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There is a new way to get additional help with buying food this summer if you have kids who receive free or reduced-price school meals. The Pandemic EBT Emergency School Meals Program, also referred to as P-EBT, provides a one-time benefit for families of up to $399 per eligible child in each household. If you think you may be newly eligible for free or reduced-priced school meals, you will want to get your application in before June 30 to qualify. You will not be asked immigration status, and applying for the program will not affect future immigration status. Once you are approved for the school meal program, you will have until August 31 to apply for the P-EBT program.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings, when physical distancing is difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies). Researchers are learning more about COVID-19 every day, including that some people can unknowingly spread the virus to others before they have symptoms or spread the virus to others without ever having symptoms. This is why maintaining physical distancing from others is effective in slowing the spread of COVID-19. Now that businesses are slowly starting to open as part of the Safe Start Washington recovery plan, it will be increasingly difficult to maintain 6-feet of distance from others, especially in indoor public places. Wearing a cloth face covering can help slow the spread of COVID-19 in these instances.

A key component to Governor Jay Inslee’s Safe Start Washington Recovery Plan to safely reopen businesses is to increase testing of anyone with coronavirus (COVID-19) symptoms and notify close contacts of those who test positive for the disease. A close contact is defined as anyone who was around the positive person, while infectious, for a prolonged period of time (defined as being within 6 feet of someone with COVID-19 for at least 15 minutes). These are typically household members, coworkers, classmates, or people who you may have interacted with socially. The process of identifying, testing, and treating close contacts is known as contact tracing. Testing and contact tracing are critical to “box in the virus” and prevent it from spreading to others in the community.

On May 1, 2020, Governor Jay Inslee extended Washington’s Stay Home, Stay Healthy order through the end of May to minimize the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). He also shared his Safe Start Washington plan to safely resume recreational, social and business activities in phases. Each phase will last a minimum of three weeks and movement to the next phase will depend on different data sources to assess the impact of the disease in communities.

Maintaining a stable food supply is a critical public health issue in the battle against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Around the state, food banks are reporting an increased demand for food due to record-breaking unemployment and lack of financial resources. To compound the problem, donations to food banks are down 70 percent, and food bank volunteers, who tend to be older adults, are not able to help process donations. The good news is, there are people who have stepped up to help, and you can too!