Stats on King County Children and COVID Vaccination

 Vaccination progress as of Friday, 6/18:

King County:
All residents: 66.6% at least one dose, 60.2% fully vaccinated
12 and older: 77.1% at least one dose, 69.7% fully vaccinated
16 and older: 78.2% at least one dose, 71.2% fully vaccinated

Statewide: 
All residents: 54.1% at least one dose, 48.1% fully vaccinated
12 and older: 63.4% at least one dose, 56.4% fully vaccinated
16 and older: 65.2% at least one dose, 58.5% fully vaccinated
(Note: according to Governor Inslee the first-dose number for 16 and older was 67.8% as of Friday; it's unclear why the state dashboard doesn't reflect that number in its data or where the discrepancy comes from)

Nationwide:
All residents: 53.2% at least one dose, 44.9% fully vaccinated
12 and older: 62.3% at least one dose, 52.6% fully vaccinated
18 and older: 65.3% at least one dose, 55.6% fully vaccinated

For more detailed stats, see the dashboards for King County and the state.

Just want to say those numbers for kids is (to me) astonishing. Parents really are showing the faith in the vaccine. It could make a huge difference when school starts. It will be interesting to see if the district does any counting at each school for how many students are vaccinated (anonymously, of course). Will some schools with fewer adults and students vaccinated see COVID outbreaks? 

This info comes from the great Civic Minute put together every week by real estate broker Sol Villarreal. He catches you up on anything you might have missed; highly recommended.

Also of interest, a story from NPR about Special Education families who believe their children did not get a real education during the pandemic. 

Roughly 7 million children in the U.S. receive special education services under a decades-old federal law — or did, until the pandemic began. Many of those services slowed or stopped when schools physically shut down in spring 2020. Modified instruction, behavioral counseling, and speech and physical therapy disappeared or were feebly reproduced online, for three, six, nine months. In some places, they have yet to fully resume. For many children with disabilities, families say this disruption wasn't just difficult. It was devastating.

As well,

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act guarantees children with disabilities access to an education that is both free and “appropriate.” That means, when schools aren’t providing the special education supports that make a child’s education “appropriate,” they’re running afoul of the law. In the past, when districts have done this, courts have ordered them to provide “compensatory services” to get students to where they would have been had there been no interruption.That’s why we’re now seeing legal complaints being filed across the country -- some by individual families, some on behalf of big groups of parents and caregivers. And they’re all demanding compensatory services for kids.

 But attorneys who advise school districts told us schools did their best in a difficult situation and that “good faith effort” should count for something. They say requiring districts to provide compensatory services is extreme and unjustified.

This may be an issue for Seattle Schools in the coming school year.