Coronavirus daily news updates, May 19: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the nation

Stag Barber & Styling in Snohomish has been open since May 1, and owner Bob Martin believes he has a right to defy Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s order to remain closed, in part because he served his country.

“I served several years in the Marine Corps and I’m not going to put up with this crap,” Martin told The (Everett) Herald, by way of explanation. (Martin would not speak to reporters on Tuesday.)

Martin is following the lead of Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney, who last month said he would not enforce Inslee’s stay-home order during the coronavirus pandemic, calling the order unconstitutional and damaging to the economy, and to families. Two recall petitions against Fortney have been filed in the time since.

Last Friday, the Washington State Department of Licensing suspended Martin’s cosmetology operator license, which is valid through June 2021, and served him with a cease-and-desist order for doing business without a salon shop license.

Read the full story here.

Food waste is taking on a new meaning in the pandemic era.

Rather than being thrown out by consumers as kitchen waste, an unprecedented amount of food is getting dumped even before making it into grocery stores.

Blame broken supply chains. Across the globe, production is handled through what’s known as just-in-time methods. Output from farms can be shuttled into stores or restaurants within just a few days, and the next batch of crops and livestock is ready to take its place immediately.

When those chains face challenges — as has been the case with trucking, ports, labor crunches, restaurant shutdowns and slowed trade — there’s a huge backlog of supply that never makes it to stores.

That will likely have devastating consequences on food security.

OLYMPIA — Gov. Jay Inslee Tuesday announced expanded criteria that can allow more Washington counties to reopen more quickly under his four-part coronavirus recovery plan.

That expansion will allow 10 more of Washington’s 39 counties to potentially begin reopening more quickly. It could greatly expand the number of Washington businesses able to resume operations quickly with special safety guidelines intended to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Those businesses — which range from hair salons, restaurants and retail stores, to personal and professional services — have been restricted or shuttered since Inslee’s stay-at-home order went into effect March 23.

The criteria announced Tuesday allows counties with fewer than 10 new cases per 100,000 residents across a 14-day period to apply with the state Department of Health (DOH) to reopen more quickly.

Under that criteria, the new counties now eligible to apply with DOH include: Adams, Spokane, Mason, Thurston, Lewis, Clark, Clallam, Kitsap, Island and San Juan counties.

Read the full story here.

This summer, all Seattle Public Schools students will be able take courses online, Superintendent Denise Juneau announced via Facebook Live on Tuesday.

From July 6 to Aug. 7, the district will continue offering courses online that serve elementary, middle and high school students. Registration opens next week.

The announcement comes as many parents feel anxious about the learning time their children have lost as the district shifted to an online learning model.

Students in first through fifth grades will have access to 25 lessons in social skills, math and language arts. They will also have weekly class meetings. School libraries will also distribute books to younger students.

Middle and high school students will get access to 20 lessons in language arts, math or both. Older students can still work on credit retrieval, which is traditionally offered in the summer.

Read the full story here.

With schools closed and many a parent thrust into the difficult role of managing a job, a household and a child’s education, here’s one unexpected bit of positive news to emerge from the coronavirus outbreak: Video games are good for your brain. Well, some games, at least.

Minecraft, the Microsoft-owned game known for its user-driven content, creative use of blocks and monsters that come out at night, has been at the forefront of mainstream games that utilize educational content.

The studio’s Minecraft: Education Edition has for the last few years played host to virtual curricula that have allowed students to visit and learn about global monuments, sharpen math skills, understand coding or take puzzle-filled explorations to places as varied as the human body or a NASA-approved jaunt into the International Space Station.

Microsoft reports that there have been more than 50 million downloads globally of educational content since it was made available for free March 24. It’s further evidence that virtual worlds are not just places to play or escape but vessels to learning, connecting or even taking part in digital events.

Lucy Li tries not to let fear dictate her interactions with patients as she makes the rounds in the COVID-19 intensive care unit. But the anesthesiology resident at Massachusetts General Hospital cannot erase the memory of what happened after work at the start of the pandemic.

A man followed the Chinese American doctor from the Boston hospital, spewing a profanity-laced racist tirade as she walked to the subway. “Why are you Chinese people killing everyone?” Li recalled the man shouting. “What is wrong with you? Why the f— are you killing us?”

Stunned at first, then relieved she was not physically attacked, Li is now saddened and angered by the irony that she spends her days and nights helping save lives. Her work inserting tubes in patients’ airways has grown riskier since the coronavirus emerged – each procedure releasing droplets and secretions that could carry viral particles.

