Public Health – Seattle & King County confirmed Saturday that a second island resident has tested positive for COVID-19.
The first official case of COVID-19 on Vashon-Maury Island was confirmed on Wednesday.
In all, 41 island residents have now been tested for the virus. In earlier news releases, public health provided the ages and genders of those who tested positive for the virus, but in an email, Brent Champaco, public information officer for the Department of Local Services, said public health is no longer able to provide a greater level of detail about individual cases as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise.
Public health announced 251 new cases of COVID-19 in the county Friday, bringing the official count to 1,828, with 16 new deaths for a total of 125. But community actions may be helping to limit the spread, according to health officer Dr. Jeff Duchin.
“Some initial indications suggest that these types of community mitigations are having a positive impact on decreasing the spread of disease, even if we can’t measure it precisely yet,” he said in a press release Thursday. “It’s critically important that we continue to stay home and limit our contact with others,”
The county has begun providing updates to COVID-19 cases and deaths in an all-new interactive data dashboard, with more information about the status of COVID-19 cases in King County broken down by age, gender and location. Public Health will no longer be listing individual deaths from COVID-19 by age and gender in news releases. The dashboard is available online, though the county attributed potential slow loading times for the dashboard to a high volume of web traffic. A PDF version of the latest data is available.
The first positive result of COVID-19 illness in King County was announced by The Washington State Department of Health on Jan. 21. In all, 49,015 individuals have tested negative for the disease statewide.
This is a developing story: We will give updates on changes and further closures as we learn more. Please email prowley@vashonbeachcomber.com with questions or news tips.
