ProPublica is tracking what happens to police after they use force on protesters: It appears the comprehensive investigation includes three incidents from the SPD. All of the incidents are pending investigations, no officers have been identified, and no criminal charges filed.
A man at a restaurant on Treasure Island, Florida was arrested after he SPIT on a boy who refused to take off his mask: My grandpa lives on Treasure Island but I checked and it wasn't my grandpa.
The top posts on Seattle's subreddit this afternoon: We're all little fickle weather babies.
Today, Inslee laid out his plan for the phased reopening of nursing homes: Kind of a dicey situation here. People in nursing homes are extremely vulnerable to COVID, and the pandemic spread like wildfire inside and outside of those facilities last spring. We actually just got some new numbers on that tip. A Washington Department of Health study released Tuesday showed that local health jurisdictions have reported 459 COVID-19 outbreaks at long-term care facilities across the state since late February. As of last Monday, nearly 5,700 COVID-19 cases and 898 deaths have been associated with these facilities—that’s 10% of the state’s total cases and 56% of the state’s total deaths. Outbreaks at nursing homes have declined since their height in March, but there were 10 reported at the end of July.
But people in nursing homes are also extremely lonely and depressed: And family members haven’t been able to be in the same room with their loved ones for months, so Gov. Inslee’s introducing a phased approach to reopening nursing homes, which is separate from the Safe Start phases, and which starts next week.
Here’s a brief summary of what’s allowed in each phase: Phase 1 allows for “compassionate care visits,” window visits, remote visits, and outdoor visits limited to two per day. Phase 2 starts incorporating indoor visits “in limited circumstances.” Indoor visits in Phase 2 will only be allowed if remote/outdoor visits are impossible. Residents can select only one person allowed to visit them indoors. That person, known as “an essential support person,” and the resident must wear face coverings. In Phase 3, the state still recommends outdoor visits over any other kind of visits, but residents and clients would be allowed to leave the nursing home “as long as they practice social distancing, wear a mask, and are screened for symptoms when they return.” In Phase 4, long-term care facilities can return to “normal visitation protocols,” while still following COVID-19 testing and screening guidance for all.
To move forward in phases: “Long term care facilities must go 28 days without a resident or staff member testing positive for COVID-19,” and the facilities need to have “at least a 14-day supply of PPE on hand.” Plus, no facility can move forward in a phase beyond the county they’re in. Right now, for instance, King County is in Phase 2. So nursing homes in King County, which will all start in Phase 1 next week, can’t move onto Phase 3 until the county does.
Okay, switching it up here... Nintendo is asking manufacturers to ramp up production of their Switch console again. The company's island life simulator (and real life simulator) Animal Crossing: New Horizon's sales continue to skyrocket. From Bloomberg:
That performance was driven by island life simulator Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which got off to a hot start in March with nearly 12 million copies sold in its first 11 days. The game sold another 10.6 million units in the latest quarter — about half of them via digital download — and is close to becoming the best-selling Switch title of all time. Nintendo said that more than half of new Switch owners over the last three months played Animal Crossing first.
More in-depth footage from the Beirut explosion: Here. It still feels unreal.
The movie we were most excited to see this year just dropped a teaser trailer: That movie would be A24's Zola, which is based on a viral tweet thread that started with:
“Y’all wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out? It’s kind of long but full of suspense.”
It premiered at Sundance pre-pandemic and people loved it: But now it's in limbo. Tragically, this teaser trailer ends with "Coming This Next Soon." Hopefully very soon! There are reviews of it floating around from when people saw it in January.
Florida? murder? u have the wrong number! @_zolarmoon @taylourpaige @rileykeough pic.twitter.com/GE4quzZp6n
— A24 (@A24) August 6, 2020
With nearly 1.7 million ballots in Washington state counted to date and 634,773 estimated left to count: Not much has moved since election night.
Down in the 10th Congressional District, Former Seattle Chamber of Commerce CEO Marylin Strickland dropped the tiniest bit to 21.4% of the vote share, with State House Rep. Beth Doglio still running in second, though Doglio is now almost a full point ahead of former State House Rep. Kristine Reeves—13.9 to 13.0.
Now only 119 votes separate Democratic primary challenger and psychiatric nurse Ingrid Anderson and sitting Democratic State Senator Mark Mullet in the 5th Legislative District. Anderson was beating Mullet by a point on election night, but the gap has been slowly closing since then.
Up in Whatcom County, Democratic incumbent State House Rep. Sharon Shewmake is ever-so-slowly closing the gap between her and Republican challenger Jennifer Sefzik. Shewmake is only down 888 votes—she was down 1,056 yesterday.
Yesterday Democrat and Tacoma Urban League president T’wina Nobles was leading incumbent Republican State Senator Steve O’Ban by 23 votes. Today she is leading him by 27 votes. Lol.
In Seattle, Former House Speaker Frank Chopp has dropped less than a point since election night, and Lascelles has risen less than a point. They’re sitting at 52.9% and 28.7%, respectively. The gap between trial lawyer association director Liz Berry and associate attorney general Sarah Reyneveld widened a touch, with Berry at 49.6% and Reyneveld at 42.8%.
Last blurb for the day: It doesn't look like most of Washington state will have in-person classes in the fall, but in Georgia...
This is the first day of school in Paulding County, Georgia. pic.twitter.com/fzdidaAABM
— 🇯🇲Blackđź‡đź‡ąAziz🇳🇬aNANsi🇹🇹 (@Freeyourmindkid) August 4, 2020