I joined a call yesterday with the Governor and other legislators to receive updates on the COVID19 response. You can join the Governor’s press conference which will be live streamed on Thursday, April 23 at 11am for more updates.
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The Department of Labor (IDOL) is still working hard to meet the call volume and has devoted the hours of 4:00pm - 6:00pm to just returning calls to citizens and trying to answer questions and connect people to resources. So, if you have left a message, be ready to pick up the phone during the hours of 4:00pm - 6:00pm.
Unemployment Insurance COVID-19 FAQs are updated daily. Go here to get a lot of questions answered. This is a great resource!
The CARES Act significantly expands the unemployment insurance program with the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program (PUA) — $600 additional compensation, extensions and assistance for self-employed individuals are all coming. There have been a lot of questions about this about when checks will be issued. IDOL has been working hard to upgrade their computer systems to be able to accommodate the new eligibility guidelines and is doing a test of the system today. They are hopeful that checks may start going out late this week.
- A Glitch to Watch For: people who don’t qualify for regular unemployment insurance and are applying for the PUA, may experience longer time periods in getting relief due to the complexity of the systems and eligibility requirements. They are working through these, but go ahead and apply and disregard any messages back until they can get the system up and running.
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The Department of Health and Welfare and the Public Health Districts have been working hard to get us the best possible information in this crisis. You can review updated data about cases and tracking on DHW’s website. The data on this site includes confirmed lab cases as well as probable cases and showing the date of onset, which is more accurate on an epidemiological level.
 Remember this is a highly contagious virus; since there is no vaccine yet, it is essential to follow the CDC guidelines such as social distancing, hand-washing, and wearing masks in public to keep you and others safe.
The Health Working group is staying focused on making recommendations based on science; Dr. Christine Hahn, the state epidemiologist, is in constant contact with infectious disease doctors throughout the state and maintains contact with hospitals to keep communication and information flowing.
As this working group makes recommendations, the top three considerations are 1) hospital capacity, 2) testing, and 3) contract tracing.
Hospital capacity - Currently, bed space is not a constraint and we are still doing well in this area; DHW will publish bed capacity numbers next week. The biggest concern is still in protecting health care workers and staff, since PPE is hard to come by. Over 200 health workers have been infected and PPE is essential for these workers. The Department of Emergency Management is working hard to procure PPE for our state, but there are still many challenges in the supply chain and it is very hard to get all the supplies we need. On the call today, General Brad Richey emphasized once again to visit the Governor’s Website and learn how you and business can help in this crisis.
Testing - We need a robust system of testing. The state lab is maxed out, but the good news is that hospitals and businesses are increasing their capacities to help out. We are starting to turn the corner with increased testing supplies which is what we need. DHW is creating a testing task force with clinical experts, state lab, and public health districts that will help us with charting the course of testing moving forward to ensure public health and safety standards.
Some good news:
- St Luke’s has a high volume testing machine that will add 3,500 tests per week in the state; this allows them to run a test in 4 hours and relieves pressure on the state lab and creates more capacity
- The VA lab has the same high volume machine and they are going to become operational this week and could add 300 - 400 tests per day to help in the state.
- Rite aid has just opened drive up testing - I got a text today!
- Crush the Curve has been increasing capacity and have been able to work with Univ of. Washington’s labs
- Antibody testing using CDC guidance is increasing, but it is not useful for determining if someone is currently contagious. These tests are experimental and reliability is somewhat questionable; it’s best to use this test for surveillance and larger population questions as we move forward.
Looking forward, we should be watching surveillance data and epidemiological data around cases and the trajectory over the last 14 days. If the percentage of positive cases goes down then that is good news. They also do contract tracing, where they trace and monitor contacts of infected people, notify them of their exposure, and support quarantine of contacts to prevent the spread of transmissions. This is a practice they have always done with other infectious diseases and viruses.
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Primary Election - Check if your request for a ballot was received
If you have already requested your absentee ballot but haven’t received it yet, you can check this website to see if the county received your request. Due to the large volume of requests, some counties are a little behind in getting ballots in the mail, but they should be coming.
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