Live: Coronavirus daily news updates, July 23: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world

Tacoma Public Schools announced Thursday evening that when the new school year begins on Sept. 9, it’ll be completely online — in an effort to keep students and faculty safe during the coronavirus pandemic.

“The safety of our staff and students is paramount when making decisions about how to educate our students this fall,” the school district said in a statement. “We prefer in-person instruction — because we know it’s the best way for students to learn — but only if it can be done safely.”

Anthony Chen, director of health for the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, said he couldn’t recommend school districts to reopen, citing the rising number of COVID-19 cases throughout the state.

“The situation could change, and I may change my recommendation at a later date … Schools should still plan for onsite and hybrid options that districts could implement later in the academic year if the situation improves,” Chen said in the statement.

Tacoma Public Schools Superintendent Carla Santorno said during a virtual public meeting Thursday night that she would present the remote learning plan to the School Board at its next meeting.

Santorno added that although the school year will begin with remote learning, a “hybrid model will be an interim step toward the full reopening of schools in the future.”

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea says it will allow baseball fans to return to the stands beginning Sunday as health authorities outlined a phased process to bring back spectators in professional sports amid the COVID-19 epidemic.

Senior Health Ministry official Yoon Tae-ho during a virus briefing on Friday also said fans will be allowed at professional soccer games starting on Aug. 1. However, professional golf tournaments will continue without galleries at least until late August, he said.

Both baseball and soccer teams will be initially allowed to sell only 10{50531db320f8e8a316d79d6a285e47c71b6e4f6739df32858cb86474d7e720e9} of the seats for each game as officials plan to control the level of attendance based on the progress of anti-virus efforts.

Spectators will continue to be banned in the city of Gwangju and nearby South Jeolla Province towns, which have elevated their social distancing measures following a rise in transmissions in recent weeks.

TARIJA, Bolivia — In Cochabamba, high in the Bolivian Andes, people line up daily outside pharmacies on the central plaza, eager to buy the scarce elixir they hope will ward off COVID-19: chlorine dioxide, a kind of bleach used to disinfect swimming pools and floors.

Experts said drinking it is pointless at best and hazardous at worst. But in Bolivia, where people have been hospitalized after ingesting chlorine dioxide, regional authorities are testing it on prison inmates, the national Senate last week approved its use, and a top lawmaker has threatened to expel the World Health Organization for opposing its medical use.

Bolivians have a lot of company — even President Donald Trump — in resorting to unproven and even dangerous treatments to prevent or treat infection. In every part of the world, hard science has had to compete for attention with pet theories, rumors and traditional beliefs during this pandemic, as in the past.

But interest in dubious medicines has been especially high recently in Latin America, where the virus is raging uncontrolled and many political leaders on the right and left are promoting them, whether out of genuine faith or a desire to offer hope and deflect blame.

In a region where few people can afford quality medical care, alternative treatments are widely touted on social media and exploited by profiteers.

SALEM, Ore. — The Oregon Health Authority’s latest coronavirus projections predict that, based on the current rate of cases, the state will have 1,600 new confirmed infections a day by mid-August.

In a more “pessimistic” model, officials said if transmission increases by 10 percentage points from the current rates, there could be 2,300 new daily confirmed infections and 46 hospitalizations a day.

In the month of July, Oregon has averaged about 315 cases a day. On Thursday officials reported 331 new cases and two deaths, raising the state’s total case count to 15,713. The death toll is 273.

Oregon health officials have described the increase as troubling and concerning.

During the past month, Gov. Kate Brown has implemented new statewide COVID-19 safety measures and mandates to slow the spread of the virus.

Washington State University’s Pullman, Vancouver and Tri-Cities campuses will teach almost all undergraduate classes remotely this fall, with a few limited exceptions, the university announced Thursday.

The University of Washington expects to teach as few as 10{50531db320f8e8a316d79d6a285e47c71b6e4f6739df32858cb86474d7e720e9} of its classes in person, and will announce by Aug. 7 whether it, too, will move nearly all courses online for undergraduates on the Seattle campus.

