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The City of Lynnwood is now the third-highest city in Washington state in coronavirus cases, according to a report from city staff at Monday’s Lynnwood City Council business meeting.
During the May 11 meeting, city spokesperson Julie Moore presented to the council the latest data from the Snohomish Health District regarding the number of confirmed and probable cases across the city and county. According to the data, Lynnwood ranked third in the state with 578 cases. The previous Monday, the city was in fourth. Seattle topped the list with 2,187 cases and Everett came in second with 859 cases.
The city ranked second in Snohomish County behind Everett for the number of cases, Moore added.
Based on the health district’s information, the percentage rate for the number of cases in Lynnwood outranked both cities. In Lynnwood, which has a population of 38,511 as of 2018, the percentage of confirmed or probable positive cases is 1.53%. Seattle (population 744,955) had a case rate of 0.29% and Everett (population 111,262) came in at 0.78%.
The city saw an increase after Pacifica Senior Living Lynnwood recently reported 15 new cases.
Three hotspots have been reported in Lynnwood, all senior living facilities. GenCare Scriber Gardens Lynnwood has reported 12 confirmed cases and two deaths, and Lynnwood Post-Acute Rehab now has 46 confirmed cases and five reported deaths. Moore said that the current number of cases are “holding steady” at both facilities.
The city’s total number of coronavirus-related deaths is 17. The county also reported almost half (46.2%) the coronavirus-related deaths in Lynnwood involved seniors 80 years or older.
However, Moore added that the city’s recovery rate is at 61%, or 357 recoveries.
Monday night’s update also included demographics regarding cases in the county, which showed people of color being disproportionately affected by the pandemic. In Snohomish County, Hispanics are the largest affected group.
“We all know that there are health disparities among our communities of color,” Moore said. “It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise our communities of color are also being more adversely affected by COVID-19.”
According to the Washington State Department of Health, Hispanics account for 13% of the state population. However, they make up 33% of cases in the state. Also, Black Washingtonians make up 4% of the population, but account for 7% of the state’s reported cases.
During the discussion, Councilmember Julieta Altamirano-Crosby — who has spent time during the pandemic working with communities of color — said she found the racial disparities concerning and suggested the city should improve community outreach efforts to those communities.
“COVID-19 shines a harsh light on racial disparities in our country, not only Lynnwood,” she said.
Lynnwood is also set to receive state funding through the federal CARES Act to cover expenses related to the pandemic. Last week, the Washington State Department of Commerce announced $300 million has been designated to aid local governments. The amount each government will receive is based on the city’s population. Moore said Lynnwood could receive up to $1.188 million in funding.
“Our city departments have been meticulously tracking all of their expenses related to COVID-19,” she said. “We’ve asked them to forecast what they expect they might spend through the end of the year so that we know how much of that will go towards city-response funding,”
Councilmember George Hurst suggested the council should use some of the funding to aid local businesses impacted by Gov. Jay Inslee’s stay-at-home order. Hurst said providing funding to local business owners would be allowable under the state requirements as an “expense of action to facilitate compliance with public health measures.”
Hurst said the city should “level the playing field” for local businesses that cannot compete with large corporate businesses that have remained open during the order.
“I know we’ve expressed interest in helping businesses in Lynnwood and it sounds like we could have some funds to be able to do that,” he said.
In other business, Public Works Director Bill Franz updated the council on the department’s efforts to remain operational during the pandemic while meeting health and safety standards.
While most of the department’s office staff has been working remotely, Franz said maintenance staff are still working and are using the time to make detailed repairs at the Lynnwood Recreation Center, Lynnwood Library and other city buildings.
The city is not canceling services for those who cannot pay their utility bill, and Franz said the department has also been advertising discounts, rebates and other available assistance. Accounts of businesses that were required to close are inactivated if no water is used during their billing period, Frantz said. So far, 15 businesses have been marked inactive, he added.
“We feel pretty good about that, at least as a starting measure to be able to help business,” he said.
The council also voted 6-1 — Councilmember Jim Smith opposed — to authorize the mayor to amend a contract between the city and the engineering firm Parametrix, which is providing permit review and inspection services during the Lynnwood Link light rail construction. The amendment increases the contract amount from $1 million to $2 million.
Prior to the vote, Smith proposed delaying the vote for two weeks to allow more time for the council to discuss the proposed amendment. Speaking to his decision to postpone the vote, Smith said he was uncomfortable with the city’s permitting process.
“The jump from $1 million to $2 million, I just didn’t feel comfortable with this,” he said.
The proposed delay was initially met with hesitation from fellow councilmembers, who were concerned that it could cause complications for city staff.
