available ICU bed. While ICU beds are not exclusively used to treat COVID-19 patients, when hospitals deal with surges in these patients, that can put a strain on their ability to care for other types of critical-needs patients.

Misinformation

Taking the day off

Health and Lifestyle, Local, National

DoH COVID data has been broken since August – local and national update for September 24, 2021

1 Comment

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) Worsening problems with data from the Washington State Department of Health is hobbling efforts to understand the current situation and forecast the future. In counties where 40% or more of the total population is vaccinated, the number of cases per 100,000 people is down. Hospitalizations are up among people under 35 and have declined for individuals over 49. There is very little else that can be said with certainty.

Confirmed COVID cases between students and faculty at Bothell High School in the Northshore School District have grown to 12, with 100 more in quarantine. School officials in Eatonville moved its middle school to remote learning at least until mid-October due to an unspecified number of cases.

If you qualify for a Pfizer booster shot, we checked area pharmacies and grocery stores – they’re available now.

The Washington Department of Health data and reporting problems, which started in August and has only gotten worse, have become problematic. The new Modeling and Surveillance Situation Report, released by the DoH today, expressed uncertainty in the ongoing COVID situation because critical data is missing. Choose your path wisely over the next two months based on what is in the report. The first option makes for a harsh winter while the second path forecasts a sixth wave.

The City of Seattle has reached an agreement with three more unions today over modifications to the vaccine mandate. The Seattle Fire Department agreed to the compromise plan and incentives. The Seattle Police Officer Guild was absent from the negotiations.

Anti-vaccination advocates are becoming more desperate and violent. Hospital workers were threatened and attacked in multiple states this week, and the anti-vaccination group Waking Up Washington has resorted to telling their followers not to go to hospitals. The same group is planning an anti-vaccination “town hall meeting” at a Woodinville restaurant tomorrow. If you’re planning to attend, be sure to bring $20 cash and be ready to pay at the door.

Idaho and Alaska are still operating under “crisis standards of care,” and Alaska, in particular, is getting much worse. If you want to feel your blood pressure rise and have veins bulging out of your neck, please, read the Idaho section. We recommend not having anything breakable nearby. In Helena, Montana, where the city’s hospital is operating under crisis standards of care, state legislatures debated whether things are really that bad.

The situation in the Pacific Northwest is so deranged reporting Oregon has 60 available ICU beds statewide is now considered good news.

This update uses the latest data from the Washington State Department of Health (WSDOH), released on September 24, 2021.

vaccinationhospitalsschoolslocalnationalmisinformation

Washington State Update for September 24, 2021

Washington state COVID update

Data continues to show improvement across Washington, particularly in most of the highly vaccinated counties. In the South Central Hospital Region, which includes Benton, Franklin, Klickitat, Walla Walla, and Yakima counties, the 14 day moving average for new cases is 803.4 per 100K, statistically unchanged from yesterday. The Central Hospital Region, which represents King County, is 258.7, a slight drop from yesterday.

Percent of Total Population Fully VaccinatedAverage 14-Day New Case Rate (unadjusted)
50.00% or above (13 counties)464.5 (down)
40.00% to 49.99% (17 counties)683.3 (down)
28.10% to 39.99% (9 counties)755.8
14-Day New COVID Cases per 100K average by Vaccination Rate, Not Adjusted for Population

Through September 23, Washington’s statewide 14-day rolling average is 446.4 COVID cases per 100K – the change is “statistically insignificant,” but it’s worth noting the margin was 0.4 cases!. Counties in the 1,000.0 to 1,399.9 range include Lincoln (1,257.9), Franklin (1.127.5) and Stevens (1,115.0). Counties in the 800.0 to 999.9 per 100K range include Adams, Benton, Garfield, Grant, Grays Harbor, Okanogan, and Pend Oreille.

New cases by age group are statistically unchanged. Hospitalizations were up for people under 35 years old and down for individuals over 49 years old.