“I’m risking my own personal health, and then to be vilified just because of what I look like,” said Li, 28, wary that one of her patients, too, could harbor such prejudices. “I try not to think about that possibility when I’m at work taking care of patients. But it’s always there, at the very back of my mind.”

Across the country, Asian American health care workers have reported a rise in bigoted incidents. The racial hostility has left Asian Americans, who represent 6% of the U.S. population but 18% of the country’s physicians and 10% of its nurse practitioners, in a painful position on the front lines of the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Read the full story here.

State health officials confirmed 200 new COVID-19 cases in Washington on Tuesday, including 29 more deaths.

The recent update brings the state's totals to 18,811 confirmed cases and 1,031 deaths.

So far, 293,120 tests for the novel coronavirus have been conducted in Washington, according to the state. Of those, 6.4% have come back positive.

King County, the state's most populous, has had 7,565 positive test results and 534 deaths (six of which were confirmed today), accounting for about 51.8% half of the state's death toll.

The city of Seattle has launched an “online marketplace” to connect local manufacturers of cloth face coverings with buyers in the area.

The new web portal, called Seattle Protects, features companies that have agreed to manufacture face coverings in accordance with the city’s specifications.

Some of the companies featured on the site are selling masks in bulk for $5 to $7 each. Others are selling individual masks at higher prices.

Public Health - Seattle & King County has directed all King County residents to wear cloth face coverings in public settings where physical distancing may be difficult, including supermarkets.

Seattle Protects also features links to organizations that are accepting donated face coverings.

The marketplace was modeled on a similar portal previously launched by the city of Los Angeles, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said Tuesday.

Information about King County’s face coverings policy is available at kingcounty.gov/masks.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has signed a bill that will require landlords to offer payment plans to residential tenants after the coronavirus emergency.

The bill says tenants who fail to pay their rent during the period of the city’s declared emergency and during the six months after the emergency is terminated will have the right to pay their debts in installments.

The City Council passed the bill on May 11. Because it was emergency legislation, it also needed Durkan’s approval. She signed the bill Friday.

Read more here.

The Kaas Tailored furniture factory in Mukilteo, which rapidly converted to making surgical masks and shields in March, now has surplus personal protective equipment (PPE) to sell.

The family-owned business has been supplying Providence Medical Group, which turned out to need far fewer than the 10 million units forecast, said Jeff Kaas, co-owner of the firm. For now, Kaas is focused on making gowns for Providence, he said Tuesday.

Online offers include $90 per case of 24 face shields, $495 for 300 disposable masks, or $500 for 100 cloth washable face covers.

PPE shortages and price wars flared around the country this spring. The N95 anti-viral masks (which Kaas doesn’t make) remain scarce and delayed by red tape in Washington state, a Seattle Times watchdog report found.

Kaas said his firm can make a half-million surgical masks per week, and he's prepared to stay in the PPE business for one year.

“Offshore producers, I honestly believe they’re going to satisfy demand, and we won’t be needed,” he predicted.

The state Attorney General’s Office has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education over the distribution of aid to college students provided through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief & Economic Security (CARES) Act.

The Education Department has said the money can be distributed only to those in receipt of federal financial aid, according to a news release from state Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office, which is arguing that Congress did not specify that requirement for these funds, that the Education Department has overstepped its authority and that it did not follow proper administrative procedure.

The restrictions on distribution of CARES Act funding would exclude students without a high-school degree, adult basic-education students and students who have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) status, among others. There are 17,000 students in the state with DACA status, the news release said.

Food Lifeline will be passing out thousands of emergency food boxes this week at Northgate Mall, the North Bend Outlet Mall and Bellevue College, as well Food Lifeline locations.

Each box will contain 22-25 lbs of shelf-stable food items like canned fruits and vegetables, canned meats, non-meat protein items, and bread and grains as well as some longer-lasting fresh produce.

The walk-up and drive-up no contact dispersal of the food, will occur at the following locations and times:

• Tuesday, May 19^th,  11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. in the south parking lot of the Northgate Mall, 401 Northeast Northgate Way, Seattle.
• Wednesday, May 20th,  2 - 5 p.m.  at Food Lifeline, 815 South 96th Street, Seattle.
• Thursday, May 21^th,  11 a.m. - 3 p.m. at the North Bend Outlets, 461 South Fork Avenue S.W., North Bend.
• Friday, May 22, 2 - 5 p.m. through the main entrance off 148th Street of Bellevue College, 3000 Landerholm Circle S.E. Bellevue.
• Friday, May 22, 2 - 5 p.m. at Food Lifeline, 815 South 96th Street, Seattle.
• Food Lifeline said this is a confidential distribution, so there will be no paperwork or qualifications and anyone can have a box. Food Lifeline will ask for the zip codes of those taking a box, but this is only to track its own work, the organization said in a blog post on its website."Food Lifeline encourages everyone to take home this nutritious food. We are all struggling during this crisis, and no one should hesitate to accept this help," Food Lifeline said.

