The Biden administration moved on multiple fronts on Wednesday to fight back against the surging delta variant, strongly recommending booster shots for most vaccinated American adults and using federal leverage to force nursing homes to vaccinate their staffs.
In another step aimed at curbing the virus’ spread, the United States is urging the more than 150 countries planning to send representatives to the U.N. General Assembly next month to consider giving a video address instead.
In Washington, as hospitals are straining under a shortage of health care staffers, Gov. Jay Inslee has brought back a statewide mask requirement and ordered all public, private and charter school employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine as subject to their employment.
We’re updating this page with the latest news about the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the Seattle area, the U.S. and the world. Click here to see previous days’ live updates and all our other coronavirus coverage, and here to see how we track the daily spread across Washington and the world.
WSU coach Nick Rolovich on Gov. Inslee’s COVID-19 vaccine requirement: ‘I plan on following his mandate’
A day after Gov. Jay Inslee announced that all employees working in educational roles must be fully vaccinated as a condition of employment, Washington State football coach Nick Rolovich said he plans to follow the state’s mandate.
“I plan on following (Inslee’s) mandate,” Rolovich told reporters after practice Thursday in Pullman. “For sure.”
Inslee’s mandate requires public, private and charter school employees in Washington state to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 18, with the only exemptions being for medical or religious reasons. The mandate applies to Rolovich, who last month said he would not get vaccinated, citing reasons that “will remain private.”
Americans spent less in July as COVID-19 cases surged
Americans cut back on their spending last month as a surge in COVID-19 cases kept people away from stores.
Retail sales fell a seasonal adjusted 1.1% in July from the month before, the U.S. Commerce Department said Tuesday. It was a much larger drop than the 0.3% decline Wall Street analysts had expected.
The report offers the first solid glimpse of how the spread of the delta variant of COVID-19 may have changed the spending habits of Americans. At the end of July, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began recommending that even vaccinated people start wearing masks indoors in public places.
According to Tuesday’s report, spending fell at stores that sell clothing, furniture and sporting goods. At restaurant and bars, spending still rose nearly 2%, but the rate of growth has slowed from recent months before the delta variant spread and people were feeling safer about dining without their masks with others.
Economists think Americans are also shifting their spending from goods to services, things like haircuts or vacations, which are not included in Tuesday’s report. And rising prices for everything from food to washing machines may have checked spending.
4 of Florida’s 5 largest school districts to require masks
As more large school districts defy Florida’s ban on strict mask mandates, worries that rapidly spreading infections could force them to close classrooms are no longer theoretical: Thousands of schoolchildren are already being sent home, only days after their school year began.
Children — particularly those too young to get vaccinated against COVID-19 — are “really good” at transmitting the coronavirus, said Dr. J. Stacey Klutts, a special assistant to the national director of pathology and lab medicine for the entire Veterans Affairs system.
Klutts said the highly contagious delta variant makes it absolutely necessary to wear masks indoors and avoid large group gatherings, so if unprotected students sit for hours in classrooms every day, it could rapidly spread infection in the community at large.
“It’s terrifying. I’m afraid that we’re going to have a lot of really sick kids in addition to the spread which is going to be a lot of sick adults,” Klutts said.
School boards in Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Hillsborough counties voted Wednesday to join Broward and Alachua in requiring students to wear facial coverings unless they get a doctor’s note. With Orange County still allowing an easy parental opt-out, four of Florida’s five largest districts are now defying Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ban on strict mask mandates.
Smaller landlords looking for outs amid federal eviction moratorium extension
Smaller landlords with fewer than four units, who often don’t have the financing of larger property owners, have been hit especially hard by pandemic eviction moratoriums, with as many as 58% having tenants behind on rent, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Landlords, big and small, are angry about the moratoriums, which they consider illegal. Many believe some tenants could have paid rent, if not for the moratorium. And the $47 billion in federal rental assistance that was supposed to make landlords whole has been slow to materialize. By July, only $3 billion of the first tranche of $25 billion had been distributed.
There are now more than 15 million people living in households that owe as much as $20 billion in back rent, according to the Aspen Institute.
The latest moratorium “was the final gut punch,” said Ryan David of New York who bought three rental properties back in 2017. He expected the $1,000-a-month he was pocketing after expenses would be regular sources of income into his retirement years. Now, the 39-year-old plans to sell.
He and other landlords say they have tenants who received paychecks, drove luxury cars, got food deliveries or went on vacation throughout the pandemic but didn’t bother to pay rent or file for rental assistance.
Gulf Coast’s beloved ‘Redneck Riviera’ now a virus hotspot
Tourists and servers alike dance atop tables and in the aisles at one restaurant on the “Redneck Riviera,” a beloved stretch of towns along the northern Gulf Coast where beaches, bars and stores are packed. Yet just a few miles away, a hospital is running out of critical care beds, its rooms full of unvaccinated people fighting for their lives.
On maps that show virus “hot spots” in red, this part of the U.S. coast is glowing like a bad sunburn. And a summer of booming tourism that followed the lockdowns and travel restrictions of 2020 is making the turn toward fall with only a few signs of slowing down. The National Shrimp Festival, which draws as many as 250,000 people to the Alabama coast, is set for October despite the COVID-19 explosion.
Health officials believe the spike is due to a combination of some of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates, unabated tourism, a disregard for basic health precautions and the region’s carefree lifestyle, all combining at a time when the mutated virus is more contagious than ever and conservative states are balking at new health restrictions.
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