COVID-19 Update: Torrent of bad news caps absolutely surreal day in the Pacific NW

With so much chang­ing so fast, it’s already once again time for a anoth­er install­ment of of our spe­cial series COVID-19 Update, bring­ing you the lat­est devel­op­ments on the nov­el coro­n­avirus out­break that pub­lic health author­i­ties here and through­out the coun­try are work­ing dili­gent­ly to mitigate.

Unlike some of the non­sense that is unfor­tu­nate­ly cir­cu­lat­ing on social media, all the infor­ma­tion you’ll find here is accu­rate and based on sound science.

WHO declares the novel coronavirus a pandemic

The World Health Orga­ni­za­tion has belat­ed­ly issued a for­mal deter­mi­na­tion that the COVID-19 out­break is a pan­dem­ic as opposed to just an epidemic.

Watch their press conference:

Governor Jay Inslee forbids large public gatherings

Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Inslee has used the author­i­ty vest­ed in him by the Con­sti­tu­tion and the Revised Code of Wash­ing­ton to issue an order pro­hibit­ing pub­lic gath­er­ings of two hun­dred and fifty peo­ple or more.

If you’re won­der­ing whether this is legal, the answer is yes… the Gov­er­nor isn’t impro­vis­ing with this order. He’s using the author­i­ty grant­ed to him by this RCW.

Watch the press con­fer­ence here.

Read the emer­gency proclamation:

King Coun­ty has issued its own sup­ple­men­tary guid­ance.

The King Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office has asked NPI to advise you not to call 911 or the coun­ty’s non-emer­gency line to report gath­er­ings over 250 people.

If you need to con­tact some­one in rela­tion to a gath­er­ing, you can call the King Coun­ty Nov­el Coro­n­avirus call cen­ter at 206–477-3977.

Their hours of oper­a­tion are 8 AM — 7 PM.

Governor Kate Brown copies Inslee’s move

Ore­gon Gov­er­nor Kate Brown wast­ed no time in fol­low­ing Inslee’s lead.

“Nobody is immune to this virus, it can touch every­one,” said Brown, who advised she would also ban gath­er­ings of two hun­dred and fifty peo­ple or more.

“We can’t let fear and anx­i­ety stig­ma­tize peo­ple,” the Gov­er­nor added.

“We are see­ing cas­es across mul­ti­ple coun­ties and age groups, and in peo­ple exposed through dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances. It’s time for us all to do what we can to slow its spread and take care of one another.”

The Gov­er­nor has a press con­fer­ence planned for 9 AM tomor­row to detail the ban and oth­er mea­sures the state is tak­ing, includ­ing social dis­tanc­ing measures.

School for many Puget Sound students gets canceled

Sev­er­al large school dis­tricts have announced that their build­ings and facil­i­ties will be closed and all class­es can­celed for the next few weeks, includ­ing Seat­tle, Lake Wash­ing­ton, Shore­line, and Belle­vue. Learn more about the clo­sures.

New cases in Washington

Wash­ing­ton State now has a total of three hun­dred and six­ty-six con­firmed cas­es and twen­ty-nine deaths, accord­ing to updat­ed Depart­ment of Health sta­tis­tics.

Most of the new cas­es are in King Coun­ty.

Pub­lic Health – Seat­tle & King Coun­ty is report­ing the fol­low­ing con­firmed cas­es and deaths due to COVID-19 through 11:59 PM on 3/10/20.

• 234 con­firmed cas­es (up 44 from yesterday)
• 26 con­firmed deaths (up 4 from yesterday)

The four deaths being report­ed today were all among pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed cas­es. These addi­tion­al deaths include:

• A woman in her 90s, Life Care Cen­ter res­i­dent, died on 3/3.
• A man in his 90s, Life Care Cen­ter res­i­dent, hos­pi­tal­ized at Ever­green­Health, died on ³⁄₅.
• A woman in her 60s, Life Care Cen­ter res­i­dent, hos­pi­tal­ized at Ever­green­Health, died on ³⁄₉.
• A woman in her 90s, a res­i­dent of Red­mond Care and Rehab, hos­pi­tal­ized at Ever­green­Health, died on ³⁄₁₀.

Of the 26 deaths report­ed, 22 are asso­ci­at­ed with Life Care Center.

The Wash­ing­ton State cas­es account for a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of the total known and con­firmed cas­es in the Unit­ed States as a whole.

New cases in Oregon

Ore­gon report­ed sev­er­al new cas­es of the nov­el coro­n­avirus today.

The Ore­gon Health Author­i­ty (OHA) today announced Linn County’s first two pre­sump­tive pos­i­tive cas­es of COVID-19.

The new cas­es, involv­ing two males over the age of 80, brings Oregon’s total to 21 total cas­es in eight counties.

Like the cas­es in Polk, Mar­i­on and Deschutes, the Linn Coun­ty cas­es had no known close con­tacts with con­firmed cas­es, so they are con­sid­ered community-spread.

