What’s Next: Thinking about the future after COVID-19

Six weeks, 45 days, 1,080 hours. That’s the amount of time since the first say-at-home orders were issued in Washington state. By anyone’s standards that’s a lot of time keep to yourself. Only so many of those hours can be filled with home improvement, daily walks, or the occasional new hobby.

After filling up as many free moments as possible with menial tasks, there’s still lot of time to think. No, I don’t mean think about what to do next, or think about the latest pandemic update. But this long enduring time has made it possible for us to think about what all of this means.

Maybe you’ve noticed how beautifully the spring season has started on your daily walk? Maybe you’ve looked at the horizon and seen the Cascade mountains with more clarity then you’ve ever seen before? Maybe you think you’re going crazy? But you’re really not.

Seattle native, Katie Kleinsmith also noticed the new clarity to her hometown skyline.

“The air does feel cleaner and refreshing. You can see the [Cascade] mountains constantly, that’s been really nice,” she said.

Kleinsmith is the senior sourcing manager of the Food Supply Chain for Starbucks. She previously drove into Seattle every day for her job at a corporate office building. But Kleinsmith is not the only one.

Seattle Times columnist Gene Balk reported in 2017 that 38 percent of Seattleite’s are employed at a job that impose more than five hours of sitting.

When I talked to Kleinsmith about her life before social distancing, she reflected on just how much time she actually spent traveling to and from work.

“You start to think, I enjoy getting up and not spending an hour and a half my day getting to work,” she said candidly. “It’s a waste of my time when it’s now proven we can work from home just as well.”

 

My first published material was early on in the great story of COVID-19, when only two cases were reported in the U.S. and the mindset towards the virus was passive. Now the U.S. alone has grown from only two cases, to more than 1.28 million nationally with over 75,000 deaths. I’ve been able to see its deleterious evolution in America. First bringing questions and contradictions to the media cycle, then fear and panic.

The constant tunnel of COVID-19 news still pours in from every news outlet, but also due to the fact that it’s really the only news left in the world. Hearing time and time again from trusted reporters about the dangers ahead, begins to hang onto a person spirit.

We can ask questions like how long will this last ? Who is to blame ? But really we should be asking, “what does this all mean?”.

I’ve tried to summarize the way I feel about this time in humanity many times in my head. The best way I’ve thought of it so far,  is rather philosophical:

Sometimes it takes life altering realities that don’t really feel like a reality to change someone’s mindset.

“When there is real agreement something is a problem, we come together…” Said Dr. Amy Snover, director of the UW Climate Impacts Group. “The fact that congress has passed a [$2 trillion stimulus bill] for the real obvious impact of COVID-19. I mean those are massive bills under normal circumstances,” she said.

Snover was able to put my feelings about the pandemic into a perspective. Why don’t we take all the fear, death, and unemployment from this pandemic and fuel it towards a bigger purpose?

The United Nations announced in March, that  there are only 11 years left until our current pollution levels create irreversible damage due to climate change.

Americans have spent decades talking about climate change and how to reverse it. We’ve even been able to come up with the “Green New Deal” a proposed package of legislation that addresses climate change and economic inequalities. However, this “new” deal isn’t very new at all.

The climate change legislation was named after the “New Deal” in 1933. It was a series of actions set into place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to help recover America after the Great Depression. The same Great Depression that carried a historic 24.9 percent unemployment rate. America today is only 10.2 percent lower than that of our highest rate in history.

Change on a large scale is scary, no one can deny that. We’ve seen one of the most terrifying changes to the world happen virtually overnight. But right now is such a pivotal moment for us to be able make the change towards something better in the long run.

Similar to a pandemic, climate change touches every aspect of someone’s life, not only environmentally but socially and especially economically.

What would happen if we take all those millions of people without jobs and instead of giving them another job in a dying economy, we give them jobs in the economies that also works toward reversing climate change?

Take for instance the Seattle Sound Transit. The state agency works on reliable, affordable transportation for Seattleites around the greater Seattle area.

The agency was approved by voters in 2016 to expand the system using tax dollars. The new expansion named “ST3” plans to reach over a 116-mile region adding 31 miles to the current longest light rail system in Dallas, Tx. The feat will be completed in phases and should be fully functioning by 2041.

