Not saying folks shouldn't still wear a mask in crowded areas (I have) and not saying folks shouldn't take easy preventive measures AND did you actually read that interview with Dr. Duchin? It's very interesting, nuanced look at this stage in the pandemic.

"In other words – BA.2 is replacing other variants in King County, but we’re not seeing a large growth in cases overall at this time." Talks about how many people already caught Omicron, how King County also has a high vaccination rate. However, our booster rate could use a lot of work.

I wouldn't come to Slog for nuanced coverage of anything, particularly science (as far as I know none of the writers are scientists), and this is hardly a huge "I told you so moment."

It's not a "small amount of money" to house people. developing NEW housing is not cheap.

TDC for a unit was running just under 500K in CA 2 years ago, before inflation and escalation took everyone on a ride. yes, WA is cheaper but not much. prob 400K now? shithole parts of America would be down around 200K, maybe.
https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/LIHTC_Construction_Costs_March_2020.pdf

there were almost 12K unhoused people in King Co. last time there was a count, in 2020. do the maths.

the Price you (may) Pay
for the Long Covid may
be Exponentially More
than the wee costs
of Prevention.

and even vaxxed and Boosted
with a Mask on you're still
pretty fucking Free:

unless the GOP's
gotchyur Number.

People are getting way too confident re: Covid. Went to see some live music recently for the time, locally, in about 4 years. A vast majority of people were unmasked in the club (I wore an N95.) I'm betting it will quadruple in another month or so.

As far as a park and ride in Kent, give them better connector service if not the park and ride. Strangerites don't realize how some of these exurbs are bus deserts with spotty service if any at all. Apparently they thought it was easier to do the park and ride than finding more bus drivers to do connector routes in Kent.

Staying vigilant along with evaluating and allowing acceptable risk.

Sorry Matt, but your crusade against parking near transit stations is foolish and ignorant. Take a look at an aerial of Kent. How many people live beyond a walking distance from the transit stops? How do they get to take the light rail if they can't get to it? You want to reduce miles driven, you have to make it easy. Coming to you from that paradise, Bothell.

"Turns out you can end housing insecurity … by giving people a place to live."

I know I am repeating myself, but the majority of our homeless population state they need substance abuse and mental health treatment to gain stable housing. https://kcrha.org/king-county-point-in-time-count/.

@1 basically what @3 Blip said.

We do this every time. We say “no need to worry” when the math clearly shows a trajectory. And then three weeks later everything blows up again.

And this time testing is WAAAAY down as free centers closed and there is no mechanism to give home test reporting. And home test sales bottomed out. Even in places where we know there are case increases. So honestly do not know how bad the pandemic Turkey is. There is just no accurate risk assessment.

It’s the very well known Who Cares phase of a pandemic. People have CoVID19 fatigue and the political establishment loses will and resources.

This is the phase where we see how robust our healthcare system really is. Because it’s likely how things will be from here out.

Side note. According to JAMA American life expectancy has likely contracted another year or two as a result of CoVID19 and our inept healthcare. In addition to the 1.5 year average contraction from 2019. It will take another year or two to know.

You're in the same boat @9 as well, taking short risks whenever you're maskless in the proximity of other humans.

'American cities could spend a small amount of money to house people'

In Seattle, the preferred way is to buy $300,000 apartments for the homeless. These are pretty basic, the ones the city builds themselves cost about $500,000, but lets assume there are enough of these micro apartments around for the city to buy. For the estimated 40,000 homeless, this would cost about $12 billion, which isn't a small amount of money in my book anyway. Oh, quite a few people struggling with rent would probably consider this an upgrade from the old, rundown housing they're sharing with more roommates than they'd like, probably another 10% of Seattle's population would probably like this free housing over what they have to pay for today, so better plan to build another 75,000 units. This would be another $22.5 billion, which would even in Matt's book no doubt be at least a medium size amount of money.

I expect the cost to maintain these would be enough to bankrupt the city, but since there's no realistic way to build them, I'm not too worried.

Case counts are less important if the severity of the virus has diminished. We won't know the long term effects for a long time, good luck getting americans to comply with that...

Also, Shoreline is just as bad as our neighbor Lynnwood sadly. Good luck getting to the 185th transit center from the nearby urban village of North City, I think the only route that will have sidewalks is a circuitous one along 175th St (a busy arterial with massive hills) to 5th Ave then up to 185th St.

@14: Indeed. Clearly NYC hasn't built housing for its homeless.

@15(a),

Where are you getting those numbers? 40,000 is ~4X too high based on the most recent numbers I've seen for Seattle. Also, not sure where you came up w/ $300-$500k per unit on micro-housing.

Don't disagree that the cost will be exorbitant, but you should probably add some cites to those figures.

@14 That's why the federal government has to be the one to end homelessness. It can be done, just as in the years after WW2 it WAS done (badly in many ways, yes, but virtually everyone in this country at least had a roof over their head from the 1950s until the '80s). All we need is a strong and enduring Democratic majority, which we'd have if middle-class white people voted their economic interests instead of their racialized fears.

