 | Here is your Mayor's update, some COVID-19 information, some other useful information! Please forward as widely as you would like.
I want to hear from you, contact me anytime. If you're reading this because it was forwarded to you, or you saw it on Facebook and would like to receive it yourself, email me here to subscribe. | Wear your mask, pack hand sanitizer- let's all do our part to get through this. Here is an easier to read summary of what's open and what's not on the state site. The phase 1 and 2 graphics are at the bottom of this email. | As Washington state continues its phased reopening, the University of Washington recognizes that faculty, staff, students and their families have many questions about how the pandemic will affect autumn quarter, when many students, including a new incoming class, will be returning to campus. UW President Ana Mari Cauce has scheduled a virtual town hall starting at 10:30am today, with a panel of UW leaders to address these questions and offer a preview of what back-to-school will mean for the UW community.
Access the Town Hall here. | Washington’s weekly COVID-19 hospital admissions rose in June but remain less than half the level of the pandemic’s spring peak, according to an analysis of Department of Health data. (Seattle Times article) (As I noted yesterday- cases are trending up, but this is a reminder that hospitalizations are not necessarily following that trend. Good news, but no reason to be complacent!) Snohomish County’s “Blue Ribbon” Economic and Workforce Recovery Task Force released its first report Wednesday, offering nearly 40 recommendations to help the community recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report documents widespread economic upheaval, and underscores the need for a coordinated response to rebuild the economy. Flagging this again if an employer is reading who didn't fill out this form: help the Health District quickly identify those COVID site supervisors, an online form has been created (available here). The Health District is requesting that all employers in Snohomish County fill out the form, which identifies primary and back-up contacts. Completing this form will also ensure your organization is contacted promptly, and through your preferred channels of staff appropriately trained on what to do when contacted.
Full Health District press release can be found here. | Wednesday marked the 100th day of the County Emergency Coordination Center (ECC) activation. I thought the notes about what they've been doing are interesting, so I'm including all of them! This is the longest the county’s ECC has ever been continuously engaged to address a crisis. The center was activated in early March to support the Snohomish Health District, which has been working since late January to contain the spread of coronavirus. We are just days away from marking six months since the first confirmed COVID-19 case in the U.S. was diagnosed, right here in Everett.
During the 19 weeks the ECC has been activated, a total of 139 people from government agencies and nonprofits countywide have logged more than 21,300 hours combatting COVID-19 and the havoc it has created.
Some of that work has included:
Finding and distributing more than 4 million pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) for use by first responders and healthcare workers.
Making sure food and other assistance is reaching people struggling with the economic disruption.
Supporting stepped up public health initiatives, including testing, and ensuring everyone has a place to safely isolate and quarantine.
Emergency management is a team activity. In addition to the health district, our ECC partners so far have included staff from 16 different county departments; personnel from the cities of Everett, Arlington, Marysville, Mukilteo, Community Transit and Providence Regional Medical Center Everett; and representatives from numerous fire districts, including South County Fire, Snohomish County Fire District 7, Marysville Fire District, Darrington Fire and Tulalip Bay. | The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has established a new clinical trials network. The COVID-19 Prevention Trials Network (COVPN) aims to enroll thousands of volunteers in large-scale clinical trials testing a variety of investigational vaccines and monoclonal antibodies intended to protect people from COVID-19. One of four participating networks in the country is located in Seattle.
For more information please read NIH’s news release. Hey, remember your taxes? They're due July 15! If you luxuriated in the extra time, it has now run out! Physicians from the Texas Medical Association’s COVID-19 Task Force and the Committee on Infectious Diseases published a chart (available here) ranking various activities and the risk associated with contracting COVID-19. They show less risk opening the mail, getting takeout, pumping gas, playing tennis or going camping. Higher risk: going to bars, going to a sports stadium, theater, amusement park, music concerts (of course, none of those are allowed right now in WA!). NPR: Expanding your coronavirus bubble inspires the types of conversations we think of as "safe-sex conversations".... i.e., are you seeing other people? BBC: Spanish study casts doubt on herd immunity feasibility (they were hit hard, but found that only 5% developed immunity antibodies. Herd immunity requires at least 70% of the population to have antibodies). Politico: According to new research by economists at Northwestern University, almost 4 in 10 Black (39%) and Latinx households (37%) with children are struggling to feed their families during the coronavirus pandemic. This compares with 22% of similar White households. In 2018, the last time the government formally measured food insecurity, the proportion of food insecure Black, Latinx, and White households was 21%, 16%, and 8%, respectively. NPR: Lots of useful mask tips in this article! Specific suggestions on mask materials and styles. Politico: The pressures of the pandemic on individuals and social services appear to exacerbating addiction and leading to a rise in overdose deaths. New York Times: How lethal is the coronavirus? The reporter writes, "If there are many more asymptomatic infections than once thought, then the virus may be less deadly than it has appeared. But even that calculation is a difficult one." | The CDC has updated groups that are considered high risk. These high risk groups are the ones who are encourage to stay home, telework, and stay safe all the way through Phase 4.
