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KING 5: Hundreds rush to get COVID-19 vaccine in Seattle overnight after freezer failure

A total of 1,650 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine at risk of expiring Thursday night were quickly administered to more than a thousand people at UW and Swedish clinics.

SEATTLE — Hundreds of people rushed to Seattle University and University of Washington clinics late Thursday night to try and receive a COVID-19 vaccine before the doses expired.

Spokespeople for both Swedish and UW said that a freezer storing Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine broke at Kaiser Permanente, leaving 1,650 doses of the vaccine at risk of expiring.

Swedish and UW split the doses and began administering them.

"Teams worked vigilantly and in close partnership through the night and early morning to ensure all doses were used and no vaccination lost,” a Kaiser Permanente Washington representative said.

Swedish posted an urgent message on social media around 11 p.m. Thursday saying it had hundreds of appointments available from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. to use the vaccines before they expired by the morning. Hundreds of people answered the call and showed up in their pajamas and robes to receive their first dose of the vaccine.

Swedish Medical Center COO Kevin Brooks said the available appointments were filled within 35-40 minutes.

“We got a call from a partner hospital that they had a fridge malfunction and they needed to vaccinate 880 people,” said Brooks. “I pulled our team together, our vaccine team at Swedish, and we huddled on Microsoft Teams and came up with a plan, and 30 minutes later we came on site.”

I got the call at 22:00 and I was on-site by 22:40. We were fully operational barely 30 minutes later.

What an incredible experience. So glad I get to be part of it.

I’ve been working at this clinic since January 11th as a volunteer and patient registration lead. Long days leave us feeling pretty wiped out, but the sense of community and shared purpose is amazing, and the excitement patients express at receiving their vaccine doses is so wonderful to see.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of links to media coverage, mostly local, in chronological order. I’ll add to the list as I see new coverage pop up. Links open in new windows.

• KING 5 TV: Community COVID-19 vaccine clinic opens in Seattle (Jan 16)
  Swedish Hospital partnered with Seattle University to open a clinic on the school’s campus.
  
  
• KIRO 7 TV: New Swedish community COVID-19 vaccination clinic up and running at Seattle University (Jan 16)
  The unique partnership between Swedish and Seattle U was dreamed up just two weeks ago. The clinic is operated and managed by Swedish, while Seattle University hosts the location and parking.
  
  
• The Seattle Times: As Washington state aims to vaccinate millions against COVID-19, thousands sign up to help (Jan 23)
  In Seattle University’s Campion Ballroom, which in non-pandemic times is used as a large conference room and event space, more than 2,000 people a day are being vaccinated against COVID-19 through a clinic operated by Swedish Health Services.
  
  
• KING 5 TV: Hundreds rush to get COVID-19 vaccine in Seattle overnight after freezer failure (Jan 29)
  A total of 1,650 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine at risk of expiring Thursday night were quickly administered to more than a thousand people at UW and Swedish clinics.
  
  
• The Washington Post: A failed freezer forced an overnight dash to give out more than 1,600 doses of the coronavirus vaccine (Jan 30)
  National coverage of our Thu 01/29 late-night vaccination clinic

Jan. 6, 2021, was always on the country’s radar.

Two runoff elections that would determine control of the Senate still had not been decided as Tuesday became Wednesday. A joint session of Congress convened to certify Joe Biden’s electoral-vote win while thousands gathered on the Mall in support of President Trump, who continued to falsely claim that the election was stolen from him.

[The four-hour insurrection: How a Trump mob halted American democracy]

As the scene in D.C. continued to darken, smaller demonstrations across the nation also flared, forcing officials in several statehouses to evacuate.

This is how the day unfolded.

See the full detailed timeline. [$$]

Healy’s analysis of GOP expectations vs. reality in the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Snips:

I don’t know what happened. But here’s my current theory of what the White House thought was going to happen. I don’t have any more information than you do, and here I’m not concerned with the broader question of how the country came to this end. I am just trying to make sense of what happened on Wednesday. [...]

The plan for Wednesday was to have Trump go down and rile up the MAGA crowd, have them march up to the Capitol steps, and look like a big mass of people demanding something be done. Thanks to some preparatory cleansing of the DoD leadership last month (again, in outline pretty clear evidence that they intended to subvert the election), the White House had made sure there wouldn’t be much to stop the crowd from getting real close and making a lot of noise. The optics would be good. And the cops on duty wouldn’t go too hard on their MAGA buddies in any case. [...]