An employee at the Washington Veterans Home in Port Orchard has been diagnosed with COVID-19, according to the state Department of Veterans Affairs.

It’s the first case reported at the Veterans Home, according to the agency, and no residents have so far tested positive. The worker is now isolated at home.

In response, the Veterans Home, formerly known as Retsil, will be conducting extra surveillance – like checks for temperature and other symptoms every four hours – over the next two weeks for residents in the affected units. Additional cleaning and safety measures are being taken, and residents and staff in the affected areas will be retested for the virus.

The new case comes as the agency has confronted an outbreak at the Spokane Veterans Home. There, 46 residents have tested positive for COVID-19 and 10 have died, according to the agency.

More COVID-19 information from the Department of Veterans Affairs can be found here.

Therese Kelly arrived for her shift at an Amazon warehouse in Pennsylvania on March 27 to find her co-workers standing clustered in the cavernous space. They were awaiting a buildingwide announcement, a rarity at the complex known as AVP1. Over a loudspeaker, a manager told them what they had feared: For the first time, an employee had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Some of the workers cut short their shifts and went home. Kelly, 63, got to work, one of the hundreds of thousands of Amazon employees dealing with the spike in online orders from millions of Americans quarantined at home.

In the less than two months since then, the warehouse in the foothills of the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania has become Amazon’s biggest COVID-19 hot spot. More employees at AVP1 have been infected by the coronavirus than at any of Amazon’s roughly 500 other facilities in the United States.

Local lawmakers believe that more than 100 workers have contracted the disease, but the exact number is unknown. At first, Amazon told workers about each new case. But when the total reached about 60, the announcements stopped giving specific numbers.

The disclosures also stopped at other Amazon warehouses. The best estimate is that more than 900 of the company’s 400,000 blue-collar workers have had the disease. But that number, crowdsourced by Jana Jumpp, an Amazon worker, almost certainly understates the spread of the illness among Amazon’s employees.

Amazon saw the pandemic up close before many American companies. In early February, it fretted about its global supply chain and consulted an infectious-disease specialist. Based in Seattle, an early epicenter of the outbreak, the company told its 50,000 employees there to work from home starting March 5.

Read the story here.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt will return to sea later this week, nearly two months after the ship was sidelined in Guam with a rapidly growing coronavirus outbreak, U.S. officials said as the crew finished final preparations to depart.

In an interview from the aircraft carrier, Navy Capt. Carlos Sardiello said Monday the ship will sail with a scaled-back crew of about 3,000, leaving about 1,800 sailors on shore who are still in quarantine. Those include up to 14 sailors who recently tested positive again, just days after getting cleared to return to the carrier. The puzzling COVID-19 reappearance in the sailors adds to the difficulty in getting the ship’s crew healthy again, and fuels questions about the quality of the testing and just how long sailors may remain infected or contagious.

Sardiello would not discuss timelines or planned operations. But other U.S. officials said the ship is expected to leave in the next few days, and if all goes well it will conduct naval operations in the Pacific region for some period of time before heading home to San Diego. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.

Asked about the possibility the ship will be able to conduct missions after its two-month layoff in Guam, Sardiello expressed confidence. “Do I have a crystal ball? I do not. But I think we have set the conditions for a high probability of success, and we’re going to go to sea and do our mission,” he said.

Read the whole story here.

President Donald Trump is heading to Capitol Hill for lunch Tuesday with Senate Republicans as Washington considers next steps in the coronavirus response.

That’s according to a person unauthorized to discuss the president’s schedule and granted anonymity.

The administration is launching a full day of appearances on Capitol Hill as the White House and Congress consider another pandemic aid package.

Read more here.

Holy Communion will have a different look when in-person worship services resume at the end of May in the Catholic Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee: The wafers signifying the body of Christ will be placed in the hands of parishioners by priests and deacons wearing face masks and safety glasses.