You can see their post about the list of new groups here.
They have added Black people, Native Americans and Latinos to the list, as well as pregnant women, smokers, and people with the following conditions regardless of their age:
* Chronic kidney disease
* Chronic lung disease
* People who have had organ transplants
* Serious heart conditions
* Sickle cell disease
* Type 2 diabetes
* Obesity
* Asthma
* Cystic fibrosis
* High blood pressure
* Dementia
* Liver disease
* Type 1 diabetes
* A weakened immune system | I receive an email list recommended by a resident that is targeted at doctors and scientists (it's one of my secret sources for this email!). I like this item they included today: The very important issue of whether SARS-CoV-2 is primarily spread by infectious droplets or by aerosols persists. A group of scientists are petitioning the World Health Organization (WHO) to reconsider its position that droplets are the primary means of spread, outlining evidence that aerosols, smaller droplets that stay in the air longer, may be contributing to spread as well . [Here is the added comment from the Association of Medical College email editor: This is a difficult scientific question that should not be politicized. It is logistically convenient if the virus is spread by droplets, like influenza, because droplets fall out of the air fairly quickly, while aerosols are suspended in the air. Continuing to believe in droplet transmission helps rationalize the six-foot social distancing that so many of us observe. However, if the evidence indicates that aerosols also play a role in transmission, we must follow the science. Aerosols waft further, and they tend to hang around in the air in cloud-like fashion, which requires additional precautions. Air turnover in a room becomes particularly critical, N95 masks are more necessary, and negative pressure rooms are more important for hospitalizing COVID-19 patients. Logistically, managing airborne transmitted diseases is hard, particularly when adding on considerations regarding asymptomatic viral shedding. At the moment, the evidence is marginal for either theory. Infection control is much harder if it turns out aerosols are a major means of spread for the virus.] | Loss of sense of smell, anosmia, is one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19. In a study of 202 patients in Italy, 66% reported loss of smell or taste. In follow-up four weeks after diagnosis, of 48.7% patients with loss of smell who participated noted complete resolution of the symptom, 40.7% reported improvement, and 10.6% said the symptom was unchanged or worse. The median duration of anosmia was 11.2 days. Also, some experts suggest that using a smell test may screen infected people more effectively than fever checks, as anosmia symptoms arrive earlier than fevers and can occur in patients that show no other symptoms. You might have seen last week that one of the health experts in the q&a on how they are handling daily life said that they had a bottle of perfume that they used to test their sense of smell each day. | All reopening guidelines can be found here. Here is the Safe Start Plan for K-12 Schools, and a new guidance document for colleges and universities. Locally, Everett's Getting to Safe Guide is a great resource. It's now available in Spanish and Russian, as well. | Libraries in Medellin, Colombia, have organized a campaign of anonymous letter writing (BBC article). As the author wrote, "When the letter arrived at Daniel Guzmán's doorstep, it provided him with a glimmer of hope during one of the hardest moments of his life." Whenever the team receives a letter, they decorate it and then send it on to someone who has also sent in a missive. The recipient is chosen at random and neither recipient nor writer are told each other's identity. This inspires me to think about sending a letter or postcard to someone I know, at the very least! | Lighthouse Park, Edgewater Beach and 92nd Street Park reopened on May 5. Bathrooms are open only at Lighthouse Park 7am-7pm. Playgrounds remain closed until either Phase 3 or when we have full staffing and ability to clean daily. Trails and sidewalks continue to be open for your physical activity! Please respect physical distance of six feet. All City Facilities closure: City operations will continue via primarily phone, email and online. The public is encouraged to call (425) 263-8000 for assistance with City services or visit our website at www.mukilteowa.gov. Government services are not slated to reopen until Phase 3 of the new reopening plan, which is mid-June at the earliest. For more information on city facilities, see this link. | Current case count is 77 confirmed or probable COVID-19 cases identified in Mukilteo, with no deaths amongst those cases, and 72 (one new recovery) individuals who are recovered. County case counts are available at this link, updated each weekday at 2pm City counts will be updated weekly starting today. | | |