Once the ructions were underway, and the objections from Hawley and Cruz and others were being debated, Trump would call some Senators to push them to object or generally delay or whatever. At a minimum, anything to derail the process. And as a best outcome—well, this bit is one of those ?????? Underpants Gnomes stages that features in all half-thought-out Trumpy plans—between the direct pressure from Trump and the noise from the masses gathered outside (just look at those TV pictures!), there would be some big shift as Senators realized their base was against them and they’d vote to reject the Electoral votes and send everything back to the States. Or there would be chaos on the Senate floor and someone like Cruz would hope to capitalize on it to reach some quasi-legitimate “Compromise of 2021”. Or something. I’m not saying this makes much sense in terms of things that definitely had to happen. It’s more that they saw potential to seize the initiative in some real-time moment of uncertainty with the house divided and the crowd outside.

The crowd outside. [...] [B]ecause this was an event that Trump was going to be at himself, the idea was probably that from the crowd’s point of view it’d go more like a regular rally, as opposed to something like Charlottesville or the Michigan Statehouse. That is, from the White House’s point of view, the crowd was not actually supposed to get inside the Capitol. The MAGA/Q contingent are the useful marks in all this. They believe all the crap they’re fed. But obviously they’re not going to get into the building. It’s the US Capitol for God’s sake! The very idea that the rush of events would propel them right into the chambers was not something the White House wanted to happen, or thought was going to happen.

Of course, before the rally some of the actually dangerous Q-marinated nutters absolutely did want to get inside the building, find Pence, and Pelosi, and the rest, and literally take them hostage and string them up. They talked about this a lot on their message boards. The White House was probably well aware of these ideas.

Read the whole thing here. Well worth the time.

They go into effect Monday at 23:59 (Tuesday 23:59 for restaurants).

Gov. Inslee orders sweeping restrictions on indoor gatherings, restaurants, bars, gyms as COVID-19 cases surge in Washington state

Social, economic and cultural life in Washington will grind to a halt at 11:59 p.m. Monday night, as Gov. Jay Inslee orders broad restrictions and shutdowns for restaurants, theaters, gyms and all indoor gatherings in an effort to slow the state’s burgeoning coronavirus epidemic.

Inslee, Sunday morning, ordered restaurants and bars to shutdown indoor service and to limit outdoor service to parties of five or less. Indoor gyms and fitness centers must also shutdown. Same with movie theaters, bowling alleys and museums. Indoor gatherings with people outside your household will be prohibited unless participants have quarantined for at least a week and tested negative.

“Today, Sunday, November 15, 2020, is the most dangerous public health day in the last 100 years of our state’s history,” Inslee said in prepared remarks. “A pandemic is raging in our state. Left unchecked, it will assuredly result in grossly overburdened hospitals and morgues; and keep people from obtaining routine but necessary medical treatment for non-COVID conditions.”

From the Seattle Times: Inslee to ban indoor gatherings and dining, plus issue more COVID-19 restrictions for Washington state, industry sources say

Gov. Jay Inslee will announce sweeping new restrictions Sunday to curb surging COVID-19 cases, including a ban on indoor social gatherings and indoor service at restaurants and bars, and sharp occupancy limits for retailers, according to industry officials briefed by the governor’s staff.

Supreme Court rules same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states.

Beautiful writing from the majority opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy:

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.

It is so ordered.

My sister outdid herself with her most recent post. First two paragraphs:

As I sit here at the end of this day that is set to remember Martin Luther King, Jr. I find myself wondering what he would say to all of us if he were alive today. I think he would be disgusted. I think he would find the continuous spending of money that we don’t have to be irresponsible. I think he would point out that bailing out companies and banks only teaches children that they can spend what they don’t have.

So many of his speeches mentioned the future. Here we are in that future and while we have made many improvements, we have lost a lot. America has lost its pride. I don’t mean the pride of being an American. That is living strong. I mean basic pride in your work. Wanting to do a good job, just for the sake of doing a good job.

Run over and check out the rest. It’s well worth the read.

Text exchange just now.

David: What should I be for Halloween?
Me: A Chilean miner. You can phone it in.

We made the local news! :-)

It takes a village — not to raise a child, in this case — but to build a home.