An Infec­tion Con­trol and Spec­i­men Col­lec­tion Strike Team will deploy to Linn Coun­ty. The team will assess and work with the facil­i­ty to assess infec­tion con­trol. The team will col­lect spec­i­men sam­ples for COVID-19 test­ing from all res­i­dents and care providers.

Upon ini­tial eval­u­a­tion, res­i­dents with symp­toms were ini­tial­ly test­ed for flu, and res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness. As an extra pre­cau­tion, that facil­i­ty had pre­vi­ous­ly switched its ven­ti­la­tion sys­tem to cir­cu­lat­ing 100% out­side air to mit­i­gate the poten­tial spread of infec­tious dis­ease. the res­i­dents con­tin­ued to receive appro­pri­ate med­ical care and were placed in iso­la­tion. Infec­tious dis­ease pre­ven­tion pro­to­cols also con­tin­ued to be fol­lowed to pro­tect oth­er res­i­dents and staff.

Ore­gon Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans’ Affairs Direc­tor Kel­ly Fitz­patrick said “our high­est pri­or­i­ty has always been the health and safe­ty of our most hon­ored vet­er­an res­i­dents that we serve in our two vet­er­ans’ homes. From the start of con­cerns about COVID-19, and espe­cial­ly upon learn­ing that the very age group that resides in our vet­er­ans’ homes is also the most sus­cep­ti­ble, we took imme­di­ate mea­sures to pro­tect our vet­er­ans, includ­ing adher­ing to state and fed­er­al guide­lines. Even before COVID-19 emerged, the two vet­er­ans’ homes reg­u­lar­ly fol­lowed strict infec­tious dis­ease protocols.”

“We believe that pro­tect­ing the health and safe­ty of the vet­er­ans in our homes helps ensure we live up to their mot­to, ‘the place where hon­or lives.’ We have a sacred trust to safe­guard them now.”

OHA, in con­sul­ta­tion with the Ore­gon Depart­ment of Human Ser­vices, issued a pol­i­cy to lim­it expo­sure to COVID-19 at long-term care facil­i­ties yesterday.

The guid­ance directs nurs­ing, assist­ed liv­ing and res­i­den­tial care facil­i­ties, includ­ing those pro­vid­ing mem­o­ry care, to:

• Restrict vis­i­ta­tion to only essen­tial individuals;
• Lim­it essen­tial vis­i­tors to two per res­i­dent at a giv­en time;
• Screen all per­mit­ted vis­i­tors for res­pi­ra­to­ry or oth­er symp­toms poten­tial­ly indi­cat­ing COVID-19 and for recent trav­el to an affect­ed geo­graph­ic area or high-risk set­ting pri­or to enter­ing the facilities;
• Doc­u­ment the screen­ings for all visitors;
• Lim­it com­mu­ni­ty out­ings; and
• Sup­port res­i­dents’ access to social­iza­tion when vis­i­tors are not able to enter the facil­i­ty through vir­tu­al visits.

Health offi­cials con­tin­ue to urge all Ore­go­ni­ans to take steps to pro­tect those who are most vul­ner­a­ble to com­pli­ca­tions from COVID-19.

New cases in British Columbia

British Colum­bia also report­ed a slew of new cas­es today.

VICTORIA — Adri­an Dix, Min­is­ter of Health, and Dr. Bon­nie Hen­ry, B.C.‘s provin­cial health offi­cer, have issued the fol­low­ing joint state­ment regard­ing updates on the nov­el coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) response in British Columbia:

“We are announc­ing sev­en new cas­es of COVID-19, for a total of 46 cas­es in British Colum­bia. The indi­vid­u­als are in the Van­cou­ver Coastal Health, Fras­er Health and Island Health regions.”

“Two cas­es are con­nect­ed to the Lynn Val­ley Care Cen­tre, three cas­es are trav­el-relat­ed and two are com­mu­ni­ty cases.”

“Case 40 is a male in his twen­ties liv­ing in the Van­cou­ver Coastal Health region, and case 45 is a woman in her fifties liv­ing in the Fras­er Health region. Both work at the Lynn Val­ley Care Cen­tre. There are no new res­i­dent cases.”

“Case 43 is a male in his sev­en­ties liv­ing in the Van­cou­ver Coastal Health region. Case 46 is a man in his six­ties liv­ing in the Island Health region. Both cas­es 43 and 46 have returned from trav­el­ling in Egypt. Case 42 is a man in his sev­en­ties from Egypt, who is vis­it­ing fam­i­ly in the Fras­er Health region.”

“Case 41 is a woman in her six­ties cur­rent­ly in hos­pi­tal. Case 44 is a man in his six­ties. Both are new com­mu­ni­ty cas­es, who were iden­ti­fied through lab­o­ra­to­ry sur­veil­lance, and both reside in the Fras­er Health region.”

