Coronavirus daily news updates, June 29: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world

Vancouver-based United Grain has suspended operations at its grain export terminal at the Port of Vancouver, in southwest Washington, after two of its on-site staff tested positive for COVID-19, the company announced Monday.

United Grain operates the largest grain elevator on the West Coast, with more than 200 grain silos occupying much of the east end of the port. The terminal transfers grain from rail cars and river barges to ships bound for international destinations.

The company learned of one positive COVID-19 test result among its staff Thursday afternoon, according to public relations manager Stephanie McClintock. Company officials sought guidance from Clark County Public Health and began working to identify other employees that could have been exposed to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Several employees were tested Friday, McClintock said, and one of those tests came back positive Friday evening (the others were negative). She said both of the COVID-19-positive workers are United Grain employees, rather than longshoremen or contractors.

The determination that characterized Nola Mae Moore’s life showed through early in her life, from dealing with polio to recovering from a six-month hospital stay after she tried to fly. 

Dr. Moore practiced medicine for more than 35 years, including 30 with her husband in a family practice, and was the first woman president of the King County Medical Society.

Service to others was always a part of her life, from volunteering for decades at the YMCA’s Camp Orkila on Orcas Island to her daily 2-mile neighborhood walks when she would pick up trash. 

Dr. Moore, who lived in Shoreline, died April 17 from complications of the coronavirus.

She was 88, and had been in great health until contracting COVID-19. Four days before going to the hospital, she was on her roof cleaning the gutters, and was still taking her daily walks and driving friends on errands.

Read the full obituary here.

Remdesivir, the first drug shown to be effective against the coronavirus, will be distributed under an unusual agreement with the federal government that establishes nonnegotiable prices and prioritizes American patients, health officials announced Monday.

The arrangement may serve as a template for distribution of new treatments and vaccines as the pandemic swells, said Ernst Berndt, a retired health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.

Remdesivir will be sold for $520 per vial, or $3,120 per treatment course, to hospitals for treatment of patients with private insurance, according to the Department of Health and Human Services and Gilead Sciences, the drug’s manufacturer.

The price will be set at $390 per vial, or $2,340 per treatment course, for patients on government-sponsored insurance and for those in other countries with national health care systems.

The drug will be sold only in the United States through September, meaning U.S. patients will receive almost the entirety of Gilead’s output, more than 500,000 treatment courses.

Amazon employees and contractors who worked in the company’s operations business throughout June will receive a one-time bonus — $500 for full-time hourly employees — as thanks for their work during the pandemic, the company announced Monday.

The bonus for each individual ranges from $150 for contract delivery drivers who worked at least 10 hours in June to $3,000 for owners of small delivery companies set up to drive for Amazon. Full-time employees working in the company’s warehouses and Whole Foods Market stores will get a $500 bonus. Divided across a 40-hour-per-week schedule for the month of June, the $500 bonus is slightly less than $3 an hour. 

In recognition of their role helping the company respond to a surge in demand as the coronavirus upended normal life, Amazon paid its hourly employees $2 an hour extra during part of March, April and May, and increased overtime pay. It canceled the pay boost June 1, despite the continued spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

Read the full story here.

BREMERTON, Wash. (AP) — Two Washington state Native tribes sued a group of insurance providers they said have not covered claims for business losses resulting from the coronavirus.

The Suquamish and Port Gamble S’Klallam tribes and their business arms filed separate lawsuits against Tribal First Alliant Underwriting Solutions, The Kitsap Sun reported Sunday.

The civil claims filed earlier this month say the tribes bought $50 million of coverage in policies that should cover losses caused by the pandemic outbreak.

The policies provide broad coverage for losses resulting from any cause unless expressly excluded in the policy. The policies do not exclude losses from communicable diseases or viruses, the lawsuits say.

Dan Hughes will not coach the Storm during the 2020 WNBA season citing health concerns and the risk of potential severe illness if he were to test positive for COVID-19.

The 65-year-old coach, who led the Storm to a 2018 WNBA title, underwent surgery in May 2019 to remove a cancerous tumor in his digestive tract and missed the first nine games last year.

The decision to sit out the upcoming season followed a league assessment and consultation with Hughes’ primary physician, the Storm announced Monday.

Gary Kloppenburg, who first joined the Storm for the 2000-2002 seasons and returned in 2017, has been elevated from assistant to head coach for the 2020 season.

Read the whole story.

At least 285 U.S. children have developed a serious inflammatory condition linked to the coronavirus and while most recovered, the potential for long-term or permanent damage is unknown, two new studies suggest.

The papers, published online Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine, provide the fullest report yet on the condition.

The condition is known as multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children. It is considered uncommon and deaths are rare; six children died among the 285 in the new studies.

