We're not out of the woods in Washington state but projections look good

It's official: Schools are closed in Washington state for the rest of the school year. KUOW’s Paige Browning brings us the latest.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

We've been waiting to see if this will happen. Now it's here. Washington's K-12 school buildings will not reopen this school year. What does this mean for teachers, for students?

The headline from state officials says school buildings are closed but learning continues. Each district needs to continue some sort of educational program for all K-12 students in Washington state.

They're going to have to get pretty creative on these lessons because there's not a statewide online curriculum, as we all know. Inslee says this is another very hard decision and that it will impact the quality of education:

“Look, there's a reality we’ve gotta face. In the next several weeks, our K-12 schools are not going to be the best they've ever been," he said. "But they can be the most creative, they can be the most dedicated, they can be the most passionate of bringing everything we've got to the education of our students.”

He's saying, "let's get creative, let's make the most of this." But, you really can't understate how big of a deal this is — even if it was expected.

There are 1.2 million students in Washington between kindergarten and 12th grade. They're all at home all day now. That's a strain on their education, and also on their parents and guardians.

As a parent, I have to say I am reeling a bit when I think about how much school will be missed. How do education officials plan to make up for this?

They don't really plan to make up for it, not in the way that you think of, say, a snow day that's made up at some point at the end of the year, or even the next year, maybe. That's not going to happen.

The state schools superintendent Chris Reykdal says schools are expected to resume their normal in-person schedules in the fall. There's not really an indication of some sort of makeup. They're saying you need to keep teaching them now.

Reykdal is really leaning on school districts to come up with lessons for their students online to do at home And he's also saying, "Look, we're in this position, we've got no choice but to innovate and find new ways to learn."

“I'm personally challenging the private sector partners that I've been working with, and the governor has been working with, and others, particularly in telecom," he said.

"We have to get connectivity to all of our students. This is a once-in-100-year pandemic that compels us to do this today more than ever, but there will be something else- natural disaster, significant weather events, future disease. This is a big moment for us to transform.”

Reykdal, by the way, says 12th graders will be able to graduate, even if not in person. He says come fall, even though he expects the schedule to be the same, it's possible we could be doing some sort of distance learning. We just don't know what's going to happen with the pandemic.

This news about schools comes at a pretty interesting time. Modeling projections from the University of Washington suggest we may have already reached a peak when it comes to how much we're using our hospitals. Could this mean that we're already at the peak of the pandemic as it moves through this area?

Maybe so. The University of Washington modeling predictions that we've been following now say that our peak is here right about now — sometime in the past few days or this week — meaning this is the most full our hospitals will be.

This is at least a week, if not two weeks, ahead of the expected peak nationwide and several weeks ahead of California's expected peak, for example. Epidemiologists in Washington say that if this is true — that we're at the peak — it's probably because Washington acted early. But they say we still have to take this very seriously.

They're tracking every single case closely. Washington state's epidemiologist Scott Lindquist, for example, says that each patient and all of the people they're in close contact with get communication directly from the state:

“We also are interviewing every case and making sure everyone gets a guidance sheet for your case," he said. "You're to remain indoors, isolated for seven days minimum, plus three days of not having a fever, using Tylenol or ibuprofen, and identifying their contacts and giving them a one pager that says ‘You've been a contact of a Covid-19 patient.'"

"We want you to stay in what we call quarantine. Not going to work, not going to school at this point, and monitoring daily for any symptoms.’”

Can you catch us up on what's happening with masks? What's the recommendation?

The CDC and the Washington state health department recommend people wear masks in public — cloth masks — just to protect yourself and other people from transmitting the virus. Not the medical grade, or the N-95’s. So I've got a homemade one, just made out of an old t shirt and hair ties, if you can do that.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.