Age Group7-Day Case Rate7-Day Hospitalization Rate
Ages 0-11193.41.3
Ages 12-19201.41.5 (up)
Ages 20-34193.45.0 (up)
Ages 35-49196.89.9
Ages 50-64135.414.7 (down)
Ages 65-7997.621.7 (down)
Ages 80+94.933.3 (down)
7-day case rate and 7-day hospitalization rate is per 100K within the age group – the target for 7-day case rate is <25.0, but there are other factors such as vaccination rates within the age groups, how many total tests within the 7-day period, and the positivity rate within each age group

The USA Today COVID Tracker has not been updated since yesterday. The state of Washington is not reporting the percentage of positive cases.

COVID reports from the Washington Department of Health providing fewer details

As Washington state entered what local officials called the fifth wave, the state provided fewer details on the Washington State Department of Health COVID-19 Data Dashboard. Between August 30 and September 24, the state removed or has delayed granular information, including:

  • Total number of staffed adult acute care beds available
  • Total number of adult acute care beds occupied
  • Total number of staffed adult ICU care beds available
  • Total number of adult ICU beds occupied
  • Staffed acute care and ICU beds available by Hospital Region
  • Number of COVID patients in acute care and the ICU by Hospital Region
  • Percentage of positive COVID cases detected by daily testing by county and state – accurate data hasn’t been available since August 27, and all data stopped updating last week – there will be no reporting until November 1

Some metrics, particularly hospital occupancy, number of people in the ICU, and number of people on ventilators, have gone through multiple revisions. When these issues have occurred in other states, they became the subject of national attention.

Suppose you compare the quality and quantity of data from the DoH to other states such as South Carolina. In that case, it exposes a breakdown in the region’s ability to gather and analyze COVID information.

South Carolina reported 2,602 confirmed new cases and another 889 probable cases today. The state had 111 confirmed COVID-related deaths and another 11 probable fatalities under investigation. The state processed 36,766 PCR tests, and 9.4% were positive. Currently, 8,511 acute care beds are being utilized, 86.4% of staffed beds in the state. Of those patients, 2,196 have COVID, with 533 in the ICU and 369 on ventilators. There was 223 hospital admission for COVID patients, and 28 hospitals in the South Carolina are experiencing staffing shortages.

We were able to write that in five minutes. The analysis in the first section of the state update took over half an hour and required processing raw data in Excel.

Last year, Washington state moved quickly to create detailed reports during the start of the pandemic. The state was the first to have a confirmed COVID case, a confirmed COVID death, and the first super spreader event. EvergreenHealth in Kirkland and the Kirkland Fire Department literally wrote the books for hospital COVID response, initial case management, and EMS response to potential COVID cases.

The lack of data, while Washington is in the worst COVID surge to date, is glaring, considering these tools were once available. We once led the nation in the capacity to process PCR tests and report the data. It erodes public trust when the number of skeptics is declining, and the remaining are increasingly radicalized. Doctors and nurses in the United States are being assaulted, stalked, and getting death threats. Anti-vaccination organizations are now advocating for people not to go to hospitals and, in a few cases, have attempted to remove people, including ICU patients, on BIPAP and ventilators.

Finally, current reporting does not track pediatric hospitalizations or pediatric acute care, NICU, or PICU resources despite weeks of promises that information would be shared.

We are disappointed that other larger media organizations are not highlighting these issues, especially when you consider the number of headlines generated by the actions of Florida, Georgia, Iowa, and Nebraska.

Department of Health issues updated modeling and surveillance situation report

The latest SitRep report from the Washington Department of Health highlights data fidelity problems, a shortage of testing capability statewide and provides one pessimistic outlook for the coming months.

Testing shortages create uncertainty in how many active cases are missed as hospital admissions spiked to a level 60% higher than the peak in January 2021. At the end of August, the statewide R0, the rate of transmission, dropped below 1.0. It has since increased to 1.3 and was showing an exponential growth curve. The report estimates that 1 in 106 Washingtonians are experiencing an active COVID case, the highest rate recorded since August 2020.

