Alert date January 22, 2021

CLICK HERE TO OPEN RELATED DOCUMENT

Covid 19 Related Resource

Contact: URGENT! ALWAYS MASK UP (EVEN WHEN OUTSIDE) – WASH YOUR HANDS – SOCIAL DISTANCE -SANITIZE

SEATTLE — King County’s health officer is urging a renewed community effort to tamp down coronavirus transmission to help limit the potentially devastating effects of variant strains spreading elsewhere, which appear to be more infectious.

Dr. Jeff Duchin hosted his weekly coronavirus briefing Friday afternoon, which included some good news on recent declines in case counts, hospitalizations and deaths in the state’s most populous county.

However, Duchin warned against complacency, as vaccine supply continues to be inadequate and concerns that the variant strain could be detected locally “any day now.”

“We are used to living with real volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest, and right now we’re also living in the shadow of a COVID-19 volcano,” Duchin said.

“We need to expect the coronavirus equivalent of a Mount St. Helens-like eruption sometime in the next few months. That’s because a more transmissible strain can cause a viral eruption in infections, hospitalizations and deaths that can overwhelm our hospitals.”

Despite the looming threat of a more infectious outbreak, Duchin said, it can be defeated using the same proven public health defenses that have been encouraged for months.

“This virus has been working out; it’s gotten faster and more fit,” Duchin said. “We need to fight smarter and harder to beat it, but we can and must beat it down.”