And on Thursday, Seattle University announced its academic courses will be “primarily virtual, with some in-person and hybrid instruction for performance-based, clinical and laboratory courses and for students living on campus.” The campus will reopen early, on Sept. 9, and will end the fall quarter early as well, on Nov. 24.

The decision comes as the number of COVID-19 infections and related deaths has been on the rise across the state.

Read the full story here.

Ten weeks later than originally planned, the WNBA tips off Saturday for a season that Storm star Sue Bird calls “one big experiment of trust.”

The coronavirus pandemic wiped out the league’s scheduled May 15 season opener, as states around the country sheltered in place and sports were forced to pause.

There were two positive COVID-19 tests when the players and staff arrived July 6 and none since.

At the time, Bird said: “Look, I don’t know if this is going to work. We’re all trusting each other to do the right thing.”

The season begins with a seemingly one-sided matchup 9 a.m. PT Saturday between the Storm and the New York Liberty at the Feld Entertainment Center that’s being televised by ESPN.

Read the full story here.

Mukund Mohan, a former executive at Amazon and Microsoft, was arrested and charged Thursday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with forging documents to fraudulently acquire more than $5.5 million in coronavirus relief funds.

Mohan submitted “fake and altered documents, including fake federal tax filings and altered incorporation documents” in support of Paycheck Protection Program applications for six shell companies he owned, and then transferred some of the money to his Robinhood brokerage account “for his personal benefit,” the U.S. Attorney alleged in its complaint. Mohan could not be reached for comment.

Federal PPP loans are intended to help businesses retain workers during the coronavirus pandemic — but Mohan’s companies didn’t employ a single worker, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Read the full story here.

The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation reported Wednesday that 683 people have tested positive for the new coronavirus through Indian Health Services.

That’s a jump of 25 new cases from Friday, and more than 100 new cases since July 3.

The numbers reflect testing for those who are eligible for Indian Health Services and are not a comprehensive indicator of the virus’s impact on Indian Country.

But given the Nation’s approximate 11,000 members, the case counts also mean at least 6{50531db320f8e8a316d79d6a285e47c71b6e4f6739df32858cb86474d7e720e9} of tribal members have been impacted.

Seven people are hospitalized, with three on ventilators. Twenty-eight people have died, an increase of nine people since last Friday, as reported by the Yakama Service Unit of Indian Health Services in Toppenish.

OLYMPIA — Gov. Jay Inslee announced Thursday tighter restrictions on bars, restaurants, fitness centers, weddings and funerals as new confirmed cases of the new coronavirus rise across Washington.

And in a news conference with Inslee, state Health Secretary John Wiesman announced an expansion of the current requirement for residents to wear facial coverings to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Inslee’s announcement represented the most sweeping set of new restrictions so far to the governor’s original four-phase reopening plan, which has let Washington’s 39 counties reopen to varying degrees.

In his news conference, Inslee said experts have told him Washington is now potentially in a place similar to where Florida — currently one of the hardest-hit states with infections — was several weeks ago.

Read the full story here.

LOS ANGELES — California recorded some of the first COVID-19 cases in America and the country’s first known death, in what would become a worldwide pandemic. It responded with the nation’s initial stay-at-home order. Now, the Golden State claims another dubious distinction: more confirmed coronavirus cases than any other state.

California passed New York for that record Wednesday morning, reaching more than 409,000 cases and eclipsing New York’s 408,886, according to the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University.

California is No. 1 in part because it is the most populous state but also because millions of residents have been unwilling, or unable, to practice the social distancing and mask-wearing that public health experts say are the best measures to keep SARS-CoV-2 somewhat in check.

“I think we started to exit shelter-in-place sometime around Memorial Day both emotionally and physically. And we are paying the price for that,” said Nicholas Jewell, a biostatistics authority at U.C. Berkeley. “It’s like we should be tip-toeing out on the ice. What we did, instead, was all run out on the ice, some not too cautiously. And a lot of people fell through the ice.”

Read the full story here.

All Washington state residents are required to wear a face covering in any indoor or outdoor setting where they might come within six feet of another person, Washington State Secretary of Health John Wiesman announced Thursday.

