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COVID cases hit record high

Mason County recordwed 657 COVID-19 cases in the past week, according to the Division of Emergency Management.

There were 362 cases recorded from Jan. 7 to 9. The county recorded five died last week, including a woman in her 60s, two women in their 70s, a man in his 70s and a man in his 80s. The county’s pandemic death toll is 89.

The seven-day case rate per 100,000 people is at 798.2 and the 14-day case rate is at 1,352.6. Nine people were hospitalized with COVID as of Tuesday and the county is 55.3% fully vaccinated.

Mason County Superior Court has suspended jury trials until Feb. 11 due to the increase in COVID in the community. The recommendation came from Mason County Public Health. The court has entered several emergency administrative orders limiting in-person appearances in the courtrooms. All court hearings and bench trials will be held virtually, with few exceptions.

Gov. Jay Inslee had a news conference Jan. 6 to address COVID in the state. He said the state has seen a 146% increase in the number of infections from the previous week and a 46% increase in daily COVID hospital admissions.

“We are seeing more COVID cases now then at any point during the entire pandemic,” Inslee said. “Our hospitalizations are nearing the peak of the hospitalizations that we’ve experienced during the delta portion of this pandemic. Now we know why this is, omicron is very contagious, more contagious than the delta variant and is rapidly overtaking the delta variant already in the infections in the state of Washington as well as nationally.”

Inslee said masking, especially a KN95 or even double masking, can help reduce the spread of COVID. He announced the expansion of testing and said the state Department of Health has acquired 5.5 million rapid at-home tests. He noted 1 million of these tests will be sent to schools as they request them. He said he expects schools will remain open.

“We believe we have the tools available to provide safety for our students and we are committed to doing everything we can to keep our schools open in the upcoming months,” Inslee said during the news conference. “We certainly want to minimize any disruption and there maybe some disruption in the classroom in the future but we want to minimize those so that we can keep our schools open. The reason for this is obvious, in-school education is more effective.”

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Matt Baide, Reporter

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Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
Email: [email protected]

 

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