King County and Seattle see a massive surge in COVID cases

King County and Seattle are seeing massive increases in COVID cases

Public health officials for Seattle and King County announced Thursday that they are seeing a massive spike in COVID cases, largely due to the Delta variant.

SEATTLE – Public health officials for Seattle and King County announced Thursday that they are seeing a massive spike in COVID-19 cases, largely due to the Delta variant.

In the past week, reports, according to Dr. Jeff Duchin of Public Health Seattle and King County’s average 344 new COVID-19 cases per day. Duchin said those numbers are almost double the previous week’s cases.

Duchin explained that most of these cases occur in unvaccinated people and the best way to protect yourself from serious illness is to get vaccinated.

Evidence that you are vaccinated is a trend that some business owners are adopting.

“If you’d like to interact with our employees, you’ll need to provide proof of vaccination. Period. Outside {seat}, inside {seat}; protecting these people is my top priority,” said Tommy Pappas, owner and manager of The Hotel Albatross in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood.

The pandemic has paralyzed its business for seven months – now that the hotel has reopened, Pappas wants to do everything possible to prevent this from happening again.

“We just don’t want more restaurants to be closed. We don’t want the spread to increase, so we have to go into other phases, block or close again.”

While no government mandates require it, Pappas created new guidelines for his company last week. Employees must mask themselves and guests must show a vaccination card.

There is cause for concern for entrepreneurs like Pappas.

On Thursday, the health department released information on three recent outbreak events that have occurred in different companies.

The companies were not named, but details of the events were made public.

The first reported outbreak occurred in a club in mid-July. The health department reported 26 infections. Of these 26, 18 of the infections were from people who said they had been vaccinated. No hospital stays or deaths were reported.

The second outbreak occurred in a gym during a charity event. Public Health Seattle and King County report that 16 people were infected. Of these 16 cases, it has been confirmed that 14 people are fully vaccinated.

In early July, health authorities reported an outbreak in a daycare center. According to the report, 36 people were infected.

However, despite these incidents, Pappas said that people are still harassing him because he decided to put extra security in place.

“I was called by names, we had some mean news on social media, there were a few people who went online and gave us one-star ratings even though they had never been there,” Pappas said.

Despite the backlash, Pappas said he stood by the decision, and the community appears to largely support the self-imposed safeguards.

There are still about 370,000 people in King County who are eligible but have not been vaccinated, according to health officials.

If you are interested in vaccination, you can read here how to do it.

RELATED: Delta Plus Variant: What It Is, and How It Is Different from Other Coronavirus Strains

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