Dear Friends:

Below you will find today’s update, as well a new paraprosdokian and commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Kingdome demolition.

Paraprosdokians are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected, usually in a humorous way. In fact, Sir Winston Churchill loved them. I am including some of these figures of speech in my updates, so we can all keep our minds sharp, and hopefully find some humor as well.

Stay Home, Stay Healthy Compliance; Reporting Violations

During a press conference Monday afternoon, Gov. Jay Inslee, Attorney General Bob Ferguson, State Patrol Chief John Batiste and Bellevue Police Chief Steve Mylett stressed the importance of ongoing compliance with the stay-at-home order to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and said officials are ready to take steps to clamp down on violators.

Inslee outlined three tiers of response to complaints of suspected violation of the order. The first tier is simply to educate the suspected violator about how to comply with the order. For those who don’t comply at that point, the state could issue citations or suspend permits, including revocation of business licenses. At the third tier, for continued violators, cases could be referred to the Attorney General for either civil or criminal charges.

People who suspect a business is violating the order can visit the state’s coronavirus site to report online or can contact local law enforcement through non-emergency numbers. Inslee and other officials stressed that people should not call 911 to report such violations.

Social Distancing Slowing Spread of COVID-19

Two new modeling reports have found that the variety of social distancing measures in place in King County have reduced the spread of COVID-19, but officials also made clear during a Monday press call that those measures must continue to decrease and delay the peak of the outbreak.

The Bellevue-based Institute for Disease Modeling (IDM) researchers found significant reductions in mobility beginning in early March. IDM researchers then looked to see if that reduced mobility could be related to reductions in COVID-19 transmission.

Using a simulation of COVID-19 testing, diagnosis and death data for King County, they found that a measure of transmission, called the effective reproductive number, dropped by about half – from about 2.7 in late February to roughly 1.4 on March 18. This number represents the number of new transmissions stemming from each infection. However, to sustain a drop in new cases, that number need to be less than 1 – meaning each person must infect less than one person, on average.

Speaking to reporters Monday, Dr. Jeff Duchin from Public Health and Dr. Daniel Klein from IDM said there is still a lot of uncertainty and warned against taking these findings as a sign that individuals could ease social distancing strategies. You can read the full summary from Public Health here.

Real Time Global COVID-19 Data: Check This Out

In addition to the local data, you can check out www.ncov2019.live/data, which tracks the total number of COVID-19 cases by country, including confirmed cases, daily changes, confirmed deaths, and recoveries. The website is designed and managed by a 17-year-old high school student from King County named Avi Schiffmann.

Please note, the website pulls data from public health websites around the world every minute, but not every country reports the data uniformly.

Kingdome Implosion 20th Anniversary


With Paul Allen and Bert Kolde

I can’t let March go without recalling March 26th, 2000 when Paul Allen imploded the Kingdome. Paul, with a lot of “assist” behind the scenes from his WSU fraternity brother and business associate, Bert Kolde, changed our region’s sports scene forever.

Stay In. Stay Healthy. Stay Strong.

Pete von Reichbauer
King County Councilmember