Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on April 22, 2020

Editors note: This is a live account of updates from Friday, April 17, as the events unfolded. Click hereto find the latest extended coverage of the outbreak of the coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2; the illness it causes, COVID-19; and its effects on the Seattle area, the Pacific Northwest and the world.

National and local leaders continue to weigh how soon to return to normalcy as the number of COVID-19 cases starts to decline in some parts of the country. President Donald Trump on Thursdayunveiled a three-phase plan to reopen U.S. businesses and schools, instructing state governors to move at their own pace, yet insisting the process would happen relatively quickly.

In Seattle, Mayor Jenny Durkan announced Thursday her plans to provide up to 100 hotel rooms for quarantined medical workers and clear cars off some streets to give people more space to walk and bike.

The most recent count of COVID-19 cases in Washington totals 11,445 infections and 603 deaths, according to the state Department of Health.

Throughout today, on this page, well be posting updates from Seattle Times journalists and others on the pandemic and its effects on the Seattle area, the Pacific Northwest and the world. Updates from Thursday can be found here, and all our coronavirus coverage can be foundhere.

The following graphic includes the most recent numbers from the Washington State Department of Health, released Friday evening.

MLS announced Friday its suspending its season until June 8.

The league softened the blow to its fans by announcing earlier this week its extremely unlikely games would resume May 10 due to safety concerns regarding the coronavirus pandemic. The 26 teams played two matches each, Sounders FCs last being March 7 against the Columbus Crew SC at CenturyLink Field.

ESPN reported Friday the league is communicating with the MLS Players Association regarding significant pay cuts to offset losses from the season suspension.

MLS top executives have already had their pay decreased, commissioner Don Garbers by 25 percent.

According to ESPN, the league wants players to take a 50 percent pay cut only if games are canceled. Whether matches are played in front of fans and amount of games could also determine pay.

Read the full story here.

Jayda Evans

OLYMPIA Washington state Republican legislative leaders on Friday released their own road map for reopening Washingtons economy amid the new coronavirus.

Fridays plan doesnt set public health benchmarks for when it would be safe to reopen the economy. But it does specify some lower-risk industries such as residential construction, auto dealers and solo landscapers that could reopen soon.

The plans 16 recommendations focus mostly on assisting small businesses. It would, among other things, slash Business & Occupation (B&O) taxes, provide sales-tax holidays for retail stores and suspend any inflation-adjusted minimum-wage hike for 2021.

The GOP plan recommends, among other things, exempting small businesses from paying B&O taxes and allowing them not to charge sales tax for a year. It would also offer state assistance to small businesses that arent eligible for help from the federal government.

Read the full story here.

Joseph OSullivan

Washington state expects its school districts to provide three things while their buildings are closed: instruction, food and child care. New data from the state Education Department show districts posted uneven progress on those fronts during the first two weeks of the shutdown.

According to the results of a new state survey, the majority of Washington districts said they served meals and provided online learning to students through April 4, the most recent data the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) could share by Friday.

As of April 4, more than a third of the districts who responded to the survey said they werent providing child care. The ones that did were only serving about 2,100 kids collectively.

Between March 29 and April 4, nearly 90% of districts surveyed said they provided meals, 57% said they had or were planning to establish child care, and nearly 100% said they were providing instruction, with 75% reporting some real-time online learning.

Read the full story here.

Dahlia Bazzaz

When Seattles Eritrean Association Community Centershuttered in accordance with the stay-at-home order issued by Gov. Jay Inslee, Isaac Araya was desperate, wondering what in the world to do about more than 100 seniors who usually visit the center to eat lunch and see friends.

First, Araya and his board told his workers to stay home. But they didnt want to leave the seniors hungry and isolated, the centers longtime president said.Next, the workers tried to make food deliveries. But navigating to all the homes took hours and the hot lunches went cold.

Then a lightbulb blinked on. Numerous Eritrean community members drive for ride-hail companies, and they had seen their business mostly disappear.

We came up with the idea to use Uber drivers who speak Tigrinya and Amharic, Araya recalled. They know the streets. They know the city.

Across the Seattle area, otherorganizations that typically serve seniors also are adapting their in-person models to a new reality. Initially stunned by coronavirus closures, hundreds of helpers have built food-delivery programs out of thin air.

Read the full story here.

Daniel Beekman and Anna Patrick

China revised its official coronavirus death toll in Wuhan, the original epicenter of the outbreak, by around 50% on Friday, citing new statistical evidence that has emerged as the city begins to reopen following months of lockdown.