Wiesman’s order expands requirements made in June. Violators may be subject to criminal penalties.

The face covering must cover their nose and mouth inside any healthcare settings, including a hospital, pharmacy, medical clinic, doctor’s office or blood bank; and while waiting for or riding in public transportation, including taxis, private car services or ride-sharing vehicle.

The requirement also includes outdoor public areas such as public parks, trails, streets, sidewalks, lines for entry, exit or service and recreation area when a distance of at least six feet cannot be maintained.

People may remove their face coverings when in a public setting only when seated in a restaurant or other establishment while they are eating or drinking — but only if they are able to maintain a distance of six feet from guests at other tables.

They may also remove their masks during indoor and outdoor exercise, such as walking, hiking, biking or running, provided that a distance of at least six feet is maintained from non-household members. The same rule applies to outdoor public areas.

Masks may also be removed when communicating with someone who is deaf and hard of hearing, “and not wearing a face covering is essential to communication”; while obtaining a service that requires temporary removal of the face covering; sleeping; when necessary to confirm an individual’s identity or when federal or state law prohibits the wearing of a mask.

Children younger than five years old are exempt; and children younger than two “should never wear face coverings,” Wiesman said, “due to the risk of suffocation.” Children who are two, three and four are strongly recommended to wear a mask at all times, such as groceries and pharmacies, where it is difficult to maintain six feet of distance from non-household members.

Those with a medical or mental-health condition, or a disability that prevents wearing a face covering are excluded. This includes those for whom wearing a mask could obstruct breathing or who are unconscious or incapacitated.

Children in childcare facilities and K-12 public and private schools may use face shields as an alternative to a cloth face covering if authorized pursuant to an order of the Governor.

This order does not apply to persons who are incarcerated. Correctional facilities, as part of their Safe Start plans, will have specific guidance on the wearing of face coverings or masks for both incarcerated individuals and staff.

Following in the footsteps of its neighboring districts, the Lake Washington School District announced Thursday that it will start the fall semester by holding classes remotely.

All students will learn from teachers from the school they would have attended this fall in person, even if they had initially chosen the virtual option for the fall. Using Microsoft Classroom Teams as its remote system, the district will take daily attendance and give out grades, district Superintendent Jon Holmen wrote in a letter to families Thursday.

Lake Washington is one of Washington’s largest districts, with schools in Kirkland, Redmond and Sammamish.

The announcement comes a day after several other large districts, including Seattle, Northshore and Highline, announced that classes would be held virtually this fall.

The district will hold a virtual meeting for families at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 23, that will address its return-to-school plans.

State health officials confirmed 762 new COVID-19 cases and 14 new deaths in Washington as of Wednesday night, crossing a 50,000-case milestone.

The update brings the state’s totals to 50,009 cases and 1,482 deaths, meaning about 3{50531db320f8e8a316d79d6a285e47c71b6e4f6739df32858cb86474d7e720e9} of people diagnosed in Washington have died, according to the state Department of Health (DOH). The data is as of 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.

So far, 870,763 tests for the novel coronavirus have been conducted in the state, per DOH. Of those, 5.7{50531db320f8e8a316d79d6a285e47c71b6e4f6739df32858cb86474d7e720e9} have come back positive.

In King County, the state most populous, state health officials have confirmed 13,835 diagnoses and 638 deaths in King County, accounting for a little less than half of the state’s COVID-19 death toll. 

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — All cadets at the Air Force Academy will return to the Colorado Springs campus in the fall, making the university one of the first in the country to return during the coronavirus pandemic, federal officials said.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper declared Thursday that military training pipelines are “mission essential,” meaning that all cadets are expected to return within the next week, KCNC-TV reported. The entire cadet wing, making up about 4,000 students, will be back on campus by the end of the month.

Classes are scheduled to begin in August in person and online. Outdoor classes and smaller class sizes are expected to help manage distancing guidelines.

Read the full story here.

