King County approved for modified Phase 1

Meghan Walker Ballard

Restaurants in Seattle are allowed to reopen tonight, as the Washington Health Department approved King County to move into a modified Phase 1 in the state’s reopening plan.

Under the modified Phase 1, restaurants can offer indoor dining at 25 percent capacity and outdoor dining at 50 percent capacity. Retail stores can reopen with 15 percent capacity, and salons/barbershops can open at 25 percent capacity.

Skål Beer Hall sent out a newsletter saying they’d be reopening this weekend if the modified Phase 1 was approved, adding that they’ll be “strongly encouraging” customers to wear masks when not eating. Many local businesses will be sharing their reopening plans via social media, so check those channels to find out which are opening under the new guidelines.

As King County slowly progresses, Snohomish and Pierce counties have both been approved to fully move to Phase 2.

“This important step in our COVID-19 response reflects all the sacrifice and hard work that our community has put into fighting this disease,” King County Executive Dow Constantine said in a news release. “The success of this guidance depends on business owners and community members embracing public health best practices, and understanding that one size doesn’t fit all. By opening our economy carefully and deliberately, we make sure to stay healthy and continue down the path to full recovery.”

Here’s a full list of what can open today in King County.

Photo: Skål Beer Hall on Facebook

72 thoughts to “King County approved for modified Phase 1”

      1. “Peaceful protesters” is mostly an oxyMORON. Tell antifa to GTFO and I will believe you. Tell them to stop stuffing their backpacks with canned veggies and umbrellas. I hope that when YOU dial 911 they’re busy, with looters and drug addicts. Perhaps antifa will simply take over for us and become the authority. Cutting the police after all makes SO much sense. Anarchy is so under-rated and we need to become Venezuela or Cuba.

  2. Probably three weeks later than it should have been. Inslee finally had to back down. The politics changed really fast once people started gathering in mass protests. Sort of shows us that the lockdown was more about power than it was safety.

    1. Yeah, the bar for the next levels is constantly changing, and getting looser and looser. Dimslee’s hoping folks don’t notice with the other distractions going on. Covids over, the sheep are just waiting for their master to tell the what to do.

      Let’s keep this real: All of a sudden our public health officials are saying is ok to gather in large groups to protest; like there is all of a sudden a risk/benefit component to social distancing? Where was the higher order of thinking before we tanked the economy?

      History will show, big overreaction.

      1. “All of a sudden our public health officials are saying is ok to gather in large groups to protest”

        Please quote where health officials said that?

        It sounds like declining hospitalizations and more readily available tests are the reason why the approval for modified phase 1. But If you know any more info, by all means enlighten us with facts, otherwise we all see through your fact-less MAGA propaganda.

        1. Seattle Times article published yesterday titled “After Months of Pleading for Social Distancing, Health Officials Support Protests.” In it UW public health experts, King County Public Health and Inslee all offer tacit or explicit support for the need to gather in protest despite the risks of COVID.

          1. “A mass gathering is a mass gathering,” Adalja said. “When people are socially interacting and unable to social distance, shouting, and being sprayed with agents that caused them to cough, it is a simple biological fact the transmission events are going to occur.”

            The health experts in that article are also saying the virus will likely spread, and that social injustices and racism are worth the risk. There are health experts that disagree with them I’m sure. Nowhere in that article is anyone saying COVID is over.

            And for your comment about the bar changing, all the health experts, and public leaders including Inslee, have also been saying that. That’s situations work, you gain more knowledge and stats, and adjust your plan accordingly. Why would that be a bad thing? Even your guy Trump said it was all a hoax at first, then he heard from experts, and suddenly he knew all along it was a pandemic.

          2. Great, glad we agree. The benefits of protesting outweigh the risk of covid spread, I’m sure we all can agree on that.

            The real question was the benefit of risking covid spread worth destroying our economy, and history will judge it as a royal NO!

          3. So you think the economy is destroyed? Why is it not being called a depression then?

            Sorry you feel money is more important than the health of your community.

          4. That’s what I tell people who are out of work. Priorities people!

          5. “Sorry you feel money is more important than the health of your community” .nice try thats a false narrative. look it up

          6. Remember “neighborhood” burst on the MyBallard scene a few months ago bragging about throwing parties at Golden Gardens and about how he’s too “macho” for a mask.

            And yet he wants us to trust him on his economic “expertise”.

