KUOW: Get your flu shot early this year.
Seattle Met covers a timeline of the coronavirus from the Everett case in January, through toilet paper shortages and mask directives.
Washington state proposes new unemployment benefits formula as federal dollars dry up (KUOW). If the federal government allows the state to adjust unemployment benefits to 70% of the Washington state average, that would bring weekly payouts up to about $938 a week. With the $600 supplement, the average benefit Washingtonians had been receiving was $974 a week. Without the federal supplement, the average Washingtonian would only receive $374 a week.
The question of reopening schools this fall might have been resolved by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention evaluation of a summer camp outbreak in Georgia. 597 children attended the overnight camp that opened June 17, but on June 24, after an index case (the case that exposes others) of a staffer was identified, the camp was closed and many campers were tested. Test results were available for 344 attendees, of which 260 (76%) were positive. The overall attack rate (the percentage of people who are infected in an at-risk population during a specific period of time) was 51% for children 6-10 years old, 44% for children 11-17 years old, and 33% for young adults 18-21 years old.
Here is a Washington Post article (hat tip to resident M. Dixon!) that covers work by some psychologists who are moms and wanted to study parenting in the pandemic. They created Pandemic Parenting resources. One of them is a standard quiet time for everyone in the house to be alone each day (around 4pm for them, for nap time for one kid, but it allows everyone some down time). Here are their free resources: Pandemic Parent.
Experts weighed in on the most effective mask-wearing practices, the psychology behind not masking, and how to communicate its importance for AAMCNews (the Association of American Medical Colleges).
Washington Post: Health literacy is a problem in the US, and COVID has magnified the problem: "One in five people struggle with health information, says Michael S. Wolf, director of the Center for Applied Health Research on Aging at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University."
This AP article is about disparities in testing and test return rates around the country, but mostly focuses on the mechanics of the NBA "bubble" in Orlando, FL, where all teams are right now. I found it pretty interesting. Apparently they are probably spending about $115,000 to $180,000 every day on testing.
The Atlantic covers how the coronavirus pandemic has brought the US to its collective knees, and how this happened. Great article.