"We let the bad guy out": lost days as a virus raged

Today, America is more than three months into its fight against the novel coronavirus, which has likely been circulating in the country since late last year. But in February, we didn’t know any of that.

All the employees at a small Kirkland eldercare facility knew was that they were seeing a sharp spike in cases of respiratory illness, but all the flu tests were coming back negative…

That strain would go on to travel the nation. KUOW online reporter Ashley Hiruko and her editor Isolde Raftery told the story of how the virus was allowed to explode in a story called "Nine crucial days: Without local medical staff help, Life Care had to wait on a federal strike team."