          7. Ha, lived here over 25 years… you’re not even from here. Tell us something about Charlies to prove your from Ballard.

          8. Ha, lived here over 25 years…

            Nobody is accusing you of not being from here. I’m questioning your economic claims.

            The real question was the benefit of risking covid spread worth destroying our economy, and history will judge it as a royal NO!

            With lockdowns around the country, we are sitting at 100,000+ deaths, but entering a reopening phase. We can never know how many deaths would have happened if the lockdowns were lessened or eliminated, but models showed anywhere from 300,000 to 1,000,000 dead.

            I’m not sure how an economy can survive that many unplanned deaths in a short time. You keep making the claim that we would somehow be better off, but offer no sources, no studies, no facts, no anything except your “bold”, unsubstantiated claim.

          9. I didn’t see anything about Charlies, which makes sense, because your not from Ballard and don’t know what that is.

          10. I didn’t see anything about Charlies, which makes sense, because your not from Ballard and don’t know what that is.

            Ah so you have nothing to back up your claims about keeping the economy fully open during a worldwide pandemic.

            Instead, you deflect and jump straight to accusing people of “not being from Ballard” rather than defending your opinion, which indicates that your original opinion was false the second you typed it out.

            Should we assume any future claims you make on this site are also unsubstantiated and false and save us the trouble of arguing them?

          11. Russian troll.. can’t substantiate even from Ballard. Look around, no one cares about covid anymore. Even Shummer wasn’t wearing his mask when he “knelt” today. US officially in recession today, national unemployment at 14% and underemployment at 22%, and you don’t think the economy is destroyed.

            Face it, folks are going to start getting back to “normal” and the death curve will stay flat. Let’s take this up again in 2 months and we’ll see who’s right.

          12. Don’t forget, 90% of covid deaths were 65+; do you know what the background death rate is in the US; 800 per 100k per year, that’s all ages… do the math genius. 2.5M per year, 100K in 3 months is a rounding error and many of these deaths would have occurred anyways when you consider the substantially higher age adjusted death rate for 65+

          13. And so how many more 65+ people were you willing to sacrifice to “reopen” an economy that you STILL can’t show would be any better off than today? Also, how many sub-65 people are you willing to sacrifice when COVID becomes endemic and emergency rooms are filled up? You refuse to answer that question when ANYONE asks you.

            And it’s cute that someone who joins the other troll sockpuppets in the biweekly, anti-homeless circle jerk on MyBallard accuses others of being trolls.

            Let’s take this up again in 2 months and we’ll see who’s right.

            Agreed, let’s talk in 2 months. I hope you’re right, I genuinely do, as does the rest of the world.

          14. Looks like ten times as many people, many of them children, will have already died of starvation by that time. You’re moralistic scare tactics are weak sauce.

          15. Check how Sweden are doing. Seems to be just fine. Or many places in the US that have been open for some time now for that matter. But I suppose we will know in three weeks. We can gauge the impact of all this protesting at that time can’t we?

          16. Ya right. What would’ve happened if they found WMDs? People can always say that. Three million people died in the US in 2019. 8k per day. They’ve been over counting too. Remembered how screwed we were gonna be because we didn’t have enough ventilators? Sure it’s a disease, but it’s just not very clear that it’s anywhere near as bad as it’s been leveraged to be. Politicians can’t be trusted. Especially ones with PhDs in epidemiology.

          17. I first lived in Ballard in 1980. I remember when they used to tell me I wasn’t from here at the Viking. But they’re all gone now. Ha! Who really cares?

          18. They are predicting 100 million more people pushed into starvation in the third world as a result of the COVID economy. Pretty selfish of first world neo liberals to place their own political goals and irrational hypochondria above everything else. There is no moral high ground. Stop pretending.

          19. Remember a month ago when you didn’t know how disease models work and when called on it lied about being a disease modeler? Good times

          20. We don’t need a black box model because we have data:

            US Covid deaths (remember 90% 65+) 36 per 100K in 3 months
            US Background death rate: 800 per 100K all ages per year… I’ll let you guess the death rate in 65+ (hint, it’s WAY higher)

            Sweden Covid death (perhaps you recall they were in the news recently for their approach to managing covid): 50 per 100K… don’t forget; this is the context of a similar all cause background death rate

          21. Sweden showed what is likely the best case scenario would be in keeping a country open. Even with their renowned personal responsibility and universal access to medical facilities, they’re not looking good and they’re starting to get a lot of criticism for their handling of COVID. Our country does not have adequate medical facilities nor anywhere near their level of personal responsibility, so you’d be hard pressed to argue that we would have been better off.

