With fall and the return to schools looming, Washington State Superintendent Chris Reykdal said he is “confident” Gov. Jay Inslee will soon expand the requirement that state workers be vaccinated to public school employees.
Reykdal said he is strongly “encouraging” the governor to include school employees in his sweeping order requiring state employees and health care workers be vaccinated. If the order is extended, public school employees who don’t get vaccinated could risk losing their jobs.
School districts across the country are also grappling with masks and consequent lawsuits as educators, parents, public health authorities and politicians battle over whether schools ought to require masks or if they even have the power to do so.
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.
Seattle music venues’ new standard: Get vaxxed (or tested) if you want to get in
The next time you attend a concert in Seattle, the door guy is probably going to ask for more than just your ID.
Six weeks into Seattle’s live music comeback, local music venues are tightening up coronavirus safety measures as infection rates rise due to the delta variant. Over the past two weeks, a wave of Seattle music halls have announced vaccination requirements for music lovers looking to catch their favorite bands.
As a tourist, Maui reflects the tension of what it means to travel responsibly
“From the plane, the island of Maui looks improbably small — you can spot the entire coastline through a single window. The tallest point of the island, Haleakala, reaches 10,000 feet into the air, and yet seemed, to this hiker cozy in her wing seat, walkable — like a moderate day hike rather than a high-altitude ascent.
In mid-July, my husband and I spent two weeks in Maui. The trip, which I’d booked at the end of March after receiving my second vaccine shot, was our first to Hawaii. My thinking had been this: I wanted to go somewhere that felt very different from home — skip the evergreens and chilly lakes for the kind of humidity that never leaves your skin — but I also wanted to go somewhere with the same vaccine opportunities. After a year of being grounded due to the pandemic, I wanted my travel to be as ethical as possible,” writes Seattle Times guest author Colleen Stinchcombe.
Masks in schools: Explaining the debate over face coverings in classrooms
Every day, it seems, brings a new threat, lawsuit court order or protest as educators, parents, public health authorities and politicians battle over whether students should be required to wear masks in school and whether school districts should be allowed to impose such requirements.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all students, staff and visitors inside school buildings wear masks at all times. Some states have rules that echo the CDC, requiring masks in schools statewide and prompting local protests across the country.
Other states have gone the opposite direction, barring their school districts from imposing mask mandates. The result has been an escalating war that generally pits Republican state officials — who argue that parents should have the right to decide about masks for their children — against school districts — who cite the rising virus caseloads, contagious delta variant and proven efficacy of masks in requiring them.
This battle is playing out in courtrooms and in muscle-flexing in state capitols, in school boards and in the White House, where President Joe Biden says he is investigating what power he may have to support mask requirements.
For answers to frequently asked questions about school masks, read the story here.
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