Including cases in Europe, where it was first reported, about 1,000 children worldwide have been affected, a journal editorial said.

Read the full story here.

State health officials confirmed 501 new COVID-19 cases in Washington on Monday, and 10 additional deaths.

The update brings the state’s totals to 32,253 cases and 1,320 deaths, meaning about 4.1% of people diagnosed in Washington have died, according to the state Department of Health (DOH). The data is as of 11:59 p.m. Sunday.

So far, 548,220 tests for the novel coronavirus have been conducted in the state, per DOH. Of those, 5.9% have come back positive.

The state has confirmed 10,019 diagnoses and 610 deaths in King County, the state's most populous, accounting for a little less than half of the state's death toll. At 6.1%, King County's positive test rate is higher than the statewide average.

When the first coronavirus cases in Chicago appeared in January, they bore the same genetic signatures as a germ that emerged in China weeks before.

But as Egon Ozer, an infectious-disease specialist at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, examined the genetic structure of virus samples from local patients, he noticed something different.

A change in the virus was appearing again and again. This mutation, associated with outbreaks in Europe and New York, eventually took over the city. By May, it was found in 95 percent of all the genomes Ozer sequenced.

At a glance, the mutation seemed trivial. About 1,300 amino acids serve as building blocks for a protein on the surface of the virus. In the mutant virus, the genetic instructions for just one of those amino acids – number 614 – switched in the new variant from a “D” (shorthand for aspartic acid) to a “G” (short for glycine).

But the location was significant, because the switch occurred in the part of the genome that codes for the all-important “spike protein” – the protruding structure that gives the coronavirus its crownlike profile and allows it to enter human cells the way a burglar picks a lock.

And its ubiquity is undeniable. Of the approximately 50,000 genomes of the new virus that researchers worldwide have uploaded to a shared database, about 70% carry the mutation, officially designated D614G but known more familiarly to scientists as “G.”

The mutation doesn’t appear to make people sicker, but a growing number of scientists worry that it has made the virus more contagious.

Read the full story here.

The European Union is edging toward finalizing a list of countries whose citizens will be allowed to enter Europe again in coming days, with Americans almost certain to be excluded in the short term due to the number of U.S. coronavirus cases.

Spain’s foreign minister said that the list could contain 15 countries that are not EU members and whose citizens would be allowed to visit from Wednesday, July 1. EU diplomats confirmed that the list would be made public on Tuesday. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because the procedure is ongoing and politically very sensitive.

EU envoys in Brussels worked over the weekend to narrow down the exact criteria for countries to be included, mostly centered on their ability to manage the spread of the disease. Importantly, the countries are also expected to drop any travel restrictions they have imposed on European citizens.

The number of confirmed cases in the United States has surged over the past week, and President Donald Trump also suspended the entry of all people from Europe’s ID check-free travel zone in a decree in March, making it highly unlikely that U.S. citizens would qualify.

Read the story here.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Citing the rapid pace of coronavirus spread in some parts of the state, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday ordered seven counties including Los Angeles immediately to close any bars and nightspots that are open, and recommended eight other counties take action on their own to close those businesses.

The decision, a sign of growing concern about new COVID-19 cases, was announced in a statement issued by the state public health director, Dr. Sonia Angell. Bars in seven counties are immediately impacted by the state order: Los Angeles, Fresno, Kern, San Joaquin, Tulare, Kings and Imperial.

Eight other counties have been asked by state officials to issue local health orders closing bars: Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Sacramento, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and Stanislaus.

“COVID-19 is still circulating in California, and in some parts of the state, growing stronger,” Newsom said in a statement. “That’s why it is critical we take this step to limit the spread of the virus in the counties that are seeing the biggest increases.”

The list of counties impacted by Sunday’s order was based, state officials said, on daily reports on the spread of the virus. Counties that have been on the state’s watch list for between three and 14 days are being asked to close bars. Those being ordered to close the local businesses have been on the state’s watch list for more than 14 days.

Read the story here.

For months, experts have warned of a potential nightmare scenario: After overwhelming health systems in some of the world’s wealthiest regions, the coronavirus gains a foothold in poor or war-torn countries ill-equipped to contain it and sweeps through the population.

Some poor countries, like Uganda, which already had a sophisticated detection system built up during its yearslong battle with viral hemorrhagic fever, have thus far been arguably more successful than the U.S. and other wealthy countries in battling coronavirus.

But since the beginning of the pandemic, poor and conflict-ravaged countries have been at a major disadvantage. The global scramble for protective equipment sent prices soaring. Testing kits have also been hard to come by. Tracking and quarantining patients requires large numbers of health workers.

In southern Yemen, health workers are leaving their posts en masse because of a lack of protective equipment, and some hospitals are turning away patients struggling to breathe. In Sudan’s war-ravaged Darfur region, where there is little testing, a mysterious illness resembling COVID-19 is spreading through camps for the internally displaced.