            You still aren’t addressing the crux of your argument: if we didn’t go into lockdown, how many more deaths, whether 65+ or not, would there be? With all those extra cases, our hospitals would be over capacity (remember, we were at capacity when we went into lockdown).

            And yes, while the death rate under 65% dips rapidly, that doesn’t mean that getting COVID is pleasant. I’ve had multiple healthy, young friends and family contract COVID and it’s debilitating. I certainly don’t want to contract it.

            Under your scenario, those younger individuals would likely not have had access to medical facilities that would have been overwhelmed. While they all survived, who knows what their situation could have been without access to medical help under your scenario.

            Under your scenario, cases rise. 65+ deaths skyrocket and under 65 cases skyrockets and deaths increase. What do you think happens to the economy when office jobs get hit with COVID? These office jobs were able to continue under the current situation, which meant that there was still cash flow to keep a significant portion of the service industry afloat. When office workers, managers and executives start getting sick all at once, it would absolute anarchy.

            Our current situation isn’t great and definitely could have been better had we had leadership at all levels of government that had taken this more seriously from the get go. Our country has overcome recessions before. This recession is ripe for a New New Deal to rebuild our country while pulling ourselves out of recession. Clearly won’t happen with the current federal government, but I’m hoping we’ll have a different government come January that is willing to put people first.

          23. Sweden is doing fine. [Insert fact check label above.]

            Go to http://www.google.com, enter “Sweden COVID” into the search box, click the “Google Search” button (hit “I’m Feeling Lucky” if you’re brave) and take your pick!

          24. As of today, Sweden has 4,814 recorded COVID deaths, which for a country of over 10 million is not an emergency. You should try getting your news from sources other than CNN. If you had, you might also have heard about how they carefully considered policy impacts holistically in Sweden. For example, when they decided not to close schools, it was because of concern about children who depended on school lunch to eat. Or how they predicted child and spousal abuse would rise. In contrast, our sick American politics and society simply opted for whatever political angle suited the selfish agenda and interests.

          25. First off, it’s clear math and critical thinking aren’t your strong points, but 4814 in 10,000,000 is a higher percentage than the US’s 115,000 in 330,000,000, which is universally considered to be in a crisis.

            Second, plenty of news articles to choose from if you Google “Sweden COVID”. I even saw a New York Post article on it. Is that right wing enough for you?

            Since I know you won’t go do any reading or critical thinking of your own and instead continue to regurgitate opinions given to you by paid, angry men on the radio, I’ll give you a quote from Fortune, considered to be a conservative leaning publisher:

            Sweden’s top health authority will drop daily press briefings that had provided updates on the country’s Covid-19 infection rate and death toll.

            The decision comes amid a furore over Sweden’s strategy to fight the pandemic, after state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell admitted his approach was flawed. Instead of every day, updates will now only be provided on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

          26. Not universally considered to be in health crisis. Economic crisis yes, but Sweden has that largely behind them. You people sure do love a good straw man argument.

            You mean 0.0004814 percent? Isn’t that the math? Are we talking about the same math? Not that that is the right equation anyways. The models are just dumb. Plenty of real math people saying that. It’s not how it works.

            “Anders Tegnell admitted is approach was flawed” goes the headline. God the spin factory is becoming unbearable. It’s not what he said. “From our point of view it does not disqualify our strategy as a whole…” Go ahead and find the video. (I’m not sure it would help you though…)

            In any case, sure it was prudent in the beginning to lock some stuff down, but we should have opened back up when the numbers looked reasonable. We did not. Simply because our moron governor wanted to play politics.

            Clearly, we aren’t going to find common ground. But know this, when you are walking in the middle of a field all alone with your mask on. All the people without masks think you are a fool. We see through it. We know you are paranoid and/or virtue signaling.

          27. Gosh, how I could be so blind! Here I was, listening to medical experts, doctors, medical research, facts, etc, when really, I should be listening to a commentor on a blog whose opinion and ideologies are given to him from an angry man on the radio who is paid to spout false facts with no sources!

            Look, you’ve got your ideologies, I get it, but the virus doesn’t give a flying crap about your ideologies and your ideologies are literally killing people.

            Not universally considered to be in health crisis. Economic crisis yes, but Sweden has that largely behind them. You people sure do love a good straw man argument.

