Coronavirus updates: State reaches 79,826 cases
Updated at 4:05 p.m.
The Washington State Department of Health on Sunday reported 350 new confirmed cases of COVID-19. The department is no longer reporting deaths on the weekends.
Pierce County reported 47 new cases and no new deaths on Sunday. Pierce County had a total of 160 deaths likely caused by COVID-19 as of Saturday, according to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.
Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are at 79,826 cases and 1,991 deaths, up from 79,476 cases on Saturday.
King County continues to have the highest numbers in Washington, with 20,863 cases and 744 deaths. Yakima County is second, with 11,153 cases and 251 deaths. Pierce is third with cases at 7,181, according to the Tacoma Pierce-County Hallth Department.
All counties in Washington have cases. Wahkiakum is the only county with a case count fewer than 10.
Pierce County reports 47 new cases
Updated at 2:50 p.m.
Pierce County reported 47 new COVID-19 cases Sunday and no additional deaths.
County totals are now 7,181 cases and 160 deaths since the first case in the coronavirus pandemic was recorded March 6.
The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department has reported 527 cases in the past 14 days. The 14-day case rate per 100,000 people is 58.4. The goal for counties in Phase 2 is 25 or fewer per 100,000.
The average cases per day over the past 14 days is 37.6.
There are an estimated 1,156 still-active cases in the county, according to the health department.
Daily totals for cases and deaths can change as the county receives new information, finds duplicate data or is assigned cases originally attributed to other counties.
Testing is available at various sites in the county. For more information on testing sites, go to www.tpchd.org/covidtest.
Sunday’s geographical case totals are listed below with previous day’s totals in parentheses:
▪ Bonney Lake: 177 (178)
▪ Central Pierce County: 439 (436)
▪ East Pierce County: 245 (242)
▪ Edgewood/Fife/Milton: 304 (300)
▪ Frederickson: 271 (268)
▪ Gig Harbor area: 196 (194)
▪ Graham: 242 (no change)
▪ JBLM: No longer reported
▪ Key Peninsula: 56 (no change)
▪ Lake Tapps/Sumner area: 230 (229)
▪ Lakewood: 657 (655)
▪ Parkland: 389 (388)
▪ Puyallup: 429 (424)
▪ South Hill: 376 (373)
▪ South Pierce County: 177 (174)
▪ Southwest Pierce County: 76 (75)
▪ Spanaway: 331 (no change)
▪ Tacoma: 2,221 (2,208)
▪ University Place: 289 (287)
▪ Unknown: 76 (no change)
Washington state reports 465 new cases Saturday
Updated at 8:45 a.m.
The Washington State Department of Health on Sunday reported 465 new confirmed cases of COVID-19. The department is no longer reporting deaths on the weekends.
Pierce County reported 34 new cases and no new deaths on Saturday. Pierce County had a total of 160 deaths likely caused by COVID-19 as of Saturday, according to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.
Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are at 79,476 cases and 1,991 deaths, up from 79,011 cases on Friday.
King County continues to have the highest numbers in Washington, with 20,774 cases and 744 deaths. Yakima County is second, with 11,141 cases and 251 deaths. Pierce is third with cases at 7,262.
All counties in Washington have cases. Garfield and Wahkiakum have case counts of fewer than 10.
Time’s up for students’ pandemic meal money, but most in WA haven’t enrolled
Updated at 8:45 a.m.
Less than half of eligible students in Washington state have applied for the emergency food funding intended to bolster hunger programs during school closures, and advocates worry that many of the state’s most vulnerable will go hungry.
The deadline for the Pandemic EBT program, passed as part of the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act in March, is Sept. 11. Families have until 5 p.m. to submit applications to the state.
More than 560,000 Washington K-12 students are eligible because they already qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The funding equates to $5.70 per school day, or $399 for missed meals from March to June.
About 200,000 of this group hold EBT cards through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, meaning they were automatically enrolled in this emergency program. Everyone else — all 358,442 of them — had to apply for P-EBT.
As of Aug. 30, only 44 percent had been approved, according to data from the Department of Social and Health Services. The data includes online applications but not those submitted over the phone.
Tacoma Public Schools has the highest number of students eligible for P-EBT at more than 19,000. More than 11,000 of them had to apply, but fewer than 5,000 had.
This discrepancy troubles Claire Lane, director of the Anti-Hunger and Nutrition Coalition.
“The best system we have to feed kids is either SNAP or schools,” she told The News Tribune this week. “Not everybody is eligible for SNAP and schools are strapped. I’m really worried about the number of kids going hungry in Washington.”
The number of Washingtonians facing hunger has doubled since start of the pandemic
Updated at 8:45 a.m.
The number of people facing hunger in Washington state appears to have doubled amid the coronavirus pandemic, and by the end of the year potentially 1 in 5 Washingtonians will be experiencing hunger.
Those were some of the numbers leaders of the state Department of Agriculture and the state’s largest food banks gave reporters at a press conference Thursday about food assistance needs across Washington as unemployment claims have skyrocketed.
“The number of people seeking food at food banks and pantries doubled up to 1.6 million and continued to climb to over 2 million people per month,” said Derek Sandison, director of the state Department of Agriculture.
There were 1.12 million people in the state who sought food assistance in the fiscal year that ended in June 2019. The current estimate is that 2.2 million are facing food insecurity.
“We’re in this for the long-haul,” Sandison said. “... We expect elevated demand to continue well into 2020.”
Gov. Jay Inslee and Philanthropy Northwest started the WA Food Fund in April, which has raised more than $10 million for three organizations that stock food banks in Washington: Food Lifeline, Northwest Harvest and Second Harvest.
“We’re hopeful that Congress will act to provide additional resources to the states,” Sandison said.
Katie Rains, food assistance specialist with the Department of Agriculture, said some organizations throughout the state have reported anecdotally that demand is as much as seven times above what they usually see. Others have seen demand stay fairly neutral, she said.
Jason Clark, the CEO of Second Harvest, spoke about what he’s been seeing in Eastern Washington.
“The need has just been staggering,” he said. “... Folks who have never had to rely on a food bank are trying to figure out how to do that during a pandemic.”
This story was originally published September 13, 2020 at 8:55 AM.