Statewide immunity to COVID is estimated at just over 60%, with 1 in 5 having some degree of natural immunity. With 40% of the entire population exposed, the Delta variant has a significant number of new hosts it can infect. Unvaccinated residents are ninefold more likely to be hospitalized than unvaccinated.

The state has two forecasted models. The first is based on the R0 at 0.9, which would support a declining number of new cases. Under that model, daily hospital admissions for COVID would return to levels seen outside of surges, less than 40 people a day statewide.

The second model assumes R0 doubles to 1.8 due to the Thanksgiving holiday and the state population becoming fatigued with mask wear. If this scenario becomes a reality, December daily hospital admissions will increase to 141 to 240 per day by the end of the year.

Neither scenario predicts that hospital occupancy will drop below the spring 2021 surge. The current IHME forecast model paints a similar picture, with the current projection supporting the first, more optimistic scenario.

Eatonville Middle School moves to virtual learning due to COVID outbreak

Officials in Eatonville announced that Eatonville Middle School was moving to remote learning through October 11 at the minimum. The district didn’t release any specific information on the number of infected students, staff, or if there is significant transmission within the school.

Located between Olympia and Mount Rainier in Pierce County, the town had 3,000 residents. According to the DoH, only 47.9% of county residents are fully vaccinated.

Letter to parents announcing Eatonville Middle School is moving to remote learning

Seattle reaches agreement with major public employee unions over vaccination mandates

Mayor Jenny Durkan announced the City of Seattle had reached a tentative agreement with the Coalition of City Unions, Fire Fighters Union Local 27, and IBEW Local 77 regarding vaccination requirements for City employees.

“Since the pandemic touched down in Seattle, our officers, firefighters, and frontline workers have worked day in and day out to provide nation-leading testing, vaccination, and relief programs for our residents. Those efforts are a key reason we have one of the highest vaccination rates and lowest cases and hospitalizations of every major American city,” said Mayor Durkan.

The agreement is expected to be ratified, provides 8 hours of paid time off for any employee who submits a vaccination form by October 5 and is fully vaccinated by October 18. Employees can begin the vaccination process by October 18 and not face termination. They will have to use their available accrued time off while going through the vaccination process, which can last from two to six weeks. Finally, each employee will receive 40 hours of supplementary paid leave for COVID-related reasons. Employees who are fully vaccinated by October 18 will receive an additional 40 hours of supplemental leave for a total of 80 hours.

“Worker safety and certainty are of paramount importance, and the unions involved with these negotiations centered those concerns throughout a complex and time-sensitive process,” said Shaun Van Eyk, PROTEC17 Union Representative and Coalition of City Unions Co-Chair. “We believe that these two tentative agreements honor the essential, public-sector workers whose work could not be performed remotely and create clear, transparent, and equitable pathways for all City workers with respect to the vaccine mandate. While both agreements took a great deal of time and effort to reach, the outcome is unquestionably worth it for the health and safety of our union members, their families, and our communities.”

The city has now reached vaccination agreements with six labor unions. The Seattle Police Officer Guild, SPOG, was not part of the agreement. The city indicated they were still negotiating with police union leaders.

Almost 90 local, county, and state employees sued Washington state to try and block vaccine mandates earlier this month. One of the plaintiffs claimed up to 150 City of Seattle firefighters were ready to resign. In August, SPOG Union President Mike Solan said up to 200 officers were prepared to quit.

Anti-vaccination activist groups calling for the sick to “avoid hospitals”

As part of a national trend, the activist group Waking Up Washington is telling its followers to “avoid hospitals” because “they’ve fired many of their free thinkers.”

In a video posted today by Palmer Davis of La Center, Washington, she suggests that up to 15% of the medical workforce has been terminated or will be terminated by October 18. Nationally, no single medical system has come close to those numbers, with 97% to 99.5% of all employees choosing to get vaccinated.