The reassessment counted 1,290 more deaths, bringing the death toll in the city where the outbreak was first recorded to 3,869.

The revision came amid global efforts to produce more accurate data and growing suspicions among experts and world leaders over how Chinas death toll could remain relatively low even as death counts surge across the United States and Europe.

Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, insisted on Friday that this revision in no way indicated a cover-up and is based purely on standard efforts to take into account deaths that were previously miscounted or excluded.

The Washington Post

Gov. Jay Inslees updated statewide eviction moratorium, announced Thursday, is arguably the most far-reaching local action yet to protect renters.

The proclamation protects tenants from eviction until June 4. And it goes further, barring landlords from collecting late fees, raising rents or asking tenants in housing closed due to the coronavirus pandemic including student housing to pay rent owed.

But even before Inslees Thursday announcement, many renters in the state already had some of those protections though they might not have known it.A federal eviction moratorium, covering as many as 19.3 million people nationwide, was enacted as part of the $2 trillion federal stimulus package in late March.

Theres one big problem with the federal moratorium, though: Its hard to know who it applies to.

Is your home covered? Search this map to find out.

Katherine K. Long

Results of first-ever home testing for COVID-19 in Seattle and King County indicate infections are declining but that there still may be thousands of residents infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus undetected in the community, according to a report released Friday by The Greater Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network (SCAN), which has analyzed the first round of swab and send testing kits from 4,092 county residents.

The research involved sending newly developed self-test kits to individuals who registered with the group online, then analyzing the results.

It is the nations first home-surveillance project on COVID-19 and, while many of the early findings are preliminary and the margins of error wide, the report says the data provides the first real snapshot of the undetected spread of the virus through the community and will be refined as testing expands.

The goal of the study is to give health officials a clearer understanding of how far the virus has penetrated the community and answer the question: Is there an iceberg of cases below the currently recognized tip?

Read the full story here.

Mike Carter

The laboratory processing mostof Washington states COVID-19 tests will soon begin doing another kind of test, to identify people who have recovered from the disease and have developed antibodies to the virus.

Weve heard these stories, said Dr. Keith Jerome,head of the virology division within the UW Medicines department of laboratory medicine. Somebody says, I was really sick in February. Did I have COVID? And we havent been able to tell them.

The UW Medicine Virology Lab plans to begin answering this question next week by testing blood samples from people who have recovered from COVID-19.

Serological testing checking for antibodies is important because it identifies who has had the disease and helps to build a picture of how widespread the virus is, which can inform decisions about lifting distancing orders and allowing businesses to open.

Read the full story here.

Ryan Blethen and Sandi Doughton

Washington could begin easing up on social distancing restrictions the week of May 18, according to the UWs Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).

Estimates for other states range from as early as May 4 to as late as the end of June, based on the local status of the epidemic.

In a media briefing Friday, IHME director Dr. Chris Murray cautioned that the potential opening dates represent a first stab and are likely to change as more information comes in from individual states. Among the key variables are whether deaths are likely to drop off sharply once they peak, or whether as seems to be happening in New York they will plateau and decrease slowly.

But he also said no one should rely solely on IHME projections as they decide when and how to ease life back toward normal.

Read the full story here.

Sandi Doughton

State health officials confirmed an additional 293 cases and 20 deaths in Washington on Friday evening.

The newly released numbers bring the state's totals to11,445 infections and 603 deaths.

The bulk of the cases remains in King County, which is reporting 4,865cases and 330deaths. New deaths were also reported in Klickitat, Snohomish and Yakima counties.

About 91% of patient samples tested have returned negative, according to the state.

Elise Takahama

U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal is co-sponsoring legislation that would cancel all residential rent and mortgage payments during the coronavirus emergency that has put huge numbers of people out of work, the Seattle Democrat said Friday. The bill has not passed and no payments have been canceled.

Last month, the Seattle City Council passed a resolution asking Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Congress and the White House to cancel rent and mortgage payments. While the lobbying move didnt change circumstances on the ground, the citys congresswoman now is pushing the idea in the other Washington.

Jayapal and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar announced their bill Friday, along with seven Democratic co-sponsors, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib.

The Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act would constitute a full payment forgiveness, with no accumulation of debt for renters or homeowners and no negative impact on their credit rating or rental history, a Jayapal news release said.

