King County's Covid cases dropping, but still far from returning to normal

Some good news and bad news on King County’s Covid cases.

The good news is the numbers are going in the right direction -- slowly down.

The not-so-good news is that the safe practices that help prevent the spread of virus, will be a part of our lives for a while.

King County Health Officer Jeff Duchin told the Health Board Thursday that having a vaccine is not going to make the outbreak disappear.

For one, any vaccines are going to be available in limited quantities.

“It will take quite a while to get enough people immunized, should they decide to do that, to suppress transmission,” Duchin said.

Until then, the public will need to keep up with safe practices. In fact, these behaviors could become a permanent, similar to the security changes that followed 9/11.

“With Covid, it’s not quite as predictable,” he said. “All I can say is that for the next year, 18 months, we definitely need to change … change our behavior to reduce our risk of acquiring respiratory viruses.”

Duchin adds, it will take a while for the benefits of a vaccine to kick in.