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Seattle – we have led the country in keeping our community safe, but the pandemic is still with us. As we begin to approach the holiday season, celebrate Thanksgiving, and look forward to finally safely gathering with family and friends, vaccines and testing remain a critical tool to limit the spread of COVID-19 in our community. Booster shots and vaccinations for kids 5 to 11 are readily available across Seattle. For more information on boosters and pediatric vaccines, please visit: https://www.seattle.gov/vaccine
Last holiday season, we still didn’t have a vaccine and cases were surging. Residents across Seattle and country – myself included – stayed home.
This holiday season, we are vaccinated, and we know what works against this virus. Even with one of the highest vaccination rates in the country, with nearly 90% of our eligible residents initially vaccinated against COVID-19 - getting tested at the first sign of symptoms is crucial to protecting our most vulnerable neighbors and keeping schools and businesses open. Nearly 50% of children ages 5-11 have received their COVID-19 vaccination as well.
It is up to us to prevent another surge in infections this winter by wearing masks, washing hands, getting vaccinated, getting booster doses, and getting tested at first sign of symptoms or exposure.
For more information, visit the City’s vaccination website at www.seattle.gov/vaccine. The City also offers resources for free, public, COVID-19 testing. The sites contains vaccination and testing information in seven languages, and in-language assistance is also available over the phone.
Nearly 50% of Seattle’s kids from 5-11 have begun their vaccinations! Pediatric COVID-19 vaccines for children 5-11 from Pfizer have now been approved as safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) authorized for Emergency Use. Vaccinating children is important for their safety, as well as that of their families, teachers, and classmates.
How to get an appointment:
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Many community partners may have appointments for kids 5-11 (search here, filter by vaccine type)
You can find more information about COVID-19 pediatric vaccines from the CDC here.
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We’ve opened new clinics across the city for COVID-19 booster shots – it's easy than ever to safely, quickly, and easily further protect yourself and your family! Booster doses for COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson (J&J) have now been approved as safe and effective by the FDA and CDC for eligible groups. Booster doses strengthen protections against infection and serious illness including the Delta variant.
Current Eligibility criteria:
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Anyone 18 years old or older who received a J&J vaccine at least two months ago is eligible
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Anyone 18 years old or older who received a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine at least six months ago is eligible
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Anyone 18 years old or older who received Moderna or Pfizer more than 28 days who is moderately to severely immunocompromised
The CDC allows individuals to mix and match dosing for booster shots, so your booster does not need to be the same as your original vaccine. You can find more information about COVID-19 booster shots from the CDC here. You can make an appointment at our city clinics here: seattle.signetic.com
We continue to offer COVID-19 testing for people who are experiencing symptoms and/or has been exposed to someone with COVID-19. The City – through UW Medicine and Curative – offers testing in neighborhoods across Seattle and testing will be open on the day after Thanksgiving and many hours this weekend. More than 1.2 million tests have been completed through our City of Seattle sites!
Testing is available regardless of your citizenship/immigration status. If you have insurance, Medicare or Medicaid you must provide this information and UW Medicine will bill them. You do not need to have insurance or a doctor's note to schedule a test.
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By Benjamin Cassidy
IT’S BEEN A BITTERSWEET FALL for NBA fans in Seattle. While the glow of the Climate Pledge Arena ice has offered a welcome reprieve from The Big Dark, the Kraken’s inaugural hockey season has also highlighted the hoops league’s absence in this town on a near-nightly basis.
Our cephalopodic franchise has invited this tangle of emotions. Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, and George Karl have all checked out the franchise’s digs, and GP’s sweatshirt made it clear he wasn’t just there to support the new squad. Throwback Sonics gear, an adjacent street named after Lenny Wilkens, even an “NBA locker room” placard at the arena—no one’s being subtle here. The Kraken’s opening games in Climate Pledge Arena have been both a celebratory culmination and a pitch: Are you seeing this, Adam Silver?
Rest assured: The NBA commissioner is watching. Last month, in a video tribute to Wilkens, Silver noted the excitement around the arena, which has been outfitted to NBA specifications (the locker room sign isn’t just aspirational). For this reason and others, Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan reports that her conversations with him about bringing back the Sonics have been very positive. “He obviously can’t make any promises,” says Durkan. “But my sense is Seattle’s at the top of the list, and we’ll have a basketball team playing here, I’d say, within five years.”
Jaded fans may not want to hear this after some near-misses (the Sacramento relocation no-go still stings). But to borrow a phrase from the basketball beat writer cognoscenti, there’s a growing consensus around the league that it’s a matter of when, not if, the NBA will right a wrong and return the Sonics to Seattle.
One reason is the most powerful one: money. The NBA took a financial hit during the pandemic, and an expansion team’s fee—likely a multibillion dollar one—would provide an immediate influx of cash to the league’s existing 30 franchises. Some observers have raised questions about whether owners will want to share revenue with more teams, but Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor said earlier this year that it’s in the economic interest of NBA owners to expand “in Seattle.”
Silver hasn’t explicitly stated the same, but he’s come close. At the end of 2020, he acknowledged that expansion was “inevitable.” In an interview with ESPN’s Rachel Nichols, he said, “We didn’t make a secret out of the fact that we hated to leave Seattle.” But KeyArena was “not at NBA specifications” back then, and there weren’t plans for an overhaul. With Climate Pledge Arena, “you now have the state-of-the-art arena that didn’t exist back then.”
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