Where cases stand in Washington
- Two new coronavirus deaths reported in Washington Sunday among 549 new cases overall, according to the Washington State Department of Health (DOH).
- Total: 1,688 deaths among 63,072 overall cases in Washington state. The total deaths in the state did not increase Sunday due to classification changes, the DOH said. Two deaths previously reported were removed and there were two new deaths reported Sunday.
- The state has previously reported the total number of COVID-19 tests submitted in Washington state, and the percentage of tests that came back positive. However, the state has not supplied that data since Wednesday.
- As of Wednesday, 1,009,486 people in Washington have taken a coronavirus test, and 5.9% of those tests were positive.
The United States' failure to contain the spread of the coronavirus has been met with astonishment and alarm in Europe, as the world's most powerful country surpassed a global record of 5 million confirmed infections on Sunday, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University.
As Axios reports, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb has sent out a warning, saying that the death toll will "definitely" reach between 200,000 and 300,000 by the end of this year.
Perhaps nowhere outside the U.S. is America's bungled virus response viewed with more consternation than in Italy, which was ground zero of Europe's epidemic. Italians were unprepared when the outbreak exploded in February and the country still has one of the world's highest official death tolls at 35,000. Read more
Updated guidelines for fitness centers and gyms in our state take effect August 10, and some gym owners say they are too strict.
Among the changes is a 300-square-foot amount of space per participant for any indoor fitness activities. While larger gyms may be able to manage that, smaller gyms and studios could be faced with hard decisions. Read more
A person tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a wedding ceremony in Kittitas County earlier this month and now health officials are trying to notify everyone in attendance so they can get tested.
The wedding was held Sunday, August 2 at the Cattle Barn Ranch wedding venue in Cle Elum, according to a release from the Kittitas County Incident Management Team (IMT).
The ceremony was held outdoors with 100 people in attendance, and there was a reception, said Dr. Mark Larson, Kittitas County health officer.
For pandemic jobless, the only real certainty is uncertainty. Read more
Coronavirus: Your Money, Your Future