Similarly striking changes in Communion will take place at Catholic and Protestant churches across the United States over coming weeks as restrictions on large gatherings –- imposed because of the coronavirus outbreak –- are gradually eased.

Many churches that formerly encouraged churchgoers to drink wine from a communal cup will halt that practice, at least temporarily. In some cases, clergy will be instructed to use hand sanitizer before commencing with the sacrament.

The Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., Mariann Budde, said she and about 60 of her fellow bishops will meet Wednesday to discuss possible adjustments to Communion and other worship.

“I do think new practices emerge from crises like this,” she said. “They come from communities experimenting, pushing the boundaries. You don’t know how that process will turn out.”

Read the story here.

Annie Glenn, the widow of astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn and a communication disorders advocate, died Tuesday of complications from COVID-19. She was 100.

Glenn died at a nursing home near St. Paul, Minnesota, said Hank Wilson, a spokesman for the Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University.

At the time of John Glenn’s death in 2016, the two had been married 73 years. She later moved from Columbus, Ohio, to live near her daughter, Lyn, according to Wilson.

Annie Glenn was thrust into the spotlight in 1962, when her husband became the first American to orbit Earth. She shied away from the media attention because of a severe stutter.

Later, she underwent an intensive program at the Communications Research Institute at Hollins College, now Hollins University, in Roanoke, Virginia, that gave her the skills to control her stutter and to speak in public.

Her career in advocacy for those with communication disorders included service on the advisory boards of numerous child abuse and speech and hearing organizations. The Annie Glenn Award was created to honor individuals who overcome a communication disorder.

Read the story here.

Canada and the United States have agreed to extend their agreement to keep border closed to non-essential travel to June 21 during the coronavirus pandemic.

A senior Canadian official confirmed the extension of the agreement, which had been set to expire this week. The official spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to speak publicly ahead of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement.

The two governments announced a 30-day extension of the restrictions last month.

President Donald Trump has said that the U.S. and Canada are doing well in handling the pandemic, but many Canadians fear a reopening. The U.S. has more confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19 than any country in the world, though its per capita numbers are well below many other nations'.

Diners in a Maryland beach town are bouncing back into eating out amid the coronavirus pandemic with a little help from inflatable inner tubes on wheels.

About a dozen of the so-called “bumper tables” were rolled out at Fish Tales, a restaurant in Ocean City, Maryland, on Saturday, news outlets reported. The inflated tube tables were created by Baltimore-based company Revolution Event Design & Production to allow people to practice social distancing while eating and talking in outdoor settings.

The devices feature a hole in the middle to accommodate people around 4 to 6 feet (1 to 2 meters) tall. Participants get a little spring in their step with wheels attached to the bottom for moving around — all while maintaining a 6-foot (2-meter) distance from each other.

“We wanted to come up with a creative and fun way to keep everyone safe and compliant, but still bring back the social and festive and party aspect of the event,” Erin Cermak, the CEO of Revolution Event Design & Production, told the Baltimore Sun.

Shawn Harman, the owner of Fish Tales, said he and his wife have purchased 10 bumper tables from Cermak’s company. Harman said he plans to order 40 more tables so customers can enjoy their food and remain distanced while dining in the restaurant’s parking lot.

Read the story here.

The Washington state attorney general has filed consumer protection lawsuits against two gyms, one in Puyallup and one in Arlington, that have remained open despite the state’s stay-home directive.

The suits, filed in Pierce and Snohomish counties on Monday, argue that by flouting the governor’s orders, the gyms are endangering lives and gaining an unfair advantage over competitors that closed, Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement early Tuesday.

The business owners —Michael J. Baker and Shane D. Cowhig of Fitness 101 Team Puyallup, more commonly known as Northwest Fitness Co., and Michael and Richard Jellison of Power Alley Fitness, more commonly known as PA Fitness, in Arlington — received multiple warnings that remaining open threatens public health, the statement said.

On Friday, both sets of owners received cease-and-desist letters as final warnings to stop operating within 48 hours or face a lawsuit.

In addition to the health concerns, the AG’s office accuses the gyms of violating the Consumer Protection Act by gaining an unfair advantage over competitors who are complying with the state’s order to close.

Ferguson’s letter informs both businesses that if they don’t close within 24 hours, the state will seek monetary penalties as well as the costs and fees of bringing the legal actions. A court can impose penalties of up to $2,000 per violation of the Consumer Protection Act.

Read more here.

