17August 2020
Throughout Monday, on this page, we’ll be posting Seattle Times journalists’ updates on the outbreak and its effects on the Seattle area, the Pacific Northwest and the world. Updates from Sunday can be found here, and all our coronavirus coverage can be found here.
A state agency in Iowa says it is working to fix a data error on its coronavirus website that lowers the number of new confirmed cases and therefore downplays the severity of the current outbreak, just as schools are deciding whether to reopen.
The glitch means the Iowa Department of Public Health has inadvertently been reporting fewer new infections and a smaller percentage of daily positive tests than is truly the case, according to Dana Jones, an Iowa City nurse practitioner who uncovered the problem.
It’s particularly significant because school districts are relying on state data to determine whether they will offer in-person instruction when school resumes in the coming days and weeks.
Potentially thousands of coronavirus infections from recent weeks and months have instead been erroneously recorded as having happened in March, April, May and June, Jones said Monday.
“It’s just horrifying. We have no idea what’s going on, really,” said Jones.
Virus clusters erupt at U.S. universities as semester begins
From the dorms at North Carolina to the halls of Notre Dame, officials at universities around the U.S. scrambled Monday to deal with COVID-19 clusters at the start of the fall semester, some of them linked to off-campus parties and packed clubs.
At Oklahoma State in Stillwater, where a widely circulated video over the weekend showed maskless students packed into a nightclub, officials confirmed 23 coronavirus cases at an off-campus sorority house. The university placed the students living there in isolation and prohibited them from leaving.
“As a student, I’m frustrated as hell,” said Ryan Novozinsky, a junior from Allentown, New Jersey, and editor of the student newspaper. “These are people I have to interact with.” And, he added, “there will be professors they interact with, starting today, that won’t be able to fight this off.”
OSU has a combination of in-person and online courses, and students, staff and faculty are required to wear masks indoors and outdoors where social distancing isn’t possible.
South Korea pastor tests positive amid virus spike at church
A conservative South Korean pastor who has been a bitter critic of the country’s president has tested positive for the coronavirus, health authorities said Monday, two days after he participated in an anti-government protest in Seoul that drew thousands.
More than 300 virus cases have been linked to the Rev. Jun Kwang-hun’s huge church in northern Seoul, which has emerged as a major cluster of infections amid growing fears of a massive outbreak in the greater capital region.
Officials are concerned that the virus’s spread could worsen after thousands of demonstrators, including Jun and members of his Sarang Jeil Church, marched in downtown Seoul on Saturday despite pleas from officials to stay home.
When the coronavirus emerged in the U.S. this year, public health officials and advocates for the homeless feared the virus would rip through shelters and tent encampments, ravaging vulnerable people who often have chronic health issues.
They scrambled to move people into hotel rooms, thinned out crowded shelters and moved tents into designated spots at sanctioned outdoor camps.
While shelters saw some large COVID-19 outbreaks, the virus so far doesn’t appear to have brought devastation to the homeless population as many feared. However, researchers and advocates say much is unknown about how the pandemic is affecting the estimated half-million people without housing in the U.S.
In a country that’s surpassed 5 million identified cases and 169,000 deaths, researchers don’t know why there appear to be so few outbreaks among the homeless.
“I am shocked, I guess I can say, because it’s a very vulnerable population. I don’t know what we’re going to see in an aftermath,” said a San Francisco public health official.
New Zealand delays election after virus outbreak in Auckland
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has delayed New Zealand’s elections by four weeks due to the coronavirus outbreak in Auckland.
The election had been scheduled for Sept. 19 but will now be held on Oct. 17. Opposition parties had sought a delay after the virus outbreak prompted the government last week to put Auckland under a two-week lockdown and halted election campaigning.
Before the latest outbreak, New Zealand had gone 102 days without any known community transmission of the virus, and life had returned to normal for most people, with restaurants and schools open and sports fans back in stadiums.
Officials believe the virus was reintroduced to New Zealand from abroad but haven’t yet determined how.
U.S. virus money is slow to reach local public health departments
As the novel coronavirus began to spread through Minneapolis this spring, Health Commissioner Gretchen Musicant tore up her budget to find funds to combat the crisis. Money for test kits. Money to administer tests. Money to hire contact tracers. And yet even more money for a service that helps tracers communicate with residents in dozens of languages.
While Musicant diverted workers from violence prevention and other core programs to the COVID-19 response, state officials debated how to distribute $1.87 billion Minnesota received in federal aid.
As she waited, the Minnesota Zoo got $6 million in federal money to continue operations, and a debt collection company outside Minneapolis received at least $5 million from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, according to federal data.
It was not until Aug. 5 — months after Congress approved aid for the pandemic — that Musicant’s department finally received $1.7 million, the equivalent of $4 per Minneapolis resident.
“It’s more a hope and a prayer that we’ll have enough money,” Musicant said.
Since the pandemic began, Congress has set aside trillions of dollars to ease the crisis. A joint Kaiser Health News and Associated Press investigation finds that many communities with big outbreaks have spent little of that federal money on local public health departments for work such as testing and contact tracing. Others, like in Minnesota, were slow to do so.
Why did the Minneapolis health department have to wait so long for CARES Act money?
‘We didn’t want to hide under our PPE until this was over’
Seattle firefighters are trained to deal calmly with life-or-death situations, and that’s taken on new meaning as they staff free COVID-19 testing sites.
“Every person who shows up is very nervous,” says firefighter and paramedic Alan Goto, above. Watch him and his colleagues at work.
Need a test? Here’s where to get one. You can also find a site near you by texting COVIDTEST to 1-855-212-2411.
Catch up on the past 24 hours
Health experts are fearing a “twindemic” with a severe flu season if large numbers of people skip flu shots. You’ll be hearing warnings about getting the vaccine as soon as possible, perhaps in an empty school building or a parking lot.
It’s a wildly challenging time to be a parent as kids head back to school at home. Here’s our survival guide, with advice from experts on how to help your children — and yourself. As Seattle-area districts lay out what this complicated fall will look like, schools are wondering whether kindergartners will even show up. And with some parents pooling their money for private instruction, columnist Naomi Ishisaka writes, Seattle-area families are wrestling with concerns over who might be left behind.
One of the nation’s largest school districts is launching a massive COVID-19 testing and tracing initiative for all students and staff, aiming to create a path to safe reopenings.
Across the nation, college students are horrifying communities with their lack of virus precautions. As Gonzaga and Whitworth universities welcome students back on campus, Spokane County’s worried public health leader has warnings for them. It’s a drastically different approach from many other universities in Washington.
You need to get through airport security faster, because “airports are major hubs for pandemic viral spreading.” Travel Troubleshooter has tips and strategies.
Source: seattletimes.com