            You’re right, there’s one prominent person that declared mission accomplished over COVID back in March and has been sticking to his guns ever since, doesn’t make him or anyone that agrees with him right.

            Meanwhile, if COVID was a war, it would now be the fourth deadliest war and that’s counting ALL US military deaths, not just combat deaths. And it’s only been 4 months since the first casualty!

            How is that not a crisis?

            You mean 0.0004814 percent? Isn’t that the math? Are we talking about the same math? Not that that is the right equation anyways. The models are just dumb. Plenty of real math people saying that. It’s not how it works.

            Can you name one of the “Plenty of real math people saying that. It’s not how it works.”? I’d really be curious how someone could spin something so fundamental as math.

            Meanwhile, in the real world:

            Sweden COVID confirmed deaths: 4,854
            Sweden COVID confirmed cases: 49,684
            Sweden population: 10,230,000

            4,854/49,684 = 0.098
            49,684/10230000 = 0.0048
            4,854/10230000 = 0.00047

            US COVID confirmed deaths: 115,000
            US COVID confirmed cases: 2,060,000
            US population: 328,000,000

            115,000/2,060,000 = 0.056
            2,060,000/328,000,000 = 0.0063
            115000/328,000,000 = 0.00035

            So maybe your “alternate” math calculates things differently, but Sweden beats the US in deaths per cases and deaths per capita, pretty handedly in both. We do have them beat on cases per capita.

            Clearly, we aren’t going to find common ground. But know this, when you are walking in the middle of a field all alone with your mask on. All the people without masks think you are a fool. We see through it. We know you are paranoid and/or virtue signaling.

            Cool story bro! Meanwhile in the real world: a vast majority of Americans understand that we are in a crisis and wear masks.

            In reality, Americans are looking at the maskless and wondering how somebody could so selfish, naive and ignorant, they would put others lives (and their own!) at risk for some ideology based on false premises.

            But here, have an upvote!

          28. I do wear a mask for others when it seems appropriate. You can just tell when people are just doing it to show they are good comrade citizens. Always these hollow moralistic arguments aimed at social control. We aren’t falling for it anymore.

            It’s also worth pointing out that transmission still occurs with masks regardless. We seem to think we can always stop nature and mortality, but we can’t. In the meantime, I don’t want to keep living in a totalitarian state because of some federal political bs.

          29. I do take advice from real doctors by the way. Look up Dr. Katz #totalharmonization if you are interested. This has been a pretty disturbing event for everyone, but this actually helped to discuss. Let us hope that this next phase is not bad. Peace and good health to you.

          31. I read that document by Dr. Katz. The gist I got was “we don’t know anything about COVID, so we shouldn’t jump to conclusions or make assumptions”, then goes immediately into jumping to conclusions and making assumptions.

            I then went to read up on Dr. Katz. He’s a food scientist? I’ll stick to the immunology experts thank you.

            I do wear a mask for others when it seems appropriate. You can just tell when people are just doing it to show they are good comrade citizens. Always these hollow moralistic arguments aimed at social control. We aren’t falling for it anymore.

            It’s also worth pointing out that transmission still occurs with masks regardless. We seem to think we can always stop nature and mortality, but we can’t. In the meantime, I don’t want to keep living in a totalitarian state because of some federal political bs.

            No one claims that all masks are 100% effective, but wearing something is always better than nothing, unless your mask is made of fishnets or something similar.

            You’ve been in the MyNorthwest echo chamber so long you’ve become so radicalized that you’ve politicized wearing a mask, something people do selfishly to protect themselves and others, not to become Communist or whatever wacky conspiracy you’ve heard from the angry man on the radio.

            But hey, maybe a little time away from the MNW echo chamber will expose you to new ideas and encourage critical thinking!

            Excelsior brother!

          32. Don’t wear a mask! Do wear a mask! Not enough ventilators! Plenty of ventilators! Empty hospital stadiums and ships.

            Don’t jump to conclusions?!!

            Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!

            You are an echo chamber brother!

          33. The heroes of the pandemic will NOT be those that refused to listen to medical exports and refused to wear masks and social distance because of their misguided ideologies given to them by an angry man on the radio.

            You won’t get much sympathy on neighborhood blogs for well educated places like Ballard.

            Hope you find what you’re looking for!

          35. I am willing to have this conversation. But, you were wrong before and then lied rather than admit it; how do I know you won’t do the same thing again?