The pandemic "could be a game changer" in the long debate over whether to switch to a yearlong school calendar. Some education leaders and parents say that after the extended loss of classroom learning, a switch could help kids catch up — and change schooling for the better. Here are the factors in play.

Kelso City Council will consider a proclamation instructing police and officials not to enforce Gov. Jay Inslee’s stay-home order at its meeting Tuesday evening.

The proclamation submitted by Councilman Keenan Harvey states that the stay-home order is unclear about which businesses are allowed to operate and when the order will end. And it says the order fails to address county-by-county population differences “while inflicting major economic losses daily.”

“Kelso City employees are not employed by the Governor of the state, thus making the decision to enforce Governor Inslee’s orders a decision of the City Council regardless of the outcome of the Lawsuits determining constitutionality. Businesses wishing to open and operate shall do so using responsible social distancing policies and procedures without fear of retribution or investigation from the City of Kelso,” the proclamation states.

On his Facebook page, Harvey said he doesn’t believe the proclamation conflicts with Inslee’s orders because it isn’t asking businesses to open.

“The proclamation is simply utilizing the cities (sic) discretion to not enforce the orders which would remove ourselves from liability concerns,” he wrote. “My opinion is that if the state isn’t going to make the Stay Home, Stay Healthy order clear and concise, then the state should be responsible for the enforcement.”

Read the story here.

Need a good escape read? Here’s the comedic novel Moira’s Book Club will be reading next.

Memorial Day is almost here, and our favorite teen chef is sharing her cookout recipes for peach Caprese salad and French potato salad.

Did you know you can make ice cream in a Mason jar? It's not hard to blend in some fancy tastes, perhaps to pair with the chewy almond cookies in a new, home-cook-friendly baking book.

Ice cream and cookies aside, can the pandemic's cooking renaissance change our lives in a healthy, lasting way? Nutritionist Carrie Dennett looks at what this experience can teach us.

Strikes continued at six Yakima Valley fruit-packing houses Monday, though not without some pushback.

Hansen Fruit workers had to relocate after the company prohibited activity at a previous site, said Edgar Franks, political director at Familias Unidas por la Justicia, a farmworkers union based in Skagit County. Workers moved to an area in front of the plant.

Workers are seeking, among several things, more assurances that officials are following social distancing and cleaning procedures, and hazard pay.

The union has been in the Yakima Valley since May 8 to assist workers in strikes, which started last week. However, the union and other groups supporting the strikes said workers at individual plants are leading the strikes. The plants do not have unions.

Read more here.

The pandemic and the stay-home orders have dramatically changed just about every aspect of life, from homelessness to air pollution to the way we work. As the country begins to emerge from lockdown, will any of the changes stick around? What decisions are we making now that could reverberate for decades? Here are the big questions local and national experts are wrestling with.

Dentists and doctors can reopen immediately if they can meet the new safety guidelines Gov. Jay Inslee laid out yesterday. This is making some workers awfully nervous, though. Here's what to expect if you visit a dentist. Hair and nail salons may not be far behind, and Seattle Sketcher captured how one barbershop is getting ready for a new era.

The first coronavirus vaccine tested in humans is showing promising early results. But only eight people have been tested, and trials must be scaled far up to see if Moderna's vaccine can work in the real world. This is on a fast track.

UW Medicine is furloughing 1,500 staffers, and that's likely just the start as the health system at the forefront of the world's coronavirus battle faces a $500 million budget hole.

President Donald Trump says he's taking the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to protect against the novel coronavirus, despite government warnings about potentially fatal side effects. Here's what to know about it.

How the pandemic changed Seattle-area traffic: Interactive images show intriguing shifts in traffic patterns amid the stay-home order.

A Washington correctional officer has died of COVID-19. Berisford Anthony Morse, 65, worked at the Monroe Correctional Complex’s minimum security unit, where 14 inmates have tested positive.

In a worst-case scenario, UW and WSU will "fight like hell" to save their athletic departments and sports programs. Their athletic directors are talking about what may lie ahead and the options for staying afloat.

Bus and train fares are coming back. Here's what local transit systems will charge, and when, as stay-home restrictions ease.

Oregon has a bad case of whiplash over stay-home orders, which were thrown out yesterday and then reinstated — for now. Here's where things stand.

America’s first concert in months rocked an Arkansas stage last night, marked by "fan pods," thermometers and bathroom monitors.

Speaking of bathrooms, the need to go is a big barrier to going out. Customers and businesses are agonizing over "the restroom problem," and psychologists are offering advice on finding your comfort level when it comes to going back out in the world.