“I’m not comfortable putting (the vote) off, particularly if it could cause some problems,” said Council Vice President Shannon Sessions. “We could have asked more questions earlier on this.”
City Attorney Rosemary Larsen explained that the city will not be burdened by the cost of the contract with Parametrix.
“We have a contract with Parametrix, but then Sound Transit reimburses us for these costs through a contract we have with Sound Transit,” she said.
In other action, Smith made a motion to eliminate the city’s 6% water and sewer tax effective June 1. He also said he intended to make a motion to delay the vote on the proposal until the council’s May 26 business meeting to allow the council time to gather information.
Councilmember Ruth Ross suggested the motion be to delay the discussion until the council’s May 18 work session, which Smith agreed would work.
Following additional discussion, the council voted 4-2 — with Councilmembers Session and Ross voting against — to postpone the vote until the council’s May 26 business meeting.
Smith then moved for the council to discuss at its May 18 work session eliminating city special event application fees for businesses hosting special events for the remainder of 2020. Under his proposal, Smith said business would be restricted to no more than one special event every two months, with each event not to exceed five days and all businesses comply with safety regulations.
The motion was rejected 3-4, with Council President Christine Frizzell and Councilmembers Sessions, Hurst and Altamirano-Crosby voting against. Speaking to their decision, multiple councilmembers said they did not approve of the motion as it was presented. Councilmember Ross said she would like to expand on fee reductions or delays.
“I don’t know that special events is the only one I want to look at,” she said. “I might want to look at some others too.”
–By Cody Sexton
The more we test, the more we will find.
The recovery rate is vastly greater than 99%. We will never record the overwhelming majority of cases.
Folks history will record this as a latter-day superstitious hysteria.
There is at least some credible account that, during a reading by Orson Welles over the radio of “The War of the Worlds”, some people took it seriously and actually lept in fear from tall buildings.
That kind of thing is how we are responding to this. Even in Wuhan China for God’s sake, the cities mortality rate from this year and last year is no greater than in recent prior years.
Folks given that the recovery vastly exceeds 99%, it is given that those with the virus that do dye are dying more because of the other things that are wrong with them, like extreme old age, pneumonia, all of the other viruses that they also have, late-stage cancer, diabesity, COPD, etc.
And we are of course right now experiencing all-time record low deaths due to extreme old age, pneumonia, all of the other viruses that they also have, late-stage cancer, diabesity, COPD, etc.
Neal:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm — through the month of April there were more than 50,000 _excess_ deaths in the United States. Your information is dangerous and incorrect.
How do we determine excess deaths… they are an estimate, by its very nature the number can not be exact. We know that CDC in Oct predicted an extreme flu season and that death by suicide is up significantly for the year, how these are factored in we don’t know.
Much of the excess deaths number seems to be the reported Covid deaths, there are also quite a few “weighted” in the numbers (which is an experts adjustment factor to their algorithm). If as you say the study shows we have 50,000 additional deaths and its being reported that there are approaching 90,000 Covid deaths that would suggest we are over counting Covid and/or that many people that die of Covid were going to die anyway this year.
This has been backed up by the states that are doing full autopsies and case reviews instead of just reporting all probables. Alabama reduced numbers after reviewing cases, Colorado just removed hundreds from their numbers a couple of days ago. In fact I can’t find any state that has not reduced numbers when they started taking a closer look.
I highly recommend looking at the link I posted if you haven’t. ‘Excess’ deaths are determined by looking at the trends for deaths (annualized a bit since there’s a fair bit of seasonal variation; for instance, there are consistently more deaths in the winter), adding a bit of ‘buffer’ (by my rough estimate looking at the graphs, about 4%; probably 1-2 standard deviations), and then looking at whether the deaths exceed that by enough that it can’t just be explained by statistical variance within the data. To be fair, I probably should have said ‘more than 40,000 excess deaths’ since I was comparing to the’ raw’ expected number and not the buffered expected number that’s used as the threshold for excess, but I don’t really find that any less horrifying a number than 50,000. Also, keep in mind that what I said was _specifically_ for the month of April, a period during which the US recorded what looks like about 47,000 ‘official’ COVID-19 deaths, so the counts are pretty comparable to what you might expect. Again, I can’t recommend enough looking at the chart — understand just _what_ the CDC is measuring and what they’re measuring it against. These are not fictional people dying, and they’re not just ‘people dying that were going to die anyway’. This is a catastrophe of immense proportions, and we still have a long ways to go on it.
Steven what if it turns out in two years when we can get a better overall read on what happened that the Covid caused numbers are adjusted down and the effect of the shutdown numbers turn out to be in the 300,000 range?
Nobody is saying that Covid isn’t killing people but that the shutdown is not ONLY a positive that is saving lives and that a clearer consideration of that fact is in order.