Ms. Davis is a central figure in the Washington state anti-vaccination movement, which has seen its numbers dwindle since the summer months. She told her followers to go to another website for medical treatment plans. The site includes access to an online doctor for prescriptions of medications, with a $149 fee for a consultation for Ivermectin. According to WebMDRx, 10 pills cost between $23 and $56.

The site also links to the discredit organization America’s Frontline Doctors and the FLCCC. We have elected not to link to that website as it provides dangerous medical advice.

Suggested treatments include hydrogen peroxide nebulization and taking dandelion, pine needle, and eucalyptus supplements. Neublizing hydrogen peroxide can be fatal, and none of these supplements have any therapeutic value. The website DNS is provided by Google, according to a whois search.

This trend isn’t unique in Washington, with other groups recommending “vigilante treatments” in unchecked Facebook groups and shared through Tik Tok videos. Hospital workers have been assaulted in Alaska, Massachusetts, Texas, Georgia, Idaho, Washington, and Canada in the last month.

Anti-vaccination “town hall meeting” in Woodinville tomorrow at local restaurant

Tomorrow, the same group is holding a “town hall meeting” at Rooster’s Bakery and Cafe in Woodinville. The event touts legal resources to fight vaccine mandates and “expert testimony” about “rigged statistics.”

To attend, you are required to pay a $20 fee in cash at the door.

Editor’s comment: Nothing suspicious about that.

Anti-vaccination event flyer for Woodinville tomorrow

Rooster’s Bakery and Cafe has multiple complaints on Yelp for not following COVID guidelines. The cafe’s Facebook page hasn’t been updated since the fall of 2020.

Travel Advisories

We recommend avoiding all travel to Spokane, Yakima, Klickitat, Benton, Franklin, and Walla Walla counties, along with Alaska, Idaho, and Montana. Hospital resources in these regions are constrained, and 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!

In August, King County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin mentioned the N95 Project as a trusted source for N95 masks. A check on the website showed that a 50 count box of United States manufactured N95 masks are available for $40.00. We recommend wearing N95 masks indoors as they provide the best protection against COVID when properly fitted.

No promotional consideration has been given, or requested from the n95 project or any manufacturer of masks

Vaccination

No update

King County, Washington is reporting over 85% of age eligible residents are vaccinated with at least one dose. The highest rates of positivity are in areas with low vaccination rates statewide. The FDA has provided full approval of the Pfizer vaccine for anyone 16 and over.

COVID vaccines are free for anyone over 12 years old, and no appointment is necessary at most locations. Lyft and Hopelink provide free transportation, and KinderCare, the Learning Care Group, and the YMCA offer free childcare during vaccination appointments or recuperation.

For information on getting a vaccination in King County, you can visit the King County Department of Public Health website.

Malcontent News

Hospital Status

According to the DoH COVID Dashboard, 22.0% 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 89.5% of capacity statewide, with 33.9% of ICU patients fighting COVID. There has been a slow decline for all data points over the last week.

The 7-day rolling average hospital admission rate for new COVID patients was unavailable today. The Department of Health reported 1,436 COVID patients statewide on September 23 and 233 on ventilators. We aren’t confident that these numbers are accurate. Hospital occupancy rates don’t support this much of a decline, and the state dashboard noted, “The “hospital admission rate” metric on the Healthcare System Readiness tab was not updated today due to an interruption in our data systems.”

Harborview Medical Center is only at 113% capacity, which is an improvement from last week when the Level I trauma center was at 117% capacity.

KCPQ in Seattle reported that almost half of nurses in Washington are ready to leave the profession. The issue isn’t vaccine mandates. Nurses are burned out from the trauma of 19 months of death, harassment, and vanished community support.

Chelsey Roos, a registered nurse who works at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tacoma, spoke with KCPQ.

“You get into your car after work, and you just want to cry.”

“Not only do we have roughly 50% more cases than we had during the December surge, but we’re caring for all of those patients with fewer staff, because it’s been so challenging for particularly our nurses, that people are choosing to leave healthcare because of how stressful it’s been,” says Dr. Steven Mitchell, the medical director of Harborview Medical Center’s Emergency Room.

