Coronavirus updates: State reaches 160,634 cases
Updated at 9:15 a.m.
The Washington State Department of Health on Saturday reported 2,467 new confirmed cases of COVID-19. The department is no longer reporting deaths on weekends.
Pierce County reported 411 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday. Pierce County had a total of 231 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 160,634 cases and 2,703 deaths, up from 158,167 cases on Friday.
King County continues to have the highest numbers in Washington, with 43,304 cases and 866 deaths. Yakima County has 13,564 cases and 295 deaths. Pierce is second in cases with 16,378.
All counties in Washington have cases.
Task force formed to examine re-opening U.S.-Canada border, but it still may be a while
Updated at 9:15 a.m.
On the positive side of things — a task force has been created to examine how and when to re-open the U.S. Canadian border, which has been closed to non-essential travel to help slow the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the negative side — it’s not scheduled to make its recommendations until March 2021 — potentially a full year since the border first closed on March 21.
The panel will be staffed by four former Canadian and American politicians, according to a Forbes story about the task force’s creation.
Among the members of the task force will be former Washington state Gov. Christine Gregoire, the story reports. She’ll be joined by former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder from the U.S. side along with former Quebec Premier Jean Charest and former Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan from Canada.
The two countries first agreed to close the border to non-essential travel beginning March 21, and have extended that restriction on a month-by-month basis eight times. It’s now set to expire Dec. 21.
Tourists and cross-border travel is currently prohibited, while commerce, trade and vital health workers are among those allowed to cross between the two countries.
“We’re both (the U.S. and Canada) very lucky to be in this relationship with trusted partners, and to be able to deal with these difficult, complicated issues, in a spirit of trust that’s going to allow us to find the answers,” Charest told Forbes. “That’ll take some time, so might as well start thinking about it now.”
Robert Warren, University of North Dakota professor who used to work at the University of Manitoba, told The Duluth News Tribune that he believes the border could remain closed to non-essential travel through all of 2021, and it may not be until January 2022 that normal border traffic resumes.
“Canada’s not going to open up the border until the virus is under control down here,” Warren told the News Tribune.
The reason for Warren’s dire projections, he said, were the increasing COVID numbers on both sides of the border this fall and the time it will take to distribute vaccines once they are approved.
The administration change in the White House may impact the timing of extensions, though, Warren told the News Tribune, as a longer closure may be announced rather than the incremental, month-by-month process now being used.
Fears grow over Inland Northwest hospital capacity
Updated at 9:15 a.m.
Health officials in rural communities in Washington state are worried that Thanksgiving gatherings could take the COVID-19 pandemic from bad to worse and, in some places, overwhelm already strained health systems.
The Spokesman-Review reports the small towns surrounding Spokane County have experienced a surge in cases in recent weeks, mirroring trends seen statewide.
In the past two weeks, the Northeast Tri County Health District, which covers Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties, reported more than 300 new COVID-19 cases, a record number accounting for a third of their total cases confirmed thus far in the pandemic.
Similarly, Lincoln County has seen more than 50 cases in the past few weeks, which account for a third of the total cases recorded in the county.
“What we’re finding is a lot of our cases that we’ve identified here, we can track back to people in Spokane,” said Ed Dzedzy, public health administrator in Lincoln County. “It’s just the nature of the beast, and it’s not pointing a finger at anybody, but the virus is going to do what it does; People move from rural to urban to buy goods and go to work.”
Lincoln County experienced a few larger outbreaks this month in long-term care settings and one larger family cluster. In the three counties north of Spokane County, outbreaks at social gatherings, workplaces, restaurants, bars and churches have led to a surge in cases.
The Northeast Tri County Health District had to stop contact tracing last week due to so many cases, particularly in Stevens County, which is seeing the highest increase of cases it’s had in all the pandemic. The district is focusing its resources on doing case investigations, reaching out to all people confirmed to have COVID-19, and asking them to reach out to their close contacts.
People weakest link for apps tracking coronavirus exposure
Updated at 9:15 a.m.
The app builders had planned for pranksters, ensuring that only people with verified COVID-19 cases could trigger an alert. They’d planned for heavy criticism about privacy, in many cases making the features as bare-bones as possible. But, as more states roll out smartphone contact-tracing technology, other challenges are emerging. Namely, human nature.
The problem starts with downloads. Stefano Tessaro calls it the “chicken-and-egg” issue: The system works only if a lot of people buy into it, but people will buy into it only if they know it works.
“Accuracy of the system ends up increasing trust, but it is trust that increases adoptions, which in turn increases accuracy,” Tessaro, a computer scientist at the University of Washington who was involved in creating that state’s forthcoming contact-tracing app, said in a lecture last month.
In other parts of the world, people are taking that necessary leap of faith. Ireland and Switzerland, touting some of the highest uptake rates, report more than 20% of their populations use a contact-tracing app, Kaiser Health News reports.
Americans seem not so hot on the idea. As with much of the U.S. response to the pandemic, this country hasn’t had a national strategy. So it’s up to states. And only about a dozen, including the recent addition of Colorado, have launched the smartphone feature, which sends users a notification if they’ve crossed paths with another app user who later tests positive for COVID-19.
Within those few states, enthusiasm appears dim. In Wyoming, Alabama and North Dakota, some of the few states with usage data beyond initial downloads, under 3% of the population is using the app.
The service, built by Google and Apple and adapted by individual countries, states or territories, either appears as a downloadable app or as a setting, depending on the state and the device. It uses Bluetooth to identify other phones using the app within about 6 feet for more than 15 minutes. If a user tests positive for COVID-19, they’re given a verification code to input so that each contact can be notified they were potentially exposed. The person’s identity is shielded, as are those of the people notified.
“The more people who add their phone to the fight against COVID, the more protection we all get. Everyone should do it,” Sarah Tuneberg, who leads Colorado’s test and containment effort, told reporters on Oct. 29. “The sky’s the limit. Or the population is the limit, really.”
But the population could prove to be quite a limit. Data from early-adopter governments suggests even those who download the app and use it might not follow directions at the most critical juncture.
According to the Virginia Health Department, from August to November, about 613 app users tested positive and received a code to alert their contacts that they may have exposed them to the virus. About 60% of them actually activated it.
In North Dakota, where the outbreak is so big that human contact tracers can’t keep up, the data is even more dire. In October, about 90 people tested positive and received the codes required to alert their contacts. Only about 30% did so.
This story was originally published November 29, 2020 at 9:25 AM.