Pollution from transportation accounts for nearly 50 percent of Seattle’s overall pollution levels, as reported by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. Sound Transit is trying to combat the issue by creating the nation’s largest light rail system to date.

We are all connected to COVID-19 because it’s what everyone is talking about it’s hard to feel the urgency [of climate change] when someone is caring about droughts, another floods, the list goes on, said  Puget Sound Clean Air Agency technical analysis manager Eric Saganic.

So how do we motivate and keep people in this forward movement of environmental stability?

Katie Kleinsmith is just one of the hundreds of thousands of Seattleites that commuted everyday for work to primarily sit at a corporate office building. The clarity we see in the Seattle skyline today is because of people like Kleinsmith limiting their transportation.

“Every factor is need to reduce climate change, but the light rail is one important piece to get people into public transportation,” Saganic said.

The use of the light rail and it’s incoming expansion after the pandemic could put thousands of cars off the road daily and would reduce pollution from our biggest cause of damage in Seattle.

While these statistics sound promising, the biggest question still stands: Can we take the damage from all the lives and jobs lost in this pandemic now and use that to fuel our fire to save so many lives in the future?

Rural Health Networks Grapple with COVID-19

Saint John residents show their support for local medical professionals. Courtesy Pete Edminster.

Rural health systems are trying to survive financially amid the coronavirus pandemic, as operations remain halted by state proclamations.

Governor Jay Inslee ordered medical services to stop doing elective surgeries and procedures to preserve personal protective equipment on March 19. This ensured there was enough available to treat people who may have severe cases of COVID-19, according to a statement from Inslee.

The governor updated the proclamation to allow “emergent” or “urgent” surgeries on April 29. Criteria to determine whether a procedure is pressing were outlined, such as preventing the advancement of a disease or increased loss of function, according to the statement.

However, the halt of elective surgeries has already resulted in an overall financial impact on health systems, said Jac Davies, Northwest Rural Health Network director.

“There’s been a huge financial impact on the health systems by not being able to do the services they would normally do,” she said. “Many [rural health systems] are not particularly financially healthy in the beginning anyway.”

Many medical groups in Washington are independent, such as the Whitman Medical Group, as opposed to being affiliated with a larger health system. That independence also means these groups may not have as many resources as a practice from a larger system would, Davies said.

The Whitman Medical Group recently purchased a clinic, which set the network back financially, said Kimball Mellor, a Colfax Whitman Medical Group physician. He said his clinic is funneling its CARES ACT stimulus money to the hospital to keep it operational. At least a third of the losses are getting paid out with stimulus money.

Money coming from the federal government is helping to fill financial gaps. Some aid is coming out in the form of grants or advanced payments through Medicare, Davies said. There are also medical groups that are going through different furlough processes or reductions in salary.

The hospital avoided mass layoffs or salary reductions by putting staff on flexible time, Mellor said. This allows people who don’t feel the need to work to stay home, and others can stay longer.

“In the short term, things are stable,” he said. “But if it doesn’t turn around quickly […] it will be terrible.”

Larger urban systems tend to have more capacity to be able to retain resources or shift them around. Rural health systems are smaller and don’t have the capacity to do the same, she said. Rural communities are eager for economic reasons to get their business open again.

The clinic wants to be back online within a month or else there may be closures in the future, Mellor said. Medical professionals and others in the community want everything to go back to normal soon so local economies don’t die, he said.

“We don’t live in a community where there’s a lot of bad issues,” Mellor said. “We just need to get back to real life.”

Pete Edminster, a Saint John Whitman Medical Group physician, said those in his town of nearly 600 aren’t concerned about catching the virus because they already have a lifestyle that entails social distancing. It is easier to mitigate infectious diseases like COVID-19 when people like to stay more than six feet apart from one another, Edminster said.

He said people in rural towns are used to taking care of themselves and their neighbors and are used to operating on less. Small town folks are more equipped to handle hard situations more than people from the city who have “all of everything at their fingertips,” Edminster said.

However, if the coronavirus makes its way to Saint John, it will devastate vulnerable folks who are older and have preexisting conditions, he said. Saint John is dependent on the impact of COVID-19 being slow or referral centers having beds available for patient transfers.