It’s a perfect storm, the stress of the job causing many to leave-which then leaves the remaining nurses with an even heavier workload.

“It burns people out, its burning people out so easily, we can’t seem to keep enough nurses working or wanting to work in acute care or a hospital, it’s just becoming too much, and I think people are wanting to reprioritize things in their lives,” says Roos.

Providence Hospital in Spokane reported an increase in the number of pediatric patients in a press briefing today. Station KXLY quoted Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Daniel Getz.

“I don’t know what my daily census is today, but this is really the first time in the COVID surge this last week where we’ve seen an increase in children that have been admitted for the care of COVID.”

KREM reported the number could be as high as 10, but we have trust issues with their reporting after the Medical Lake report.

Back to School

School DistrictStatusLess than 10 Active Cases10 or More Active Cases
BellevueYELLOW– Bellevue (1)
– Big Picture (1)
– Chinook (1)
– Eastgate (1)
– Enatai (36)
– Interlake (2)
– Lake Hills (13)
– Puesta del Sol (2)
– Wilburton (3)		None
Lake WashingtonYELLOW– Alcott Elementary (2*)
– Ella Baker Elementary (3*)
– Community School Elementary (7)
– Dickinson Elementary (2*)
– Eastlake High (1*)
– Einstein Elementary (1*)
– Evergreen Middle School (1*)
– Finn Hill Middle School (1*)
– Benjamin Franklin Elementary (2*)
– Robert Frost Elementary (9)
– Inglewood Middle School (3*)
– Juanita Elementary (2*)
– Juanita High School (1*)
– Kamiakin Middle School (4* – see below)
– Helen Keller Elementary (1*)
– Peter Kirk Elementary (2*)
– Kirkland Middle School (1*)
– Lake Washington High (1*)
– Lakeview Elementary (1*)
– Muir Elementary (1*)
– Redmond Elementary (2*)
– Redmond Middle School (1*)
– Redmond High School (1*)
– Rose Hill Elementary (1*)
– Rose Hill/Stella Schola Middle School (2*)
– Thoreau Elementary (4)
– Mark Twain Elementary (3*)
NorthshoreRED– Arrowhead Elementary (13)
– Canyon Creek Elementary (24)
– Canyon Park Middle School (8)
– Cottage Lake Elementary (16)
– Crystal Springs Elementary (47**)
– East Ridge Elementary (24)
– Fernwood Elementary (13**)
– Frank Love Elementary (28)
– Hollywood Hills Elementary (17)
– Inglemoor High School (7)
– Innovation Lab High School (9)
– Kenmore Elementary (15)
– Kenmore Middle School (39**)
– Kokanee Elementary (50)
– Leota Middle School (5)
– Lockwood Elementary (8)
– Maywood Hills Elementary (14**)
– North Creek High School (21**)
– Northshore Middle School (10**)
– Ruby Bridges Elementary (7)
– Secondary Academy for Success (10)
– Shelton View Elementary (18**)
– Skyview Middle School (82**)
– Sunrise Elementary (21)
– Timbercrest Middle School (28)
– Wellington Elementary (64)
– Westhill Elementary (10)
– Woodin Elementary (9)
– Woodinville High School (21)
– Woodmoor Elementary (21**)		– Bothell High School (12*/100)
Local Districts Scorecard – * indicates positive cases only ** indicates 5 or more confirmed positive cases

We redefined the school district statuses. Information for classroom and building closures has been a challenge to obtain, both for closures and reopening. We are adopting moving any school with more than 10 active COVID cases reported into the red, and we’ve adjusted the third column to reflect this change.

We had a parent-reported confirmed COVID case at Kamiakin Middle School on Tuesday. Because the Lake Washington School District updates its dashboard weekly, we don’t know if this is in addition to the 3 cases reported on Monday or if any of those earlier cases have returned to class. We have set the number to 4.

