The death rate has slowed over the last month, but 37 people in Kent have died from the COVID-19 pandemic, including 26 men and 11 women.<\/p>\n
That’s a death rate of 28.5 per 100,000 residents, according to statistics released June 8 by Public Health – Seattle & King County. Fourteen of the deaths were people age 80 or older. Kent has a population of about 129,000.<\/p>\n
Death totals from neighboring cities include 36 in Renton, 16 in Auburn and eight in Federal Way. Kent had 23 deaths at the end of April.<\/p>\n
A total of 570 have died of COVID-19 in King County, a rate of 25.6 per 100,000 residents. Statewide, the number of deaths hit 1,176 through June 8, according to the state Department of Health.<\/p>\n
But after nearly three months of stay-at-home orders and other guidelines targeted at slowing the spread of COVID-19, the gradual reopening of businesses, recreational opportunities and social activities is underway across Kent and King County. <\/p>\n
And, while some restrictions have been eased, Public Health officials say it’s important to approach reopening gradually and continue practicing infection control practices to help prevent an increase in COVID-19 cases.<\/p>\n
Public Health – Seattle & King County encourages everyone to follow these tips:<\/p>\n
• Avoid extremes. Protecting yourself and your community is not an “all or nothing” approach. Continue to make cautious, risk assessment decisions about how you interact.<\/p>\n
• Continue to follow safety principles, including frequent handwashing, wearing cloth face coverings in public, staying at least 6 feet from others, and avoiding group gatherings.<\/p>\n
• Get tested at the first sign of illness. More information about testing, including free test sites, is available <\/a>online<\/a>.<\/p>\n • If you’ve attended protests or other large gatherings in recent weeks, help protect one another and reduce the risk of transmitting COVID-19. Outdoor gatherings are lower risk than indoor gatherings. The larger the gathering, and the longer you’re there, the higher the risk of catching or spreading COVID-19. People who have been at group gatherings should monitor their health for 14 days afterwards. Anyone who develops symptoms of COVID-19 should get tested right away, whether they’ve been at a protest or not.<\/p>\n Adhering to these guidelines will help reduce the number of COVID-19 cases across the county and will move the county closer to further reductions in business and activities restrictions as part of the state’s “Safe Start” plan.<\/p>\n Kent by the numbers<\/strong><\/p>\n Of the 37 deaths from COVID-19 in Kent, 14 were age 80 or older; 10 were 70-79; eight were 60-69; four were 50-59; and one was 40-49, according to Public Health – Seattle & King County.<\/p>\n Twenty-two were white, six Asian, six Hispanic, two black and one Native Hawaiian\/Pacific Islander.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 26 men; 11 women <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":46146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-46145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46145"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=46145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}