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Might as well look cool — Zazzle lets you make custom facemasks (and fun CHS article illustrations)
Seattle and King County leaders have joined health officials across the state in calling for people to mask indoors as COVID and other respiratory viruses are running rampant heading into the holiday season and winter.
“Communities across our state and around the U.S. are experiencing an unprecedented surge in viral respiratory illnesses, including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza and COVID-19,” the statement from Seattle and King County Public Health reads. “As health officers and health care leaders working to improve the health of Washington residents, we recommend that everyone wear a high-quality, well-fitting mask when around others in indoor spaces to protect against both acquiring and spreading these infections to others.”
The result is a lot of coughing and sneezing in the world right now pretty much everywhere you go or who you are with from groups of high school kids on the bus to the line at the QFC.
The county says, in addition to RSV and influenza, new COVID-19 variants are also a concern as “immunity from past vaccination is waning for many people who have not yet received an updated booster shot.”
Officials are urging people to keep up on their vaccinations, “the most important way to protect against severe influenza and COVID-19 infections.” The county says an estimated 84% of King County residents have completed the primary COVID-19 vaccination process but only 65% received the original booster and around 31% received an updated booster. The result is only about 27% of the population is considered up to date on their COVID-19 vaccination. Getting a flu shot is also highly recommended.
In King County, you are nearly three times as likely to become sick with COVID if you are not boosted, and seven times as likely to end up hospitalized.
In addition to the indoor masking recommendations and ramping up the call for vaccinations, officials remind people they should be “staying home from work and school and testing for COVID-19 if you develop symptoms.”
The renewed concerns over vaccinations and indoor masking come after Seattle in October joined cities across the nation in ending its official COVID-19 state of emergency after nearly 1,000 days. Through the pandemic starting in early 2020, Capitol HIll residents and businesses have been under phases of new restrictions and requirements including social distancing, mask, and vaccination mandates as officials tried to fine tune the public response to slowing the spread of the virus. Statewide COVID-19 indoor mask requirements were lifted in March 2022. For now, the new calls for masking are recommendations, not requirements.
The latest reports show the current COVID-19 transmission in King County remains officially at a “low” level but related hospitalizations nearing levels from late summer after dipping this fall. Officials say they are concerned hospitals and health providers are again reaching a point where any new major surges could be disasters and that increased viral illnesses are already having an impact on attendance at schools and in the workplace.
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May I just say it’s nice to have a near-empty comment thread on an article about masking. Makes me hopeful the readership here are taking masking advice from the government for what it is… advice… and feeling free to make our own choices and respecting those of others.
Or perhaps we’ve just given up trying to encourage a sense of civic duty and shared responsibility in people who apparently are either wholly uninterested in or wholly incapable of cultivating either. I wish it weren’t necessary, but it’s time to bring back the mandate.