Oops, meant that comment for @15. Damn I wish we could edit these things.

Finally some good news and some history I am happy to be alive to witness. Republicans confirmed her in three prior judicial positions, but refused to get on board with putting her on the SCOTUS (with the exception of 3). Republicans really don't deserve to be in power at all, in any way, for any reason, ever. They are a do nothing but destroy death cult. This country needs to get rid of all of them. The 149 traitors currently sitting in congress would be a good start.

@19: That's weird. We made the same "error". I remember there being only one 15 when I replied to 14 -- which is now 15.a.

Still double digit COVID ICU cases here. Keep masking and keep vaxxing and boosting.

That said, heard someone keeps setting a poster on fire (twice in two days so far) on campus. Makes me wonder what the poster is.

YOU CHANGED THE TITLE

well-Played.

speaking of
Dipshits
'tis tS.

sowhatchya think Blip?
2nd Booster time?
early may be way
Better than Late
so -- Watch the
Effluences?

@17. The figure for the number of homeless is indeed for King County, although I expect most are in Seattle I can't say for sure.
https://kcrha.org/2021/12/22/40000-people-experiencing-homelessness-in-king-county/

The 300K per unit is what Seattle is actually paying.
https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2021/09/20/seattle-to-spend-50m-for-housing-units.html

@18 CKathes, @20 xina, and @23 Will in Seattle for the WIN!!

WA-HOOOO for newly sworn in Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson!!! :)
Now let's get rid of Clarence Thomas and his Ginny bitch, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Jr., Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, 149 useless, grossly overpaid RepubliKKKan Congress members and 50 GOP Senators. And while we're at it....
Go, Letitia James, NY AG, GO!!! Criminally prosecute and convict the Orange Turd and we'll FINALLY drain the Mar-a-Lunatic swamp.

@20 xina: Hooray that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has been sworn in, and also to see you back!! You were deeply missed in the commentary.

Hmmmmmm.....does LinkedIn have major stock invested in Amazon by any chance? Are they glued to Bezos' balls? Haven't we seen enough space dildos for one millennium?
I'm taking xina's word for it that Amazon is actually among the shittiest of employers and most hostile of work environments, run by a total dick.

@23 Will in Seattle: Yep. COVID isn't done with us yet. I still mask up, no matter how many unmasked idiots laugh at me, and I just recently got my fourth Pfizer (second booster).

Get your shots, and get on with life.

@28,

Thanks. And really weird. I guess they pretty drastically changed up their data accumulation methodology, as 2020 was 11,000.

https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/homeless/no-homeless-count-seattle-coronavirus/281-83c9199b-8d39-4e18-8b57-2909f5fb6814

And honestly, even as incomprehensibly insane as the situation is.... 40k seems absurdly inflated.

Yeah, so I guess the 40k number is cumulative for the entire year, anyone who reported homelessness at any point during the year got tallied, as opposed to the old method which counted a single night as a point in time.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/spurning-old-way-of-counting-homeless-people-king-county-says-number-is-much-higher-than-previously-reported/

Still think 40k is not accurate or reflective of the situation, horrible as it is regardless.

@32: Looks like this 40k figure is extrapolated from a potpourri of tangential data:

https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2022/01/40800-new-method-for-counting-people-living-homeless-in-king-county-finds-thousands-missing-from-past-tallies/

@32, I guess it comes down to how many of those 40K you don't think would have been in line for a free apartment. They were homeless after all.

@32, also, I don't think we're going to agree on an exact dollar amount here. However, as providing permanent, supportive housing is the plan of record to address homelessness in Seattle, why haven't the city government said how much it will cost other than 'more'? Why is it some guy from the internet?

and then there’s this: Pallet, a For-Profit
Provider of Utilitarian Shelters, Could
Be a Contender for County Funding

“The advantage of a Pallet shelter, versus cubicles or congregate shelter, is just the sense of safety, and the dignity of being able to shut and lock a door is a little bit more stabilizing for folks,” Newman said.

This stability, in turn, allows CCS to better assess people’s needs. Newman said CCS has “been intentional about trying to move people into the Pallet shelters who are working with case managers” to get into housing, using the shelters as “practice housing, in a way.”

The bright, relatively breezy units are an obvious upgrade from the nearby cubicles, which—although more private than a mat or cot at a mass shelter site—are dark, musty, and uninviting.

Pallet shelter units cost more to build than tiny houses—the price starts at about $5,300 a unit, compared to about $4,000 for a tiny house, according to figures provided by Pallet and LIHI, respectively.

King County, which owns the land where the Junction Point shelter is located, has bought 74 Pallet units, including the 20 at Junction Point and 46 for a future site on Aurora Ave. N., plus three at a shelter in Bellevue and five at Eagle Village, a group of mostly modular shelters operated by the Chief Seattle Club in SoDo.

https://publicola.com/2022/03/02/pallet-a-for-profit-provider-of-utilitarian-shelters-could-be-a-contender-for-county-funding/

and then there's the cost of infrastructure
including a common area for cooking and
showering etc but not too spendy, seemingly