“There’s always that lingering fear if coronavirus were to get in here and [it] hit one of our nursing homes, our hospital would be overwhelmed in a matter of days,” Edminster said. “We don’t have the resources to take care of multiple people who need ventilators.”

The Whitman Medical Group has not been limited by a lack of resources because there aren’t as many patients coming to the clinics, Edminster said. It is difficult to take care of people who were difficult to reach before. Many can hardly afford to come in for their monthly checkups to get their medication refilled, he said.

Preexisting health conditions that are common in rural areas, such as heart and respiratory diseases, may pose a considerable threat if the coronavirus arrives, Edminster said. There is no way of knowing how much health disparities will worsen after the pandemic.

“Those health disparities that existed before coronavirus are still going to exist after,” he said. “Time will tell what kind of impact that has on us in general.”

A number of hospitals are getting ready to do more aggressive outreach to their patients that have various chronic conditions, Davies said. This is to make sure they are getting back on track with the care they may have not received earlier.

Edminster said his community is still determined to stay healthy and precautious as the state opens up. Saint John medical professionals are getting a lot of praise, he said, but it isn’t necessarily deserved. Instead, the community members should be lauded and celebrated because they are taking care of each other, he said.

“We’re making sacrifices on behalf of each other,” Edminster said. “I think that’s a really truly heroic thing that shouldn’t be underestimated.”

Reporting by Lauren Ellenbecker

Audio piece by Avery Cooper.

Final Pitch

The pandemic of 2020 shows no sign of ending and has brought on burden after burden to every age, race, and economic class in the world. It’s a time history has never seen before. It’s also a time where our everyday lives have come to a pause. Unlike most parts of life currently, the environmental impact of COVID-19 might be for the better. In the short time of the stay-at-home order and closures of non-essential business our air has become cleaner, clearer, and potentially could propel us into the “New Green Era”. My story will talk about these short-term changes that have come from the darkness of COVID-19 and how as a civilian this might be the push we needed to see how we can live a greener life on Earth.

 

I had the opportunity to talk to Adrienne Karpov, the research administrator of UW Climate Impacts group. She provided me with the names of researchers and the head of research communication, Tess Wrobleski who is working on new climate impacts, how they started, their impact on daily pollution and a number of other connections to climate and daily pollution. She was a great resource and was willing to talk again for more information.

 

Records request:

Apr 21 2020

Department of Ecology

300 Desmond Drive SE, Lacey, WA 98503

Dear Department of Ecology,

Pursuant to the state open records law Wash. Rev. Code Secs. 42.56.001 to 42.56.904, I write to request access to and a copy of the Washington State Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory for the year of 2020. I would specifically like the information on transportation in the months of February through April in Washington. If your agency does not maintain these public records, please let me know who does and include the proper custodian’s name and address.

I agree to pay any reasonable copying and postage fees of not more than $10. If the cost would be greater than this amount, please notify me. Please provide a receipt indicating the charges for each document.

As provided by the open records law, I will expect your response within five (5) business days. See Wash. Rev. Code Sec. 42.56.520.

If you choose to deny this request, please provide a written explanation for the denial including a reference to the specific statutory exemption(s) upon which you rely. Also, please provide all segregable portions of otherwise exempt material.

I would note that violation of the open records law can result in a fine — payable to me — of up to $100 for each day that I am denied access. Litigation costs, including reasonable attorney fees, may also be awarded. See Wash. Rev. Code Sec. 42.56.550(4).

Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Lexis Cook

Washington State University Murrow College of Communication 355 SE Andrews St, Issaquah, WA 98027

4252219032

 

Feature Pitch

For my feature project I’d like to do a story on the Seattle co-op, Puget Consumer Co-op (PCC) and how they have had to change their store during the time of COVID-19.

The biggest difference between PCC and other grocery stores is that it is a customer owned corporation and because of this, customers feel they have a stronger connection to the store (and also feel they can expect more from the store).

The Issaquah PCC manager, Tami Littlefield, previously worked for a grocery store that was not owned by their customers and I’d like to use her as my main figure when explaining the past few months of operating an essential business (she has an understanding of what is more/less difficult about running a co-op compared to a normal grocery store during this time).

