King County, Wash., Home to Seattle, to Require Masks at Big Outdoor Events

U.S.|King County successful Washington, location to Seattle, volition necessitate masks astatine ample outdoor events.

• Sept. 2, 2021, 4:54 p.m. ET

Citing a surge successful coronavirus cases driven by the Delta variant, officials successful King County successful Washington — which includes Seattle and its suburbs — said Thursday that it would necessitate masks beryllium worn astatine outdoor events that pull much than 500 people.

The mandate begins Tuesday, and it applies to residents 5 years of property and older, careless of their vaccination status. The region is besides powerfully recommending masks for everyone implicit 5 years aged successful different outdoor settings wherever radical cannot stay astatine slightest six feet isolated from radical extracurricular their household.

County wellness officials said that hospitals are the astir crowded since the pandemic began, and that wellness attraction workers were overburdened.

As of Wednesday, the seven-day mean of caller cases crossed Washington State person reached a caller authorities record, with 3,465 a day, an summation of 19 percent successful the past 2 weeks, according to a New York Times database. The information besides shows that existent hospitalizations person grown 35 percent implicit the aforesaid clip period, to a regular mean of 1,753, and caller deaths person jumped 72 percent, to a regular mean of 24.

Seventy-two percent of Washington residents 18 and older are afloat vaccinated, according to national data. People younger than 12 are not eligible for the vaccines.

“King County is committed to putting radical first, and today’s bid afloat recognizes the hazard to communities and our wellness attraction strategy if we don’t instrumentality enactment present to further forestall the dispersed of Covid-19,” Dow Constantine, the King County executive, said successful a statement.

The King County bid connected Thursday continues to necessitate masks successful indoor nationalist settings, including schools, market stores, malls, gyms, and assemblage centers. The bid is successful sync with the state’s indoor disguise mandate for everyone implicit 5 years of age, which went into effect precocious successful August.

Oregon past week became the archetypal authorities to reconstruct a statewide disguise mandate requiring masks outdoors careless of vaccination status; it already had an indoor disguise request statewide. And Los Angeles County recently enactment into a place a disguise mandate for events that pull much than 10,000 people.

The Seattle portion had recorded astir of the nation’s archetypal Covid deaths, arsenic the microorganism rampaged done a nursing location successful the Seattle suburbs successful aboriginal 2020. In aboriginal 2021, the region’s deaths per capita were lower than immoderate different ample metropolitan area.

Sarah Cahalan contributed reporting.