Coronavirus updates: State passes 109k cases
Updated at 9 a.m.
The Washington State Department of Health on Monday reported 1,039 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 12 new deaths.
Pierce County continued its worrying trend, reporting 104 new COVID-19 cases and one death on Monday. Pierce County had a total of 194 deaths likely caused by COVID-19 as of Monday, according to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.
Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are at 109,354 cases and 2,378 deaths, up from 108.315 cases and 2,366 deaths on Sunday. The new deaths also cover the weekend, as the state no longer reports deaths on weekends.
King County continues to have the highest numbers in Washington, with 28,223 cases and 817 deaths. Yakima County is second, with 12,036 cases and 275 deaths. Pierce is third with cases at 10,616.
All counties in Washington have cases.
More Pierce County schools push back in-person learning as COVID-19 cases rise
Updated at 9 a.m.
Clover Park School District will start its in-person learning plans later than expected as COVID-19 cases continue to increase in Pierce County.
The district now hopes to start its hybrid learning plan — in which students spend part of the week learning in person and part of the week in remote learning — on Jan. 4, a month later than planned.
The Clover Park School District Board of Directors previously voted on Oct. 2 to postpone in-person hybrid learning and continue remote virtual learning until at least Dec. 4.
The current target will allow elementary students to start hybrid learning as follows:
- Jan. 4: grades K and 1
- Jan. 7: grades 2 and 3
- Jan. 8: grades 4 and 5
District officials said in a news release Monday that hybrid plans could begin as soon as Dec. 7 for elementary students but only if cases decrease in the ensuing weeks.
“The district will review case rates on Nov. 23 and make a decision on whether it is able to move forward with a Dec. 7 start date or needs to plan for Jan. 4,” the district said in a press release.
49 Seattle work-release facility residents have COVID-19
Updated at 9 a.m.
Over half the residents of a work-release facility in Seattle have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Washington state Department of Corrections.
The outbreak at Bishop Lewis Work Release on Seattle’s First Hill has spiked since two cases were identified Oct. 16, The Seattle Times reported.
As of Oct. 30, 28 of Bishop Lewis’ 49 residents had contracted the virus. Testing of other residents didn’t start until Oct. 20, four days following the first infections. Corrections spokesperson Susan Biller said that’s because the first positive tests came back on a Friday, and staff was off for the weekend, then off Monday, Oct. 19, due to state-mandated furloughs.
Residents were quarantined in the facility starting Oct. 16, and those infected were moved to county housing designated for people with COVID-19.
As of Friday, 526 people incarcerated in Washington’s correction centers or living in work-release facilities had contracted the virus. The largest outbreak has been at the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center in eastern Washington, where 233 tested positive and two died.
The Bishop Lewis outbreak is the largest at the state’s work-release facilities, which have had 53 total positive cases. Progress House Work Release in Tacoma had an outbreak with 16 people infected, and Reynolds Work Release in downtown Seattle had a seven-person outbreak.
A record number of US children tested positive for coronavirus last week, report says
Updated at 9 a.m.
More than 61,000 children were diagnosed with the coronavirus in the U.S. last week — the highest number reported in one week since the pandemic began, according to a report from The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.
Although children represent just 11% of all COVID-19 cases in states and territories that report cases by age, that percentage equals out to more than 853,000 infected kids.
“At this time, it appears that severe illness due to COVID-19 is rare among children,” the report reads. “However, there is an urgent need to collect more data on longer-term impacts on children, including ways the virus may harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects.”
Researchers use data on cases broken down by age from the health department websites of New York City, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and 49 states.
Ten states reported more than 25,000 child cases, while just two reported fewer than 1,000. The five states with the most cumulative number of infected children are California, Illinois, Florida, Tennessee and Arizona.
Between Oct. 22 and Oct. 29, a total of 61,447 new child COVID-19 cases were diagnosed. In October, nearly 200,000 children contracted the coronavirus.
This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 9:14 AM.