I want to look at the store from an inside out perspective: describing the fast pace changes to stay up on CDC regulations, skyrocketing sales in one department while devastatingly low sales in another, and especially the quick turnover of staff during this time.

I think reaching out to the union PCC workers will help with understanding staffing, plus the corporate office of the store will greatly help with explaining distribution.

There is a lot of complexity that comes with running a grocery store during the time of a pandemic and I don’t think the media has covered something like this in detail.

How does a store keep its integrity to customers while also helping fight an invisible bad guy?

 

I understand normally this is a conflict of interest but can make my case.

Since working for the Co-op all of the staff in manager positions are new to me as an employee. My position is below a clerk meaning I do not have say when I comes to the store, and I was not a member to the co-op previously. I think having the ability to be there and visually pick up on the social ques around me will help with practicing feature writing (even if it’s a conflict of interest).

Feature: A Teacher at heart

When recent WSU graduate, Emily Metcalf accepted a teacher’s position halfway through the school year she knew she was going to have a difficult learning curve. Little did she know, she’d be teaching third grade from her childhood bedroom.

Metcalf accepted an offer from Liberty Ridge elementary in December where she would be taking over her first ever classroom. Not only did she achieve one of her biggest goals in life, but the job came with a highly-supportive faculty.

The daily agenda always started with a school-wide morning assembly, Metcalf said. From there, her class would learn about social behaviors, reading comprehension, mathematics and science all in one day.

As fast as it was for Metcalf to get her first classroom, the preventative measures to combat COVID-19 were even faster to take that classroom away.

On March 12^th the Sumner-Bonney Lake school district informed parents and faculty via email that in person schooling would be canceled until April 24.

“We were told to offer review opportunities online and families were also able to access printed actives too for equity,” Metcalf said.

The entire staff at Liberty Ridge collaborated on educational material for students to practice during the closure. However, because not every student has access to a computer, all material was optional.

In a collective effort to maximize equity, the school district used funding from the Replacement Instructional Technology Improvements Levy.

The levy was passed in February of 2018 and focused on maintaining the 1:1 Technology Initiative. The six-year imposed tax will bring in an average of $5 million for funding each year until 2024.

Funding from the levy has provided students and teachers in the district with equitable access to a wide range of educational technology, such as Chromebooks.

The district put out an announcement explaining how students without access to internet or a digital device can pick up the needed technology at no cost to themselves, Metcalf said.

Districts that don’t have levy’s with as wide of a reach are finding help from other outlets.

Donation centers such as Eastside Baby Corner in the King Country school district have partnered with local tech companies to put laptops in the hands of students.

“Sometimes we get huge technology donations from companies,” said Helen Banks Routon, Director of development and community relations.

SAP Concur Company in Bellevue, Washington, donated 200 laptops after they did a company switchover, she said.

The non-profit has partnered with Friendly Earth, a recycling center in Seattle, to refurbish used laptops and give them out to families in need.

The recycling center estimates they have refurbished around 100 laptops since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Trevor Inman, an inventory control specialist for Friendly Earth.

The transition from education in person to online has been difficult for teachers who are learning as they educate.

“I wake up a lot earlier than I did when we went to school,” Metcalf said.

Every morning since the cancelation, Metcalf starts her day making videos for her students. Some videos give virtual shout-outs to kids who have been practicing skills, others are read-along stories of her students favorite books. Her email and communication boards are also open all day to help students and parents when they have questions.

Between creating assignments, meeting with faculty, and checking in on families, Metcalf has learned more about education then any situation before.

But even as she reads her students favorite book “The Cool Bean” though a laptop camera, Metcalf doesn’t stop dreaming about the day she can finally go back to school.

 

 

Emily Metcalf

Liberty Ridge Elementary Teacher

253-350-3177

 

Helen Banks Routon

Director of Development and Community Relations

425-372-7525

 

Trevor Inman

Inventory Control Specialist for Friendly Earth

206-367-4111

 

 

Education moving online, or moving at all?

With the drastic day-to-day regulations being announced to combat COVID-19, schools in and around the Seattle area have been left scrambling to stay on track. A chain of short emails from administration and multiple faculty meetings are finally giving light to a plan for Seattle area schools continuing their education.

After two weeks of quickly changing policy on public education during the global pandemic, school districts are starting to align on the expectations for the rest of the school year.

