Regional News

Black Friday brought another high Covid case count in Spokane County. The health district on Friday reported positive tests for 409 people, one of the highest one-day counts during the pandemic. That’s on top of 238 cases reported on Thanksgiving.

Washington state health officials say they expect to receive their first shipment of the first Covid vaccine by mid-December. That’s if a federal committee approves the vaccine produced by Pfizer when it meets on December 10.

University students and staff in the Pacific Northwest are giving a trial run to a smartphone app that tells you if you were recently near someone who just tested positive for COVID-19. State health departments are rolling out similar apps across the country to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Lauri Jones has been working in public health in Washington state's Okanogan County for 17 years. After repeated recent threats to her safety, she recently got a new security system for her home.

"I still find myself sometimes looking over my shoulder," Jones says. "Especially if I walk out of the building and it's getting obviously dark earlier."

She's not leaving her post as the county's community health director. But her colleague Dr. John McCarthy is leaving in December. He says the workload has become too heavy.

County elections officials in Washington certified their elections on Tuesday. In Spokane County at least, there was much less drama than what we’ve seen in other counties and states. The canvassing board reviewed the numbers and voted to certify the election, as per usual.

What came after was unusual, says Auditor Vicky Dalton.

Lauri Jones has been working in public health in Washington’s Okanogan County for 17 years.

But after repeated threats to her safety, she recently got a new security system for her home.

“I still find myself sometimes looking over my shoulder,” Jones says. “Especially if I walk out of the building and it’s getting obviously dark earlier.”

She’s not leaving her post as the community health director. But her colleague Dr. John McCarthy is in December. He says the workload has become too heavy.

As the coronavirus pandemic drags on, it's now increasingly apparent that 2020 will be remembered for an unusually high death toll -- not just from COVID-19. In the medical field, deaths above what you would normally expect are called "excess deaths." Even after you subtract out COVID-19 casualties, many thousands more Oregonians, Idahoans and Washingtonians have gone to an early grave this year compared to a typical year.

This week, the mayors in Spokane County communities are going to raise their voices in support of more help for businesses and people who lost their jobs because of the pandemic.

You’ve seen the movies: Navy SEALs slowly emerge from the water and walk up a beach. In real life, the Navy is hoping to conduct special operations training exercises at 28 Washington State Parks.

But many park users say it ups the “creepiness” factor.

In the dark of night, six to eight SEAL trainees would swim or dive out of a battery-powered submersible vessel and head up onto a beach. They’d clandestinely disappear into the environment, said Warrant Officer Esteban Alvarado.

Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward says the city is making plans for outdoor winter and holiday celebrations to improve peoples’ moods and allow them to safely be out in the community.

“There are some things we have learned in the past in our Covid recovery, and that is we can do events very safely like we did Fourth of July," Woodward said.

The Covid pandemic is changing the way the Salvation Army is approaching this holiday season in Spokane.

This week, during its annual Corporate Kettle Kick-off, 28 companies have provided people to ring bells at the Salvation Army’s red kettles. But Major Ken Perine says most of the kettles will be virtual, not physical, this year.

Thursday brought another big day in new Covid cases, both in Spokane and north Idaho.

The Spokane Regional Health District reported 414 new cases of coronavirus. It’s the second-highest one-day total and a continued escalation of the surge in the region over the last two weeks.

The board that governs Idaho’s Panhandle Health District has approved a mask mandate for all five counties of north Idaho. The board had approved a previous mandate for Kootenai County only on July 23, then rescinded it on Oct. 23.

The mandate is good for 60 days and will be reviewed at the board's next meeting in January.

A bill that would help Native American communities get more broadband access on reservation lands was approved by the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee Wednesday.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee and others are counseling residents to reduce the size of their Thanksgiving celebrations.

If enough people take that to heart, state health officials, such as Health Officer Kathy Lofy, say it looks like Washington should bend its Covid curve back down.

The most recent extension of the U.S.-Canada border closure expires this Friday, November 21, but no one expects the restrictions to be lifted then. First implemented in March, the closure of the land and sea border to nonessential crossings have been extended monthly by mutual agreement between Ottawa and the Trump administration.

The Covid train continues to roll in Spokane County. The health district on Tuesday reported 234 new cases. Taken over a two-week period, that’s about 560 cases per hundred thousand residents.

The director of public health in the third most populous county in the United States will be Washington's next secretary of health. 

Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday announced the appointment of Dr. Umair A. Shah to lead the state Department of Health beginning on December 21.

Since 2013, Shah has been executive director of Harris County Public Health in Houston, Texas. He will replace outgoing Secretary John Wiesman who has served in the position since 2013. Previously, Wiesman announced his plan to leave the post at the end of the year to take a teaching job in North Carolina. 

Washington’s North Cascades Highway is now closed for the winter.

Each fall, the state Department of Transportation blocks off a 35-to-50-mile section of Highway 20 when snow begins falling in the Cascade Mountains that line the highway.