CORONAVIRUS: Wednesday 12/2 roundup

| Coronavirus | West Seattle news

Here are the local/state pandemic-related toplines:

NEWEST KING COUNTY NUMBERS: First, from the Seattle-King County Public Health daily-summary dashboard, the cumulative totals:

*45,811 people have tested positive, 673 more than yesterday’s total

*878 people have died, 10 more than yesterday’s total

*3,247 people have been hospitalized, 12 more than yesterday’s total

*628,477 people have been tested (this stat is still lagging in a big way due to a state backlog but the state expects to be caught up by Friday)

One week ago, the four totals we track were 41,500/853/3,055/624.246.

STATEWIDE NUMBERS: Find them, county by county, on the state Department of Health page,.

WORLDWIDE NUMBERS: See them, nation by nation, here.

STATE BRIEFING: This afternoon’s weekly briefing by state health officials included some bits of news. In the three days since WA Notify launched, the “exposure notification” system has been downloaded/enabled by 875,000 people. Other stats were worrisome: Hospitalizations are rising. Right now, 1,077 people are in hospitals statewide with confirmed or suspected COVID-19. You can watch the briefing here.

PANDEMIC-DIMMED: This year’s Menashe Family Lights display is nowhere near the usual mega-watt brightness, out of COVID crowd concern, but it’s still Christmas-y.

KEEP YOUR NEIGHBORS WARM: This Sunday (December 6th), 10 am-2 pm, it’s the West Seattle Junction Hometown Holidays Coat Drive – take coats (and/or hats and gloves) to the donation bin on the south end of the West Seattle Farmers’ Market.

GOT INFO? Email us at westseattleblog@gmail.com or phone us, text or voice, at 206-293-6302 – thank you!

Reality check December 3, 2020 (8:19 am)

Warnings from the White House Coronavirus Task Force this week…

“We are in a very dangerous place due to the current, extremely high COVID baseline and limited hospital capacity; a further post-Thanksgiving surge will compromise COVID patient care, as well as medical care overall,”…

“If you are under 40, you need to assume you became infected during the Thanksgiving period if you gathered beyond your immediate household. Most likely, you will not have symptoms; however, you are dangerous to others and you must isolate away from anyone at increased risk for severe disease and get tested immediately,”…

“If you are over 65 or have significant medical conditions and you gathered outside of your immediate household, you are at a significant risk for serious COVID infection; if you develop any symptoms, you must be tested immediately as the majority of therapeutics work best early in infection.”…

Yesterday a record number of daily deaths were reported, up 20% from the previous record day, which was way back on April 15th.

This holiday season is just tragic, so many fellow Americans seriously sick and dying from this virus, when this pandemic could have been better managed from the start.

I just remember the initial reports and messaging, that this was just like the flu, and not to panic, and that it would just go away after a few months, and I feel the pain for everyone who has been impacted by this virus in some way.

Please everyone, be as cautious as ever out there, try your best to stay healthy and keep others around you well too. I know we can overcome this, but its going to be longer than any of us would want, and right now the risks are very real and higher than ever.

Be safe, stay strong, take good care of yourself and each other.

waikikigirl December 3, 2020 (9:31 am)

My husband (57) and I (65) both wear our masks religiously (mandated at work) and do not go out to eat and only grocery shop once a week but we both work for “essential” jobs so that means we are/have been exposed to these people who had gathered beyond their immediate households because you know there probably were some…so how fair is that to “us” who are doing everything the “right” way and will have to maybe pay for it?Come on people stay home don’t go out and party and maybe just maybe we’ll all get to enjoy ourselves in the 2021 Holiday Season!?

Pam December 3, 2020 (9:33 am)

Is it correct that out of 628,477 tested there were 45,811 that tested positive and out of that 878 died? (Realizing the numbers aren’t 100% up to date.) I’m trying to wrap my head around it – still.

Reality check December 3, 2020 (4:39 pm)

The totals are cumulative to what is known to-date, although not completely accurate and some data is lagging, and also we don’t yet know the totals of hospitalizations and deaths that will come out of more recent positive case totals, those numbers will follow in the weeks and months to come.

Totally understandable to still be trying to wrap your brain around the numbers.

Sometimes visuals can be helpful in addition to hearing numbers, here are some images of charts from this weeks state briefing slideshow on the pandemic.

JJ December 3, 2020 (1:31 pm)

Almost a 2% case fatality rate in king county to date. Obviously there are many more ill people, and asymptotic people who were never tested, or not tested in their window of PCR positivity. And there are also those who died of Covid without a Covid diagnosis. So the data is not perfect, and never will be. The County has made revisions to data before, usually a positive improvement timed to just precede easing of restrictions. Their warning is that negative testing reporting is out of date. So, you might wait to see any revisions if you were hoping for different numbers. Antecdotally, I am hearing about a flood of friends and associates infected now, more than ever. That coincides with current reporting.

Sorry, comment time is over.