At first it was an equity issue when it came to online education, said Jordan Frost, a psychology teacher at Issaquah high school.

Frost and other teachers at his school have been brainstorming modifications to curriculum in order to teach students virtually. The biggest challenging is not leaving students who don’t have access to internet or a laptop behind.

The Washington state superintendent, Chris Reykdal has instructed teachers to plan for online education however the quickly changing restrictions to stop the spread of the virus has made requirements unclear.

“It’s odd because the state does not give clear guidance,” Frost said, “they just tell us we have to do something, but they don’t say what that something is.”

Students like high school junior Emily Palm, have noticed the confusion and have put school on the backburner in response.

Palm believes education is at a standstill currently and all assignments are essentially review of what they’ve already learned in the school year.

“I’m really only doing [History] readings because of my parent’s pressure,” Palm said.

Despite enjoying the current standstill of education, Palm is developing a growing concern for herself and peers when looking at the 2021 school year.

“Some classes I think I’ll be okay to move on, but I definitely worry about kids in classes that build on each other or that are needed for the SAT,” she said.

The move to online education has stirred up many emotions with parents as well. Katie Kleinsmith a mother of a Seattle public school student believes the issue is slowly coming to a resolution.

Before Seattle schools officially closed on March 11, Kleinsmith had already been working remotely from home for over a week.

The response from the school district was a bit late considering that on a corporation level people were already expected to work from home, Kleinsmith said.

Emails from her daughter’s principle have been honest about the lack of information they are receiving, which Kleinsmith views as a positive channel of communication.

“Schools are doing what they can and being honest is more important,” she said.

The state education system is looking for guidance from the Washington Superintendent however education implementations are moving as fast as possible.

Teachers were told to prepare and send students home with two weeks of activities and homework. Then in rapid fashion we announced a six-week closure of our schools, said Tim Robinson, lead media relations specialist for Seattle Public Schools.

“Our educators had one day to implement whatever they put in place. All those teachers prepared for two weeks but didn’t prepared for six weeks,” Robinson said.

The rapid increase of time online, has changed the Superintendent’s suggestion of urging teachers to educate, to requiring teachers to connect with each student twice a week at minimum, Robinson said.

 

Katie Kleinsmith

Mother

206-384-0759

 

Jordan Frost

Issaquah High School Psychology Teacher

253-951-5056

 

Emily Palm

High School Junior

please ask for interview details

 

Tim Robinson

Lead Media Relations Specialist for Seattle Public Schools

206-465-5404

Bishop Place COVID-19 measures

For my story I want to cover Bishop Place and their response to COVID-19.

With a rapid increase of population in Pullman this week, especially that of a younger age group Bishop Place has taken preventative measures to ensure the safety of those in the facility.

Bishop place also heavily relies on volunteers for events/ activities that the senior citizens participate in daily. I’d like to talk to the CCE and see what they have done (if anything) to alter their community service with Bishop place.

Suicide statistics in Washington are not what you would think

 

The Palouse region of Washington has been home to many small town citizens and agricultural farmers for generations. It’s endless rolling hills and sweet fresh air can make it seem like an idyllic place to live, and while this may be the case for some, the Palouse carries a dark burden within their small communities.

In Washington State, agricultural counties such as Whitman and Garfield have some of the highest suicide rates in the state.

“Half of our suicides in Whitman county are not in Pullman… they’re rural and a lot of people don’t know that,” said Anne Pillars, the Whitman county coroner.

Pillars is actively working on addressing the county suicide rate by implementing preventative measures such as business card-sized pamphlets with contacts of local mental health resources. Her goal is to bring more mental health outlets that are needed into agricultural communities.

Factors such as the low price of commodity farming puts major amounts of pressure on generational farmers, said Don McMoran, Director of the WSU Skagit county extension.

McMoran grew up in a generational farm and personally saw the need for mental health resources in these rural communities.

“The window in which a person decides to take their life is very short, sometimes 15 minutes to a half-hour,” he said. “If you can get them through that, the chances of them making a good decision later on are high,” he said.

McMoran explained how group efforts of his team and concerned citizens have positively benefited the community. In Skagit county there have been three suicides from farmers in the last two years and since the increase in awareness, they have had zero cases, he said.

