HomeWorld News UpdatesCoronavirus daily news updates, August 10: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world – The Seattle Times
Coronavirus daily news updates, August 10: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world – The Seattle Times
Amid a spike in COVID-19 infections driven by the delta variant and unvaccinated people, the state of Washington, as well as Seattle and King County, issued sweeping orders requiring public employees get vaccinated or lose their jobs.
The push in Washington State comes as the Biden administration has increasingly been urging state and local government, as well as businesses, to consider such mandates. The administration has said it is pondering how to encourage more unvaccinated Americans to get their shots without issuing further vaccine mandates beyond the federal workforce.
Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he hopes the Food and Drug Administration will begin giving full approval to the coronavirus vaccines by month’s end, potentially spurring a wave of vaccine mandates in the private sector as well as in schools and universities.
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 previous days’ live updates and all our other coronavirus coverage, and here to see how we track the daily spread across Washington and the world.
US turns to social media influencers to boost vaccine rates
DENVER — As a police sergeant in a rural town, Carlos Cornejo isn’t the prototypical social media influencer. But his Spanish-language Facebook page with 650,000 followers was exactly what Colorado leaders were looking for as they recruited residents to try to persuade the most vaccine-hesitant.
Cornejo, 32, is one of dozens of influencers, ranging from busy moms and fashion bloggers to African refugee advocates and religious leaders, getting paid by the state to post vaccine information on a local level in hopes of stunting a troubling summer surge of COVID-19.
Colorado’s #PowertheComeback target audience is especially tailored to Latino, Black, Native American, Asian and other communities of color that historically have been underserved when it comes to health care and are the focus of agencies trying to raise vaccination rates.
King County to give free masks, wipes to restaurant workers
If you work in the restaurant industry in King County, you’re invited to stop by a drive-through pop-up in Renton that’s distributing masks and sanitizing wipes Tuesday.
County officials are planning to give away free PPE to restaurant workers from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 919 Southwest Grady Way. Each worker can receive up to 10 KN90 masks, 10 cloth masks and one packet of wipes, according to the county.
How Seattle’s Scarecrow Video plans to share its vast library nationwide
When Scarecrow Video began its pilot rent-by-mail program back in fall 2019, things were decidedly low-tech. Executive director Kate Barr, describing the system as held together by “bubble gum and duct tape.”
But a few things have changed since that early testing-the-waters program, which involved only a few dozen people. A global pandemic occurred, making many of us more reliant on stay-at-home entertainment. Reckless Video closed down, leaving Scarecrow — Seattle’s last video store, though a nonprofit since 2014 — to examine its place as a rare surviving outlet for physical media.
And streaming services multiplied, offering more and more options but at increasing cost to consumers, particularly those who subscribe to more than one service — and a limited and ever-shifting inventory.
“A number of the people who signed up for rental by mail during lockdown were people who said, ‘We’ve watched everything we want to watch on Netflix and Amazon, and now I don’t know what to do,’” Barr said. “We were onboarding people who had never rented from Scarecrow before, turning to us during COVID because they were burned out on the limitations.”
So the time seemed right for Scarecrow, founded in 1986 and located in the University District since 1993, to take a big step: working to create a national rent-by-mail service.
The announcement from the Dallas Independent School District, delivered hours after some schools began for the year, came despite a statewide ban in Texas on such mandates. Last month, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order barring government entities – including public schools – from mandating masks or vaccines. As virus caseloads have skyrocketed, the governor has declined to modify the policy.
“With numbers getting significantly worse this decision is urgent, and an important one when it comes to protecting our students, teachers, staff and their families,” Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said.
Educators are anxious to begin academic and emotional recovery for students knocked about by more than a year of online and hybrid learning. But as a resurgent virus inflicts fresh damage, many were forced to confront a new round of pandemic politics, with debates over vaccines and masks consuming districts and communities.
The big fear lingering: a repeat of last year, when many students were forced to learn from home all or part of the time and students were regularly shuttled into quarantine after exposures to the virus.
“Things are increasingly chaotic,” said Sasha Pudelski, advocacy director for AASA, the School Superintendents Association. “A month ago there was a lot more calm and assurity.”
COVID outbreak at Tacoma facility for immigrant detainees worsens, with 150 cases since June
An outbreak of COVID-19 cases that began in early June at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, a facility for detained immigrants, has continued to worsen. Since then, 150 people, including seven guards and a federal health care worker, have tested positive, according to a lawyer monitoring court-ordered government notices of coronavirus cases at the facility.
The virus surge came as the federal government, in an attempt to relieve overcrowding at holding facilities at the southern border, transferred nearly 1,100 immigrants to the Tacoma detention center, according to a document submitted to federal court by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Western Washington.
While the government released about 570 detainees it deemed at high risk of contracting COVID-19, “the harm is done,” said the attorney watching case notices, Aaron Korthuis of Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.
Virtually all of those who contracted the virus tested positive shortly after arriving at the Tacoma facility, leading Korthuis and his legal rights organization to contend the government is not taking adequate precautions when transferring people.
Abbott’s request Monday came as a county-owned hospital in Houston raised tents to accommodate their COVID-19 overflow. Private hospitals in the county already were requiring their staff to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Meantime, the Dallas and Austin school districts announced Monday that they would require students and staff to wear face masks. The Houston school district already announced a mask mandate for its students and staff later this week if its board approves.
The highly contagious delta variant is fueling the wave.
While Germany has relatively low numbers of virus cases compared to other European countries, cases are rising again and authorities are fearing that especially young people who are not vaccinated yet may contract and spread the virus in the coming weeks and months.
On Monday, the country’s disease control agency registered 2,480 new cases, about 700 more than a week ago. Some 45.6 million people, or almost 55% of the population, are fully vaccinated.
After a sluggish start of the vaccination campaign that only really gained traction from March onward, the rate of vaccination has dropped again in recent weeks, and officials worry they may not reach the target set by the country’s disease control agency, of immunizing at least 85% of people between ages 12 and 59 and 90% of those over 60.
What you should know about Washington’s new vaccine mandate:Get fully vaccinated or lose your job, Gov. Jay Inslee yesterday ordered most state employees and hundreds of thousands of health care workers. Seattle and King County announced similar mandates for their employees as some politicians quickly blasted the new orders. Our Q&A tackles exactly who’s affected, when they’d need to get the first shot and more.
A COVID-19 outbreak has swelled to 150 cases since June at the ICE center for detained immigrants in Tacoma. One detained man is describing the close quarters and lack of precautions as the feds transferred nearly 1,100 immigrants into the center.
The entire state of Arkansas has only eight ICU beds available, after the state yesterday set a record for hospitalizations. You can track the pandemic’s resurgence nationally and in Washington state on these maps.
Members of the U.S. military will be required to get a vaccine starting next month — or possibly sooner. Right now, the services vary widely in their vaccination rates.
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