You can’t just count all these excess deaths as Covid. How many are an increase in suicides, people not seeking health care, increased drug use, exacerbated hunger issues, etc because of the shutdown?
Say there was no Covid, if 100,000 people died of the Flu this year would it have made much news? Would anyone have contemplated the economic crisis measures we have undertaken? The same large number of people would be dead but what makes Covid different is the newness factor and that just months ago people were erroneously throwing around numbers in the millions.
At what point is what we are doing worse than what we are trying to protect from?
To quote Neal Beeman: “…it is given that those with the virus that do dye are dying more because of the other things that are wrong with them…” First, the science says you are wrong, Covid19 was what killed them, which they were less able to fight it off due to certain underlying conditions.
Secondly, so the virus can cause people to “dye” can it? Between this tell and your fake information, aren’t you late for a Trump rally somewhere?
What the h… are you talking about? You make no sense.
I missed the part in this article where the City of Lynnwood says they’re helping the Citizens who are of lowest income during this Pandemic. Take a look at the warm and fuzzy wording in the attachment that Mr Franz must mean as “help”. I wouldn’t sign this. Edmonds, I believe, has done more to help their lower income citizens. Even Tenino has cranked up the ‘ol wooden money making printer to give out to their neediest citizens. Has Lynnwood laid off a single employee or cutback hours? Tell us how they’ve tightened their belts. Is the Council only looking at financial ways to help businesses and not people? Take a moment and read what I’ve seen as their version of utility bill “help” in this link.
https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:5ef7bdaf-5b62-466e-9248-92d489171a2b
Char, you are correct. Action talks and you-know-what walks. By its actions, or lack thereof, the City Council as a whole has shown that the well-being of it’s citizens has never been its top priority, though there appears to be 1 or more individual exceptions within the Council.
As I mentioned in a different comment, the Edmonds City Council along with its mayor took the initiative to issue an emergency stay-at-home order probably close to 2 months ago, along with other directives. Lynnwood at the time had significantly MORE Covid cases despite having a SMALLER population, yet the Lynnwood City Council chose not to express any similar concern and took no similar action or initiative. The city merely posted on its website that it was complying with the governor’s orders, the main points of which it repeated. Well, I mean, realistically they had no choice.
Yes, this from the premier traffic camera surveillance city, which the city council always insisted was to enhance safety, not revenue. By inference, the Lynnwood City Council must be more health and safety-oriented than any other city council!
Little Lynnwood has the 3rd most Covid cases in the entire state, and last week we have the City Council writing a letter to Jay Inslee begging for an exception so businesses can reopen (for the PEOPLE, you see, not the sales tax revenue!).
Looking a positive cases alone can be a misleading stat. Lynnwood had a testing center going during that period of growth, that alone could account for finding more numbers than areas that are only testing upon a doctors request.
A better number to look at is hospitalizations, did they increase with the increase in positive tests? If not then you are likely only finding a higher percentage of the cases than you were before.
In fact it could be that there are actually less cases even though the number shows more because of the limits of the data from a lack of full testing through the time period. This is a downside of following specific data sets and why multiple factors need to be considered.
Char,
One of my motions was to eliminate the 6% tax on water/sewer bills…helping the lowest earners the most. Surprisingly, there was some push back on that. We’ll see how that goes at the next business meeting when it will be voted on.
Jim Smith
How have black people become the face of covid-19. Yes black people have health disparities and, so do every other community in America. Most black people are not dying from covid-19. They are dying from lack of testing and being turned away from emergency rooms, because people seem to think our life is not of value. Moore mention that lynnwood would receive 1,1888 million how much of that funding will go toward helping black people with health disparities?
Jim Smith, thanks for that. Push back harder please. What was the reason from those elected council members to not want to try to do what they can to help the lowest income citizens of Lynnwood? Do they lack empathy? Is city employees keeping their jobs, income, insurance, perks, more important than those who are hurting the most? If city council members have the ability to help the lowest income earners, especially now, it’s unfathomable to me why they wouldn’t want to do everything in their power to do what they can. Ease the burden of lack of food that is continuing to increase substantially in price, lessen their utility costs for awhile (without the rediculous clause) and offer monetary assistance now – not put off voting till a comfort level is reached. If council members are seemingly selfishly looking out to keep city employees afloat first, put businesses before individuals, they’re not seeing the current big picture and need to refocus.
Check out MedCram YouTube videos on Covid-19 update. They discusses the issue of racial disparities in contracting and succumbing to the disease. It appears to be a genetic disposition to the endothelial attack this disease causes.
I have gotten most of my scientific and unbiased information from this organization. It even talks about potential therapeutic treatments as we begin to understand this disease.