McMoran’s team holds workshops for agricultural communities where, amongst other topics, they share mental health awareness. People attending the workshops have shown a high interest in the topic, which McMorran attributes to the positive change.

We’ve been tip-toeing around mental health and now we feel the community is comfortable enough for us to say “look this is a problem”, he said.

The Washington Department of Health has encouraged communities to use a suicide prevention toolkit called Transforming Communities. Resources like this have come to help facilitators in small communities like Jessica Olson.

Olson serves as the facilitator to the Whitman county coalition named Healthy Tekoa Coalition.

The group uses statistics from the Whitman county coroner’s office and compares statistics from their county to the state to see what areas of mental health need the most resources and attention, she said.

If farmers aren’t at the meetings the people there are usually related to one, Olson said.

The Tekoa Coalition meets on the second Tuesday of every month and open to anyone. The group discusses topics in need of attention in their community, followed by information on protective measures members can take.

Anne Pillars

Whitman County Coroner

(509) 397-5641

 

Don McMoran

Director of WSU Skagit County Extension

dmcmoran@wsu.edu

360-395-2357

 

Jessica Olson

Healthy Tekoa Coalition

509-284-2781

 

Palouse Universities show early precaution measures towards COVID-19 on campus

Washington State University and University of Idaho administration sent out emails Monday to faculty and students warning them of potential coronavirus in the area.

Last Friday, high school students from across the Pacific Northwest traveled to the Idaho campus to attend the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. The Everett School District was informed last Thursday of a Jackson High School student testing positive for COVID-19. Other students may have come in contact with the student before attending the festival giving reason for both universities to take preliminary precautions. 

The University of Idaho sent an email to students this morning informing them of the situation.

“The affected student was not at the festival. There is no indication that any students at the festival had direct contact with the reportedly infected student and none of the students exhibited any signs of the illness while in Moscow,” according to University of Idaho email. 

All buildings that held the Jazz festival have been disinfected as of Monday through deep cleaning and sanitization, said Jodi Walker, director of communications for University of Idaho.

The University has different task forces looking at what to keep an eye on for after spring break, she said.

WSU has activated its Incident Command System (ICS)  in response to the virus in Washington. The ICS group is a collection of staff and students from medical, campus operations, student and other offices across the University system. Daily meetings from the group will identify critical issues and plan for “possible impacts”, as stated on the university website. 

Faculty at Washington State have also been informed via email to conduct classes as usual until further notice. The email also states that instructors should be planning for campus closures soon and should prepare for online class lectures.

While there have not been any confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Palouse area, both schools are taking precautions to ensure the safety of students and faculty. 

Students at WSU are expressing their concern for the upcoming break and the lack of information they have received from the administration. 

“Home is supposed to feel safe,” said Chelan Hummenny, a senior at WSU. “It’s a little concerning going home to Seattle when this outbreak is happening,”.

A crisis communication professor of Hummenny’s has been outwardly helpful in giving his students insight on the pandemic, Hummenny said. She predicts the virus is likely to make it’s way over to Pullman and plans on taking precautions when it’s confirmed. 

Joshua Clark, a senior at WSU, also expressed his concerns about traveling home to Woodinville, WA next week for spring break. Clark said he plans to stay in Pullman rather than travel to where the outbreak is because of his underlying health conditions that make him more susceptible to the virus. 

There has been little communication and concerns from professors about students traveling out of town for break, he said. 

“I’m kind of shocked by that. I thought that there would be more communication between students and faculty,” Clark said. 

Ethan Luxton, a student at WSU, plans to travel to Washington, D.C.,  during spring break but is not particularly concerned about traveling during the coronavirus outbreak. 

“I haven’t heard much concern from classmates or professors,” said Luxton. “They just recommend to be careful and take extra precautions while traveling.” 

The information provided by both schools suggests taking early precautions but ensures that students and staff are currently at a low risk of contracting the virus.

Rural Washington Pitch

For The rural Washington pitch I would like to focus on suicide rates in the area. During an interview with the county coroner, Anne Pillers, she explained to me how the majority of suicides in rural Washington come from a farming/agricultural demographic. The University of Washington also conducted a study last year which focused on suicide rates in rural areas of the state and how/why the people in those demographics are at such a high risk level.