Coronavirus daily news updates, May 9: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the nation – Seattle Times

While this years Mothers Day weekend promises warm weather, Seattle officials are restricting hours in city parks out of fears that large crowds hoping to enjoy the sun could further spread the novel coronavirus.A recent report shows the COVID-19 transmission rate in Western Washington may be steadily increasing, suggesting that the number of virus cases could potentially rise, while the number of COVID-19 cases in Eastern Washington is expected to increase based on current transmission rates.

New figures continue to show evidence of the damage coronavirus has done to a declining economy. Nationally, theunemployment rate hit 14.7% in April, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Washington also grapples with a tsunami of legitimate unemployment claims more than 100,000 last week thought the state also is seeing a rise in attempts by fraudsters to siphon off a portion of the benefits.

Throughout Saturday, on this page, well be posting updates from Seattle Times journalists and others on the pandemic and its effects on the Seattle area, the Pacific Northwest and the world. Updates from Friday can be found here, and all our coronavirus coverage can be foundhere.

The following graphic includes the most recent numbers from the Washington State Department of Health, released Friday.

As the coronavirus pandemic has decimated small businesses across the country, shell-shocked owners have turned to their insurance carriers to cover devastating financial losses thrust on them by state shutdown orders.

In many cases, the response from insurers has been: We dont cover viruses.

Tacoma dentist Arnell Prato was among those who got that answer. That drove him to join a growing number of small-business owners locally and nationally who are suing their insurers, alleging breach of contract after paying their premiums for years.

Ive never seen or experienced anything like this, said Prato, who has practiced dentistry in Washington for 10 years.

He is now in the middle of a battle pitting people like him against a powerful industry that insists it is sympathetic to the plight of small-business owners, but not legally on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars in losses that were never anticipated to be covered under a catastrophic economic standstill.

Pandemic outbreaks are uninsured because they are uninsurable, David Sampson, president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, recently said.

Read the whole story here.

Steve Miletich

One of the hottest debates in the coronavirus pandemic is whether the malaria drugs promoted as possible treatments by President Donald Trump really work. But Americans dont seem overly eager to help answer the question.

Enrollment in several clinical trials of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine including two by the University of Washington has been anemic so far. Fewer than 260 volunteers, out of a target of 2,000, have signed up for a $9.5 million UW study being conducted in Seattle and six other sites across the country. Another multi-site project coordinated by the UW has only about 30 patients enrolled.

Researchers say enrollment in the trials plummeted after preliminary reports of possible heart arrhythmias associated with the drugs, followed by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration warning that they should be administered only in hospitals or clinical trials.

"Once that news came out, our enrollment fell almost down to zero," said UW epidemiologist Dr. Ruanne Barnabas, whos leading a study to find out if hydroxychloroquine can prevent infection in people like health-care workers who have been exposed to the virus.

Read the whole story here.

Sandi Doughton

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Coronavirus daily news updates, May 9: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the nation - Seattle Times