Molokai Habitat for Humanity’s latest project brought 15 volunteers hailing from the mainland to Ho‘olehua as a part of Habitat’s Global Village program. The team was here for 10 days and left early last week, after making substantial headway for a home currently being built for the Kaai ‘ohana. It is expected to be completed in two months.

via www.themolokaidispatch.com

ATLANTA (July 14, 2010) – Habitat for Humanity achieved the rank of No. 8 on the Builder 100 list with 5,294 closings, marking the first time it has been among the top 10 biggest homebuilders in the United States. The list also shows Habitat moved up three spots in 2009 from its 2008 ranking of No. 11.

via www.habitat.org

First time they cracked the Top 10. Pretty slick achievement.

Saw this just now in my Twitter stream:

Remember, tomorrow is national wear blue day for colon cancer awareness. http://bit.ly/aVVzA2 /via @Swedish

And I thought, blue. For colon cancer, really, BLUE?

At least with breast cancer, there’s a (possibly tenuous, and definitely 12-year-old-humour) link with its color. Pink = areola, so obvious.

But blue? For colon-cancer awareness?

Though we all know why they couldn’t choose the most obvious color, brown: Everyone would spend the day being mistaken for UPS deliverypersons.

My Tuesday started out as a fairly dull day at work and ended with my subpoena as a witness in a criminal matter.

Jumping backward a bit....

Some 6,000 to 7,000 City Light customers on Lower Queen Anne, including portions of the Seattle Center and the Space Needle, went without electricity for 45 minutes early this morning

via seattletimes.nwsource.com

No wonder my microwave and stereo were doing the

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blinkies this morning. Kind of weird to find out about an immediately local event via the newspapers a few hours after it happened, though.

And I suppose it’s a good thing I use my phone as an alarm clock.

Did NOT expect to find this temperature reading in my living room on the supposed first day of autumn!

All this heat? It’s clearly in our heads. We can see that quite plainly from weather.com’s temperature indicator just now. As an aside: It’s 90.5° in my living room at this moment, up from 89.2° when I arrived home an hour and 20 minutes ago. I can’t wait for Sunday when I’ll be on the way to Hawaii. :-)

On Sunday morning there was an assault and stabbing in my building. Happened to be my neighbors, and I was the second person to call 911. Spent much of the rest of the day talking to police, writing a statement, giving a recorded interview with a Domestic Violence Unit detective.

I talked quite a bit about this on Twitter Sunday*, but I haven’t mentioned it here until now. I wasn’t sure if I was going to mention it here at all, since it involves other people in a sensitive story, but I decided since it was part of my life and the victim’s anonymity has been maintained in the news coverage, posting about that coverage was okay.

Anyway. After the jump, the latest story about the case from one of the local papers.

* See (in this order) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Spotted this on Julie Anne’s blog, figured I’d try it as well.

Imagine my surprise:

You Remember 100% of 2008

You were paying attention during 2008. And you remember what happened really well. You’ll be able to talk about 2008 for years to come... Even when most people have forgotten what went down.

Salt Lake Tribune: Name ‘Hacking’ struck from headstone
Her mother: Donates decorative angels sent to her to a shelter for abused and neglected children

by Jason Bergreen

image not available
The Soares family has replaced the name ‘Hacking’ on their slain daughter’s gravestone with ‘Filhinha,’ which is Portuguese for ‘little daughter’
Rick Egan, The Salt Lake TribuneLori Hacking’s family has changed her headstone at the Orem City Cemetery to remove “Hacking” from her name. It now reads “Lori Kay Soares.”

Police found Lori Hacking’s body on Oct. 1 at a landfill they had been searching since mid-July, shortly after Mark Hacking reported his 27-year-old wife failed to return from an early morning jog in City Creek Canyon. He later allegedly admitted he shot her in the head as she slept and disposed of her body in a trash bin.

“We just felt that Mark obviously didn’t want her anymore,” Lori’s mother, Thelma Soares, said during a phone interview. Where Lori’s married name once was on the headstone is now engraved the Portuguese word “Filhinha,” which translates to “little daughter.”

Mark Hacking’s parents were notified of the change, made more than a month ago, and understood, Soares said. Saturday, Soares donated decorative angels sent to her from all over the United States to be used as Christmas ornaments at the Christmas Box House, a temporary shelter for abused and neglected children.

“I tried to think of an appropriate way to share them and the love they represent,” she said.

Children at the Christmas Box House decorated a 12-foot tree, Soares said. A picture of Lori was also placed in the branches. Creating the angel tree memorial for Lori seemed appropriate because Soares’ nickname for her daughter was “Angel Baby,” she said.

“It’s gorgeous,” she said of the tree.