Seattle restrictions bear fruit as coronavirus infections slow in hard-hit US Pacific northwest city
- ‘We slowed the transmission,’ Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan says, amid signs the tide is turning
- Washington state was one of the first to ask people to observe social distancing, as early as the end of February
Coronavirus infections appear to be slowing in Seattle in response to the city’s early and comprehensive restrictions on both citizens and businesses.
“We made a huge impact – we slowed the transmission,” Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan told The New York Times on Sunday.
Seattle was one of the earliest and most hard-hit of American cities; but now – at long last – the tide is turning.
In Washington state, the death toll from Covid-19 – the disease caused by coronavirus – has been doubling around every eight days, whereas it has been doubling every two to three days in the country’s other most infected states, such as New York, New Jersey, Louisiana and Michigan.
According to statistics from the Institute for Disease Modeling – a private research group in Bellevue, Washington – in early March, each infected person was spreading the disease to 2.7 other people, on average. Today, that number has dropped considerably to 1.4.