The number of positive cases between staff and students has swelled to 12 at Bothell High School, with another 100 students quarantined. The NECS reports the school has 1,607 students, and the Northshore School District website reports 236 faculty. Although the numbers in the district may appear to be bad, they are the only school district of the three we are following that is performing weekly universal COVID testing.

We recommend that parents in the Bellevue and Lake Washington School District request better transparency on their publicly facing COVID dashboards.

Kirkland-Bellevue-Woodinville

Booster shots for eligible individuals are now available in the Kirland-Bellevue-Woodinville area. Individuals who received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine more than 6 months ago, are 65 or older, or are immunocompromised can receive their third dose immediately.

We canvased area drug and grocery stores to check for availability. Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Bartell’s, and CV are all offering booster shots immediately. Booster shots are also available at the CVS located within the Target store at 17,700 NE 76th Street in Redmond. Additionally, the QFC at Kirkland Urban is providing booster shots.

Most locations require an appointment that can be set up online. The Kirkland Urban QFC was already completely booked through the weekend.

National Round-Up

Johns Hopkins University Cumulative Case Tracker is reporting 128,731 new cases and 3,157 deaths nationwide.

Alaska

Alaska continues to operate in crisis standards of care as the situation in the vast and remote state continues to deteriorate. Officials reported 1,793 new cases and a staggering 41 deaths (yes, we know the headline says 1800 cases and 44 deaths – if you read the story, it says 1793 cases and 41 deaths, talk amongst yourselves – we’re over it) in the state of just over one million people. The numbers included hundreds of older cases due to a data entry backlog.

The state had a record of 217 COVID patients hospitalized. The statewide 7 day moving average for new COVID cases is a staggering 976 per 100K people, and currently, 9.2% of all COVID tests are coming back positive.

The state now has 20 ICU beds available, an improvement from yesterday, and 74 residents on ventilators.

The Guardian reported Soldotna’s Central Peninsula Hospital spokesperson Bruce Richards discussed worker burnout and frustration with the crisis, particularly because it was preventable. “The evidence speaks for itself,” Richards said. “It’s very clear that a vaccine will help keep you out of the hospital.”

Soldotna’s Central Peninsula hospital, about 150 miles from Anchorage, is operating at 133% capacity. Richards is worried about what will come next. “We all know that hospitalizations lag following these high-case days, so I don’t know what’s in store for us.”

The situation has become so desperate that medevac aircraft that would typically fly patients to Anchorage or Seattle are moving patients from Anchorage to rural hospitals.

The goal is to make more room at the busy Anchorage hospitals, which offer more intensive care and other services, especially sick patients that rural hospitals can’t support.

This practice is known as “load leveling,” and it’s done more regularly between hospitals in urban areas, where patients can be moved by ambulance. It’s far rarer in rural Alaska, though, since most hospitals in those areas aren’t connected by road and can be hundreds of miles apart.

“Once you start involving learjets and medevac companies, it gets infinitely more complicated,” Brunner said in an interview Thursday.

Patients that don’t need critical care are flown to acute care hospitals in rural areas. For many rural hospitals, the patients they receive are sicker than they usually see, straining staff. Worse, patients are separated from family and friends and face potential air ambulance bills in the tens of thousands of dollars.

In the 6,000 resident town of Bethel, Alaska, half the police force is threatening to resign over a recent vaccination mandate. The remote city is only accessible by boat or airplane during the warmer months, and ice road in the winter. The city is experiencing one of the highest COVID case rates in the state and country and doesn’t have the resources to deal with the surge. City officials decided to mandate vaccinations.

“The city had no choice,” James Harris, Human Resource Manager, told The Daily Beast. “We had to react.”

Resistance to the vaccine from police in Bethel is endemic of opposition the vaccine has seen from police departments across the country. Many officers have refused vaccine mandates, filed unsuccessful lawsuits, and decried the measures as unconstitutional.