GENEVA — The director-general of the World Health Organization upbraided U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday for “untrue and unacceptable” allegations during the coronavirus pandemic after British media reported that Pompeo made a comment about the health agency chief having been “bought” by China.

In one of his most defensive and full-throated replies yet to months of criticism from Washington, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said WHO was focused on “saving lives” as he condemned the reported comments by Pompeo at a closed-door event this week in London.

“The comments were done, I think on Tuesday — last Tuesday. And the comments are untrue and unacceptable, and without any foundation for that matter,” Tedros told reporters in Geneva. “If there is one thing that really matters to us and which should matter to the entire international community, it’s saving lives. And WHO will not be distracted by these comments.”

Read the full story here.

A cluster of 21 positive cases of COVID-19 was identified among Walmart employees in Wenatchee on Wednesday, according a statement by the Chelan-Douglas Health District (CDHD).

One of the employees is from Grant County and the other 21 are Chelan or Douglas county residents.

The cluster was reported by the nursing staff at the Chelan-Douglas Health District, which contacted Walmart management to provide instruction and guidance for all positive-tested employees and anyone who may have been exposed.

All positive-tested employees were asked to isolate for at least 10 days or until they no longer have COVID-19 symptoms, including no fever, for 24 hours. Recommendations from public health include identifying and contacting anyone who may have been exposed to the positive employees and asking them to quarantine at home for at least 14 days.

 

Pegged by many in college football as the conference most likely to cancel its fall season, the Pac-12 is plowing forward with plans for a 10-game conference-only schedule.

The conference’s announcement, with weekly matchups, is expected no later than the end of next week.

But the Hotline has pieced together the framework of the preferred model based on information provided by sources familiar with the plan.

Considering the coronavirus case counts and curve trajectories in several areas of the Pac-12 footprint, it’s a fairly aggressive approach that spans a maximum of 14 weeks beginning in the middle of September.

“They are assuming some success in the next month or two (against the virus),” one source said.

The conference canceled all nonconference games July 10, one day after the Big Ten made the move.

Read the full story here.

A Clyde Hill tech executive was taken into federal custody Thursday and charged with fraudulently seeking over $5.5 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and laundering the proceeds, according to an announcement by the United State Department of Justice.

Mukund Mohan, 48, was charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering, according to a criminal complaint unsealed after he was taken into custody Mohan was expected to make his initial appearance before U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Brian A. Tsuchida at 2 p.m. today.

The complaint alleges that Mohan submitted at least eight fraudulent PPP loan applications on behalf of six different companies to federally insured financial institutions.  The complaint alleges that, in support of the fraudulent loan applications, Mohan made numerous false and misleading statements about the companies’ respective business operations and payroll expenses. 

The complaint also alleges that, in further support of the fraudulent loan applications, Mohan submitted fake and altered documents, including fake federal tax filings and altered incorporation documents.

For example, the statement said, Mohan misrepresented to a lender that, in 2019, his company Mahenjo Inc., had dozens of employees and paid millions of dollars in employee wages and payroll taxes.  In support of Mahenjo’s loan application, Mohan submitted incorporation documents showing that he incorporated the company in 2018 and filed federal unemployment tax forms for 2019.

In truth, Mohan purchased Mahenjo on the Internet in May 2020 and, at time he purchased the company, it had no employees and no business activity.  The incorporation documents he submitted to the lender were altered and the federal tax filings he submitted were fake, the statement said.

The complaint further alleges that Mohan transferred at least $231,000 in fraudulently-obtained loan proceeds to his personal brokerage account for his personal benefit.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act is a federal law enacted March 29 and designed to provide emergency financial assistance to Americans suffering the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and includes the authorization of up to $349 billion in forgivable loans to small businesses for job retention and certain other expenses through the PPP.  In April 2020, Congress authorized over $300 billion in additional PPP funding.

The charges were announced by Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt at of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Brian T. Moran of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.

This case was investigated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency – Office of Inspector General, IRS-Criminal Investigation; the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration; and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation – Office of Inspector General.  Trial Attorney Christopher Fenton of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Friedman of the Western District of Washington are prosecuting the case.

Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.

