Driven by the emergence of the coronavirus delta variant as the dominant variant of concern, King County’s top public health official is recommending everyone, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks again in public indoor settings.
As the summer progresses, thousands of passengers are coming face-to-face with travel headaches as they take to the skies after a year or more of staying close to home. For a whole host of reasons, August could be even worse, airline analysts say.
We’re updating this page with the latest news about the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the Seattle area, the U.S. and the world. Click here to see live updates from previous days, plus all our other coronavirus coverage, and here to see how we track the daily spread across Washington and the world.
Unvaccinated US swimmer sparks debate as Olympics start
A debate is brewing between former gold medalist Maya DiRado and some American swimmers over U.S. medal threat Michael Andrew’s decision not to be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus as he prepares to compete at the Tokyo Olympics.
DiRado sparked the discourse this week with a lengthy thread on Twitter in which she wrote that she’s “disappointed” in Andrew’s decision to compete unvaccinated and his reasoning behind it.
States scale back virus reporting just as cases surge
Several states scaled back their reporting of COVID-19 statistics this month just as cases across the country started to skyrocket, depriving the public of real-time information on outbreaks, cases, hospitalizations and deaths in their communities.
The shift to weekly instead of daily reporting in Florida, Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota marked a notable shift during a pandemic in which coronavirus dashboards have become a staple for Americans closely tracking case counts and trends to navigate a crisis that has killed more than 600,000 people in the U.S.
UK’s summer getaway takes off but nothing like pre-COVID
With all British schools now closed for the summer, airports and airlines were looking a tad more normal on Saturday, although the number of families heading off for warmer climes remains way down from before the coronavirus pandemic.
This weekend traditionally marks the great summer getaway from Britain, with airports jam-packed with excitable children and their anxious parents heading off mostly to the popular beach resorts of southern Europe, from Portugal’s Algarve coast in the west to the sun-soaked island nation of Cyprus to the east.
Cantwell sponsors tax break package to bolster local media
Sen. Maria Cantwell and two others unveiled legislation Thursday to support local news organizations battered by the pandemic. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 37,000 journalists have lost their jobs, been furloughed or taken pay cuts, as advertising revenue plummeted.
The bill, called the Local Journalism Sustainability Act of 2021, would create new tax credits for subscribers to local news publications and small businesses that buy advertising in local newspapers, radio and television stations. Another tax credit would subsidize local media outlets’ hiring and retention of journalists.
Tokyo Olympics begin with muted ceremony and empty stadium
Belated and beleaguered, the virus-delayed Tokyo Summer Olympics finally opened Friday night with cascading fireworks and made-for-TV choreography that unfolded in a near-empty stadium, a colorful but strangely subdued ceremony that set a striking tone to match a unique pandemic Games.
As their opening played out, devoid of the usual crowd energy, the Olympics convened amid simmering anger and disbelief in much of the host country, but with hopes from organizers that the excitement of the sports to follow would offset the widespread opposition.
Biden officials now expect vulnerable people to need coronavirus booster shots
Biden administration health officials increasingly think that vulnerable populations will need booster shots even as research continues into how long the coronavirus vaccines remain effective.
Senior officials now say they expect that people who are 65 and older or who have compromised immune systems will most likely need a third shot from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, two vaccines based on the same technology that have been used to inoculate the vast majority of Americans thus far. That is a sharp shift from just a few weeks ago, when the administration said it thought there was not enough evidence to back boosters yet.
Delta coronavirus variant now dominant in Washington. New study questions J&J vaccine efficacy against strain
The highly contagious delta variant is now the most dominant strain in Washington.
The delta variant lagged in Washington as it surged across the nation. That has changed in recent weeks, as it now accounts for the largest share of coronavirus cases in the state.
According to the state Department of Health’s (DOH) latest sequencing and variants report, delta makes up 57.5% of cases that have been genotyped, a jump from the previous report that pegged delta at 27.5%.
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