“Three patients have been dis­charged from hos­pi­tal and are now recov­er­ing at home. One per­son is in hospital.”

“All oth­er patients with COVID-19 remain in iso­la­tion at home with care and sup­port from pub­lic health teams.”

“We have seen an increase in com­mu­ni­ty cas­es in the Low­er Main­land and Fras­er Val­ley in recent days, where the source of the virus infec­tion is not yet known. Pub­lic health teams are active­ly inves­ti­gat­ing, as we con­tin­ue work to lim­it the spread of trans­mis­sion in B.C.

“Today, we are ask­ing British Columbians to take addi­tion­al care of seniors and peo­ple with com­pro­mised immune sys­tems. Do not vis­it them if you are sick. If they are liv­ing at home and are sick, con­sid­er how you may sup­port them with food and oth­er neces­si­ties. If you need to vis­it a long-term care home or oth­er health-care facil­i­ty, go one per­son at a time and lim­it your vis­it to the per­son you know.”

“We are work­ing with all long-term care and assist­ed liv­ing facil­i­ties to imple­ment enhanced pre­ven­tion mea­sures to fur­ther pro­tect all residents.”

“If any British Columbian has been noti­fied by event orga­niz­ers that they may have been exposed to COVID-19, such as the recent Prospec­tors and Devel­op­ers Asso­ci­a­tion of Cana­da con­fer­ence in Toron­to, we are strong­ly rec­om­mend­ing social dis­tanc­ing in the work­place and at home, espe­cial­ly from those most vul­ner­a­ble, in addi­tion to close­ly mon­i­tor­ing for symptoms.”

“Today, the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion declared the out­break of COVID-19 a pan­dem­ic. As part of the British Colum­bia Pan­dem­ic Provin­cial Co-ordi­na­tion Plan, we con­tin­ue to focus on con­tain­ment to break the chains of trans­mis­sion, and we are using all the tools in our tool­box required at this time.”

“As an exam­ple, callers to British Columbi­a’s Health­Link 811 line have expe­ri­enced inter­mit­tent busy sig­nals today as call vol­ume has increased. We are resolv­ing this by adding more staff, more phone lines and a new menu option to pro­vide a ded­i­cat­ed queue for calls about COVID-19.”

“The British Colum­bia Pan­dem­ic Provin­cial Co-ordi­na­tion Plan details the prepa­ra­tions and com­pre­hen­sive toolk­it to respond to the evolv­ing out­break. This will be an ongo­ing resource for the province.”

Congressional Democrats unveil COVID-19 response bills

The Sen­ate and House Democ­rats each intro­duced mea­sures to pro­vide emer­gency eco­nom­ic relief to work­ing people.

The Sen­ate Democ­rats held a press con­fer­ence to announce their plan.

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans out­ra­geous­ly refused to lend their sup­port to a Demo­c­ra­t­ic attempt to fast track their pro­pos­al through the Sen­ate.

The House Democ­rats intro­duced the Fam­i­lies First Coro­n­avirus Response Act.

Read the bill:

Staffer in Senator Cantwell’s office tests positive for virus

A staff mem­ber in Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell’s office has test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19. Sen­a­tor Cantwell was not exposed, we understand.

Cantwell has direct­ed her staff to work from home until fur­ther notice.

Mean­while, Speak­er Pelosi is plan­ning to end pub­lic access to the U.S. Capi­tol after con­sult­ing with Mitch McConnell and oth­er senior law­mak­ers.

CDC issues Seattle-specific guidance

The Cen­ters For Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion released guid­ance tar­get­ed at peo­ple liv­ing in and near Seat­tle, the largest city in the Pacif­ic Northwest.

Read and download:

COVID-19 kills off the bull market

We are offi­cial­ly in “bear ter­ri­to­ry” after a pro­longed peri­od of sink­ing stocks and futures in glob­al mar­kets, includ­ing Amer­i­can markets.

NBA suspends its season

The Nation­al Bas­ket­ball Asso­ci­a­tion has pulled the plug on its sea­son after one of its play­ers (Rudy Gob­ert) test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19.

Just a few days ago, Gob­ert stu­pid­ly dis­missed con­cerns about the nov­el coro­n­avirus and made a point of touch­ing all the micro­phones in front of him at a press con­fer­ence to demon­strate his lack of concern.

Tom Hanks says he and Rita Wilson have the virus

On social media, well known actor Tom Han­ks said he and his wife have also test­ed pos­i­tive for the dis­ease, stun­ning mil­lions of peo­ple around the world. Han­ks and Wil­son are in Aus­tralia for the film­ing of a movie.

Bloomberg assesses how Patient Zero spread the virus

The first per­son in Wash­ing­ton to have a con­firmed case of COVID-19 like­ly spread it to oth­er peo­ple despite health author­i­ties’ best efforts to fol­low up with all of the peo­ple that the indi­vid­ual had come into con­tact with.