Saying the state is “nowhere close” to containing the spread of COVID-19, the Washington Education Association is asking Gov. Jay Inslee to call for all Washington schools to operate remotely this fall.

In a statement released Thursday afternoon, the state’s teachers union said the state cannot guarantee the health and safety of students, educators, families and communities.

The union called it “a choice between two bad options – either return to schools and put our educators, students, and community at risk or return to a distance learning and virtual instruction model.”

The statement comes a day after several of King County’s largest school districts, including Seattle and Bellevue, said they intend to hold school remotely this fall.

According to the union, about on out of five of the state’s 120,000 public educators are over 60 years old, and many have underlying health conditions. In addition, many students live in multi-generational homes, and many also have underlying health conditions.

“If we proceed with opening schools for in-person learning while the number of cases continues to grow, some students, educators, and family members will contract the virus,” the union said in its statement.

While some will recover, others will have “long-lasting health complications. And some will die.”

The union is asking districts to spend the remainder of the time before school starts in early September to prepare teachers to teach remotely.

“Making this decision now will give school districts and educators time to prepare and focus on a singular model of instruction and to better prepare for the challenges that a distance learning model will bring,” the statement said.

New weekly claims for unemployment insurance in Washington edged downward last week, but that’s probably not a sign of any real recovery for the state’s battered job market.

For the week ending July 18, Washington saw 29,438 new, or initial, claims for unemployment insurance benefits, the state Employment Security Department reported Thursday.

That’s down 27.3{50531db320f8e8a316d79d6a285e47c71b6e4f6739df32858cb86474d7e720e9} from the prior week, when jobless claims rose sharply after trending downward for six weeks. And it comes as initial jobless claims rose nationally by 8.3{50531db320f8e8a316d79d6a285e47c71b6e4f6739df32858cb86474d7e720e9} to 1.4 million, the U.S. Labor Department reported.

But Washington’s new jobless data also comes amid concerns that surging virus cases and other uncertainties may already be slowing the pace of the state’s nascent economic recovery.

The big surge in hiring and rehiring that the state saw in May and June appears to be tapering off, and employers are increasingly uncertain about whether to ramp up operations or scale back.

Read the full story here.

 Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and more than 70 other U.S. mayors have sent a letter to the White House Coronavirus Task Force calling on the Trump administration to make “full use” of the Defense Production Act to scale up testing supplies.

“As the COVID-19 infection rate continues to rise in many of our communities and businesses require testing to protect their employees, the need for increased testing is critical to our response,” the letter said.

“Our national testing system must be able to rely on sustained supplies for the next 24 months.”

In a news release, Durkan said she warned about testing needs when the pandemic first emerged and now wants to “sound the alarm again.”

“As the virus surges across the entire country, we know that supply chains are at capacity,” she said. “We need our federal government to step up and harness the ingenuity and innovation of American companies to provide the supplies needed to save lives.”

“More and more studies show that kids are actually stoppers of the disease and they don’t get it and transmit it themselves, so we should be in a posture of — the default should be getting back to school kids in person, in the classroom.” — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, in an interview on “The Conservative Circus” (iHeart radio), July 16

Could children actually be “stoppers” of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus? That would be great news — if true. The interruption of school threatens to create a learning deficit — and many parents may find it difficult to return to work if children are not in classes.

DeVos’ view was echoed by President Donald Trump news briefing Wednesday. “They do say that they [children] don’t transmit very easily, and a lot of people are saying they don’t transmit,” he said. “They don’t bring it home with them. They don’t catch it easily; they don’t bring it home easily.”

An Education Department spokesperson supplied four reports from around the world, including one from the American Academy of Pediatrics suggesting children don’t contract or spread the virus the way that adults do, in contrast to how they spread influenza.

Numerous other studies, however, contradict DeVos’ assertion.

Michael T. Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, said that too often people have latched on to studies that later turn out to be flawed. “There have been so many studies, sometimes with strident conclusions, only to be blown out of the water later” when conditions change, he said. “The bottom-line message is that school-age kids will see transmissions. How much is unclear, but they definitely are not brakes.”

Read the story here.