But in Bethel, some say police have gone a step further, dangling the possibility of increased violence over remote residents’ heads if the city were to push half of the police force out of a job.

Among other highlights, Police Chief Richard Simmons baldly told KYUK earlier this week that the small city was “one of the most violent communities in the nation” and needed every one of its officers.

Available data shows that Bethell has a high crime rate but not one of the highest in the nation.

Alaskans have been abusive to health care workers who ask them about COVID-19 or discuss the disease in public, according to health officials. 

Alaska Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink, who also works in a hospital emergency department, said many retail pharmacists have stopped asking customers if they’d like the vaccine because of the fury it triggers.

“We see many triage nurses in the emergency department also afraid to ask that question,” Zink said, “because patients have been violent towards them in the emergency department when asking the question if they’re vaccinated or if they have COVID-19.”

Idaho

Idaho reported 1,646 new COVID cases and 34 new deaths on Friday. The state continues to operate under crisis standards of care. Unlike states such as Alaska, Oregon, and Washington, which use “load leveling” to maximize resources, Idaho hospitals can go it alone.

While people are dying in hospital waiting areas in the Panhandle, hospitals in the eastern part of the state are operating under “contingency care.” Both Oregon and Washington are running on “contingency care protocols,” which give medical providers options to defer certain treatments and take other steps to maximize resources.

Editor’s Note: It is unconscionable that parts of Idaho are stacking bodies in morgues, storing corpses in unrefrigerated areas, and placing them in railroad cars while people are dying in waiting rooms, that any hospital could have the audacity to speak about available resources publicly. If Idaho has unused resources, maybe Washington state should be less generous in its support.

The Idaho State Journal reported  Portneuf Medical Center has been operating near capacity amid a surge in COVID-19 cases, but CEO Jordan Herget is confident the hospital has ample resources to avoid crisis standards of care.

While hospitals in the Magic and Treasure valleys and Northern Idaho have added beds in conference rooms, cafeterias, and other available spaces, Herget believes PMC should have adequate traditional bed capacity heading forward.

On Monday, Herget said PMC would open a special care unit with nine rooms equipped with negative pressure technology to treat patients with contagious upper respiratory diseases, such as the coronavirus.

According to ABC News, an advocacy group for older adults has filed a civil rights complaint against Idaho over the state’s “crisis standards of care” guidelines for hospitals overwhelmed by patients amid the coronavirus pandemic.

On Tuesday, the group Justice in Aging asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to investigate Idaho’s health care rationing plan. They contend it discriminates against older adults, especially Black and Native American adults, by using factors like age when prioritizing which patients get access to life-saving care.

“Older adults are facing serious risk of discrimination, resulting in death,” because of Idaho’s crisis standards, Justice for Aging attorneys wrote in their complaint letter. Symptomatic breakthrough cases are overwhelming among people over 70 years old.

Boise State University opted to tell the doctors and nurses trying to save lives to get bent, halting its plan to require fans to show proof of vaccination for COVID-19 or test negative for the coronavirus before attending a football game at Albertsons Stadium.

The school wrote in a statement on Friday, “In light of our declining campus positivity rates and high vaccination rates, the university will shift from testing all ticket holders in the student section to random sample testing of that population before next week’s football game.”

According to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, the percentage of Idaho’s eligible population (12 and older) fully vaccinated is just 51.5%.

We’re sure that Dr. Ashley Carvalho, completing her residency training in Boise, appreciates this decision. A family member of a COVID patient under her treatment threatened to shoot her last week, and police had to be called to the hospital.

Photo credit – Dr. Ashley Carvalho – photo after being a family member of a patient threatened to shoot her

“I received a slew of verbal abuse from a patient’s family members who called me an incompetent doctor, threatened me with physical violence, and demanded I give them my name and medical license number so they could sue. This was because I refused to prescribe Ivermectin, which is not proven to treat COVID-19 and is recommended only in clinical trials at this point, and hydroxychloroquine, which current research suggests is not effective or safe in treating COVID-19. My patient was struggling to breathe, but the family refused to allow me to provide care. A call to the police was the only solution.”