The payment cancellations would apply to primary residences and would be retroactive to cover April 2020 payments, according to a description of the plan shared by the co-sponsors.

The legislation also would establish a relief fund for landlords and mortgage holders to cover losses from the cancelled payments, the news release said. To qualify, landlords and lenders would need to agree to fair renting and lending practices for a period of five years, according to the plan.

Read the full story here.

Daniel Beekman

The first warning of the devastation that the coronavirus could wreak inside U.S. nursing homes came in late February, when residents of a facility in suburban Seattle perished, one by one, as families waited helplessly outside.

In the ensuing six weeks, large and shockingly lethal outbreaks have continued to ravage nursing homes across the nation, undeterred by urgent new safety requirements. Now a nationwide tally by The New York Times has found the number of people living in or connected to nursing homes who have died of the coronavirus to be at least 7,000, far higher than previously known.

In New Jersey, 17 bodies piled up in a nursing home morgue, and more than one-quarter of a Virginia homes residents have died. At least 24 people at a facility in Maryland have died; more than 100 residents and workers have been infected at another in Kansas; and people have died in centers for military veterans in Florida, Nevada, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington.

On Friday, New York officials for the first time disclosed the names of 72 long-term-care facilities that have had five or more deaths, including the Cobble Hill Health Center in Brooklyn, where 55 people have died. In New Jersey, officials revealed that infections have broken out in 394 long-term facilities almost two-thirds of the states homes and that more than 1,500 deaths were tied to nursing facilities.

Overall, about one-fifth of deaths from the virus in the United States have been tied to nursing homes or other long-term care facilities, the Times review of cases shows. And more than 36,000 residents and employees across the nation have contracted it.

Read the full story here.

The New York Times

President Donald Trump announced Friday a $19 billion bailout package for farmers hurt financially by the coronavirus crisis.

The aid plan includes $16 billion in direct payments to farmers to boost their incomes, along with $3 billion in government purchases of meat, dairy products and other foods, the president said Friday at a White House briefing. The Agriculture Department will receive another $14 billion in July for further assistance.

This will help our farmers and our ranchers, and its money well deserved, Trump said.

The combination of direct payments to farmers and bulk government purchases of commodities parallels the approach the Trump administration followed in its $28 billion agriculture trade bailout over the past two years. Farmers and rural communities are a critical part of Trumps political base as he seeks re-election.

Bloomberg

Two limited studies, one on humans and the other on monkeys, show thatan experimental antiviral drug that was used to treat Ebola may be effective for treating patients with severe cases of COVID-19.

The drug, remdesivir, was given to 53 patients with severe COVID-19 cases on a compassion-use basis and about two-thirds of them showed improvement.

The results are "promising," UC Davis Healths Stuart Cohen, who led the clinical investigation, told the Sacramento Bee.

It had a small number of enrolled patients and relatively short follow-up timeline, said Cohen, who is chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Internal Medicine. It didnt include a randomized control group and did not collect and compare amount of virus present before and after treatment with remdesivir and other clinical approaches.

A new, small study done in monkeys showed that the drug decreased how much the coronavirus damaged their lungs.

Two groups of rhesus macaques were infected withSARS-CoV-2. The group that was treated with remdesivir for seven days was healthier. The animals had smaller amounts of virus in their lungs, and their lungs had less damage than the untreated control group. The findings of that study have not been peer-reviewed.

Read more about the human trial here.

Anne Hillman

An investigation by the Office of the Corrections Ombuds has found Monroe Correctional Complex is unable to effectively impose social distancing and says inmates and staff are under tremendous stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ombuds office issued a report Friday, a week after visiting the Monroe prison to inspect conditions at the facility where 10 minimum-security inmates have tested positive for coronavirus.

The report found that despite efforts by the Department of Corrections (DOC) to impose social distancing, it is physically impossible in cramped hallways of housing units, around phones, in chow lines and other areas of the prison.

Both staff and incarcerated individuals asked for a release of individuals to create greater space and smaller cohorts of individuals, which would also reduce stress on staff, the report stated.

The tension over the virus outbreak helped spark the disturbance last week involving more than 100 inmates, which guards used pepper spray to quell.

Under an emergency order by Gov. Jay Inslee, the state is preparing to release more than 1,100 incarcerated people who are serving time for nonviolent offenses and who had been already scheduled for release in the coming months.

Read more from the original source:
Coronavirus daily news updates, April 17: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the nation - Seattle Times

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