Cases are soaring in India and Pakistan, together home to more than 1.5 billion people and where authorities say nationwide lockdowns are no longer an option because of high poverty.

In Latin America, Brazil has a confirmed caseload and death count second only to the United States, and its leader is unwilling to take steps to stem the spread of the virus. Alarming escalations are unfolding in Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Panama, even after they imposed early lockdowns.

The first reports of disarray are also emerging from hospitals in South Africa, which has its continent’s most developed economy. Sick patients are lying on beds in corridors as one hospital runs out of space. At another, an emergency morgue was needed to hold more than 700 bodies.

“We are reaping the whirlwind now,” said Francois Venter, a South African health expert at the University of Witswatersrand in Johannesburg.

Read the full story here.

What to read: Are you in the mood for a fresh read, or a classic? Vote by noon today for the next Moira’s Book Club selection.

What to watch: Pierce County iron worker Tara Davis is tough as nails. She'll test her strength in a new CBS reality competition, and she has a strong message for viewers.

What to cook: Nice job, readers. You came up with platters full of appetizing surprises — and even desserts involving chicken! — in Round 4 of our Pantry Kitchen Challenge. Here are the top recipes and your challenge for the final round.

Governments are stepping up testing and reimposing restrictions as newly confirmed coronavirus infections surge in many countries.

India reported 20,000 on Monday, while the caseload in the U.S. is growing by about 40,000 a day.

The United States on Monday reported 38,800 newly confirmed infections, with the total surpassing 2.5 million, or about a quarter of the more than 10 million cases worldwide, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Health authorities are using what they describe as the world’s first saliva test for the coronavirus in Australia’s second-largest city, Melbourne, in the state of Victoria, where the disease is spreading at an alarming rate.

Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said Monday that 75 people had tested positive in the state in the latest 24 hours, bringing the total to about 2,100.

In the Philippines, a Southeast Asian coronavirus hot spot with more than 35,000 confirmed infections, local officials were under fire for allowing a street parade and dance during a weekend religious festival to honor St. John the Baptist despite prohibitions against public gatherings.

Experts say the actual numbers, both in the U.S. and globally, are probably far higher, in part because of testing limitations and the large number of people without symptoms.

In the U.S., Florida, Texas and other states are backpedaling on their reopenings, ordering mandatory wearing of masks in public and closing down restaurants and bars.

In China, nearly 8.3 million out of about 21 million have undergone testing in recent weeks in Beijing after an outbreak centered on a wholesale market. The country reported just 12 new cases Monday, including seven in Beijing.

Read the full story here.

Amazon employees entering a cavernous fulfillment center are greeted with masks dispensed through a door that opens in a shield.

From self-cleaning door handles to infrared cameras that take workers’ temperatures, this facility has become proving ground for new safety measures, with the successful ones exported across Amazon's empire.

But the coronavirus has not left the fulfillment center alone. Go inside to see the dramatic changes.

Mother Brown's son, Isaiah P. Thomas, 24, had just a few months left at the Reynolds Work Release facility in Seattle when she suddenly stopped hearing from him.

He'd been sent back to prison, along with several other men, after their family members protested outside to demand safer conditions amid coronavirus infections.

The story of the Reynolds Six is illuminating coronavirus outbreaks some officials would rather keep in the dark, columnist Naomi Ishisaka writes.

The world has surpassed two grim coronavirus milestones: 500,000 confirmed deaths, 10 million confirmed cases. Government leaders worry the worst is yet to come. In Washington state, cases have topped 31,000 and deaths have surpassed 1,300. As virus numbers float around, here’s a smart look at what they mean and which ones are particularly important to watch.

Beaches are closing and bars are shutting down as Florida, Texas and other states backpedal on reopening.

The race for a COVID-19 vaccine is entering a defining summer as the U.S. prepares to open the largest trials — but many scientists don’t expect a vaccine to be nearly as protective as the measles shot. Even if a shot pans out, the line for it is very long.

How many Seattle-area residents got stimulus payments? Not as many as in most other major metro areas, FYI Guy writes. He digs into who’s benefited and what they're doing with the cash.

Seattle Aquarium reopens today with limited capacity. Here's what to expect, and our updating guide to when residents of each Washington county will be able to resume other parts of life, from restaurant dining to working out at the gym.

Vice President Mike Pence implored Americans to wear face masks and wore one himself yesterday, a striking contrast with Trump administration officials' actions in recent months. Here's how to make a mask and wear it properly.

The coronavirus loves America the best. Columnist Danny Westneat explains why, “if I were a coronavirus microbe, my bristles would be positively quivering” in our fractious, belligerent Petri dish for the pandemic.