          36. My guy is not Trump for the record. The kente cloth, and wearing masks all the time, even when inappropriate, and other virtue signaling. It’s all just as fake as an orange tan to me. Pretty close to fascist behavior. Antibody tests and plain common sense, Sweden, etc. Plenty of real facts. You are fact-less.

          37. Wrong, protesting is fine. It’s going to funerals and seeing dying relatives that was the bugaboo.

          38. ok troll, you are right, the families and friends of the 112,000+ dead are just imagining it all.

          39. Oh please. You think they are gonna print special stories in seatimes about all of the children starving in the third world? Look it up. 9 million people died of starvation last year. That’s over 24k people per day. It’s gonna be way more this year because of this COVID crap. How many tears did you shed each day? Like on that day that you had that really fun BBQ at the beach or whatever? Or I suppose I could have popped up while you were shopping at Target for candles when my dad died. No. People don’t do that, because it’s not cool. People live while they can, and spare compassion when they can. You can’t just irrationally impose on everybody, demonize them as ignorant white conservatives, and then turn around say it’s ok to break your own rules as you like. It’s just wrong.

          40. Can’t we be concerned about people dying from COVID AND children dying from starvation?

            Currently, 110,000+ people are dead and more dying for COVID in our country. You’ll have to pardon us snowflakes for temporarily being more concerned about the current crisis affecting our country.

            But please continue showing how completely out of touch with reality you are. You’re right at home with Paintking and a few others that lurk around the comments.

            Here, have an upvote!

          41. The key to defeating the virus is to have group movie nights and hang out in city hall after hours.

          42. I find it odd that you call yourself Truth when you so clearly cannot see it.

          43. Not only have you not proved me wrong, your talking points have all been demonstrably bullcrap.

            Are you by chance a MyNorthwest troll?

          44. Nope. Oh is that why they turned off the comments? More canceling. That’s just what you people do. Brand people. Witch hunt, and shut down any opinion that you don’t like. Even in the NYT op ed. Disgraceful.

            It really is a new kind of fascism. But it’s not going to work. Americans will finally see the real Truth. Just like with McCarthyism. There is a point to Freedom of speech.

            This neo-liberal bullshit is coming to an end. They are trying to scapegoat blue collar white people and cops, but it’s the progressive and affluent white people who drove the black communities out. They are the real perpetrators of institutional racism around here.

          45. Have you ever read MyNorthwest comments? There’s is no intelligent discourse that happens there. It was just a echo chamber filled with pure unadulterated crap.

            I didn’t know they turned off comments until you mentioned it. MyNorthwest turned off comments because the pure hateful trash that was being posted was scaring away advertisers and MNW chose money over echo chamber.

            They have zero obligation to honor your First Amendment rights, only the government does.

            But, that would explain why local blogs are being flooded with people, like yourself, posting typical unsubstantiated garbage that you would typically see in the MNW comment section . The rats are fleeing a sinking ship.

            But yeah, keep accusing others of false fascism and racism. It lets the rest of the country know who to ignore while moving forward.

          46. Ha! You must think the problem with this country is that not everybody thinks like you.

            Complete fantasy.

            The problem is that no one is listening or finding common ground. False fascism and racism? It’s not clear what you are even talking about.

            Return to your echo chamber.

          47. People goofing off in Chaz sure are. I bet the people you are talking about wished they could go to the funerals.

    3. What happened to him? Insleez? He seems to be hiding. He just sort of popped his head up recently when he thought he might be able to scapegoat a cop. But otherwise, nothing. Just quiet.

      1. He’s just been off golfing, apparently.

        “What do you think about Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone Jay?”

        “Well, that’s news to me so I’ll have to reserve any comment about that,” Inslee said before an awkward chuckle.

        Wow. He really has no clue.

  3. How is it civil and responsible conversation to have an account with someone else’s photo and a negative and unsubstantiated jab at that person? Who is hiding behind “Where is Dan Strauss hiding?” I would report you because you are “looting” this site with your unwarranted political comment, but i can’t see a way to report you. If you have something to say, use your own voice.

    4. Hahahaha – this is a reasonable request under normal circumstances, but this is myballard. I didn’t have to down vote you though. It just seemed fun because of the pig pile. haha

  4. I hear the Democrats are going to run on demanding everything be shut down and destroying the economy so that after three months they could all get together, ignore the shutdown so they can riot, loot and then get rid of the police.

    It’s almost like they want Trump to get re-elected.

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