But wait, there’s more. In Coeur d’Alene, police had to fend off anti-mask and anti-vaccination protesters who attempted to storm the school district’s board of trustees special meeting on Friday. Yes, the story is from KREM, and yes, we were roasted, but KREM has receipts in the form of videos of the incident (feel free to talk amongst yourselves).

Several physicians from Kootenai Health were slated to speak during the meeting as the hospital hit two milestones this week: its highest number of COVID-19 inpatients and the highest number of COVID-19 ICU patients at 43. The hospital in Coeur d’Alene typically only has 26 ICU beds.

The group was described as a “mob” of 200 people who were “extremely hostile.”

Editor’s Note: We remind you again, our state is supporting Idaho’s bad choices. In the coming weeks, it is likely at least a couple of the people in this “mob” will be begging the doctors who had planned to speak today to save their lives.

Wait – there’s more. Andy Grover, the executive director of the Idaho School Administrators Association, told the Idaho Board of Education that workers are leaving Idaho schools “for hiring bonuses and higher wages in fast food.”

“When there’s that kind of things to compete against, we don’t have a chance,” he said. “We just don’t have employees. We’ve seen from 2 or 3 classified staff, all the way to 60 classified staff, that districts are missing across the state.”

He said three school districts were closed Friday, two due to staffing shortages and one because of COVID-19 cases among students. He said open schools are also struggling with lower than normal attendance.

Montana

Montana reported 1,326 new COVID cases across the state where officials aren’t reporting unvaccinated versus vaccinated cases. The state has 395 people hospitalized with COVID and didn’t share how many are on ventilators.

In Billings, the city’s largest hospital reported running out of “hallway space” to put patients while the ICU is operating at 160% capacity.

According to KHN, Billings Clinic said it might soon implement “crisis standards of care” that would force staff to save provisions for patients they can most likely save.

Yellowstone County is seeing the worst of the surge. The Montana Department of Health and Human Services reported 2,461 current active cases there, as much as the next two counties combined.

Another county health officer resigned in Montana. Blaine County public health nurse Jana McPherson-Hauser said her resignation would take effect October 15 because of the “constant negativity, pushback, disregard and lack of support” that health officials have faced throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

And in Helena, where a hospital is operating at crisis standards of care, state lawmakers questioned health officials on the severity of the situation.

During Wednesday’s meeting, Rep. Jane Gillette, a Republican from Bozeman, disputed concern over the jump in new cases.

“I’m not sure I would feel really dismayed about the rate increase when you just think of it really mathematically,” Gillette said. “… Just put in simple terms, if you had two (cases) at one point and you increased to four, you’d increase by 50%, so you just kind of have to put it in … more broad terms and not … lose the other data. So, for instance, when we look at the number of COVID cases per 100,000, we’re pretty much just middle of the pack normal.”

If being the sixth-worst in the United States is “middle of the pack,” Montana is competing with its neighbor to the west in a race to the political bottom.

Oregon

Another 2,113 new confirmed and presumptive cases were added, bringing the state total to 320,990.

There were 855 COVID-19 hospitalizations, 30 fewer than the previous day, and 268 patients in ICU beds, which was an increase of five. There were 60 available adult ICU beds across the state of Oregon, which is an improvement from two weeks ago.

The OHA’s latest COVID-19 forecast shows a slowing in the decline of daily cases and hospitalizations through mid-October. The report estimates 495 cases per 100,000 people, or an average of 1,480 daily cases and 81 hospitalizations for the two weeks between September 29 and October 12.

In our neighbor to the south, new COVID cases among children now outnumber those among the elderly.

In another sign that the anti-vaccination movement isn’t as big as it presents itself, a little more than 5% of Oregon’s 42,000 state employees have applied for vaccination exemptions. About 90% of the 2,284 requests come from people seeking religious exemptions. So far, almost half of state employees have provided proof of vaccination.

Misinformation

Taking the day off