Seattle-area public health and hospitals prepare for World Cup

While the FIFA Men's World Cup will capture the attention of billions of fans around the world, Shelley Livingston's eyes will be glued to a different screen.

As crowds descend on Sodo over the next six weeks to watch the matches in Seattle for the first time, Livingston will be stationed about 3 miles south in Georgetown, at Providence Swedish's medical mission control. There, she and other hospital staffers will track the World Cup's impact on medical care in real time.

Providence Swedish's 24/7 operations hub will be "constantly looking at the pulse of the hospital," said Livingston, executive director of clinical operations. The center focuses on "all things staffing, all things patient movement," as well as watching patient conditions, supply levels and overall facility capacity, she said.

The base, up and running for five years but with a staffing boost now, is one example of how area hospitals and public health agencies have been getting ready for lots of visitors, huge crowds in tight spaces and possible health disasters. In short, they've been planning for the worst.

"It's a very dismal, dark path that you walk down when you try to imagine what could happen," said Mark Taylor, a senior associate administrator at Harborview Medical Center who manages surgical, emergency and integrated clinical services.

After all, a lot could go wrong.

The World Cup is kicking off at a time when more than 2,000 measles cases have been reported in the United States so far this year, including 45 in Washington. Other infectious diseases, like hantavirus and Ebola, are also circling the country, after already leading to outbreaks in other parts of the world.

Extreme heat, such as occurred Monday, can make for another challenge.

There are also threats that could strike more randomly: car crashes, food poisoning, earthquakes.

"We've gotten very creative in the potential scenarios that could occur, and we've tried to anticipate as many of those needs as possible," Taylor said.

The point of envisioning these grim situations is, of course, to be prepared. Some hospitals, like Harborview, the area's main trauma center, have made sure to up their stores of medication, supplies and equipment in recent months. King County's public health department is bringing in two extra officers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help respond to potential communicable disease threats.

"It's our job to come up with the worst-case scenario," said Gabby Hadly, emergency preparedness and response manager at Snohomish County Health Department. "It's been a cover-all-bases approach, but with a data-informed perspective."

Ready for anything

For some hospitals and public health experts, World Cup planning started by researching the healthcare impacts of past large-scale events. At Harborview, teams went back 20 to 30 years, reaching back to the last Olympic Games held in the U.S. to estimate what hospital admissions and rates of illnesses looked like then.

"We did the math to make sure we had that in our back pockets, but as we went through that exercise, there's a realization that the data and the experience on this are limited," Taylor said. "We really don't know what to expect."

So they're trying to be ready for anything.

In one exercise, Harborview's radiology staff practiced performing a series of CT scans on dummies - like those used for CPR training - to figure out how many they could do in an hour, Taylor said. Last month, Providence Swedish recruited more than 100 volunteers to act as injured patients during mass casualty drills at its First Hill and Cherry Hill campuses.

At Public Health - Seattle & King County, the department is keeping an eye on the spread of disease, preparing to shift staffers around should the need arise, and sharing recommendations about ways to reduce risk, said Nick Solari, who leads the agency's preparedness team.

"The World Cup is actually happening at a very busy time of year for Seattle," said Dr. Eric Chow, King County's chief of communicable disease epidemiology and immunization. The school year is ending, people are traveling and gathering more, and some viruses and illnesses - like COVID-19 and mpox - tend to increase in circulation, he said.

Mild summer surges of COVID have hit many parts of the country, including Washington, the last few years, leading to hospitalizations and emergency visits particularly for older adults. As of this week, neither the state nor King County had reported significant COVID activity, but Chow said that doesn't mean COVID cases are zero.

"This is an important time for people to take a long, hard look at their immunization record in advance of any travel they're doing," Chow said. "Individual actions people can take to help reduce preventable illness is going to make a big difference to ensure that we have capacity in our hospital facilities."

While risk of hantavirus and Ebola remains low in the Seattle area, Chow added, the spread of measles is more concerning, especially since there will likely be many visitors from countries that are less vaccinated against the disease.

"Measles is just one of those infections that's constantly knocking on our door, looking for an opportunity to take advantage of any gaps in our preparedness," he said.

Most people in King County are protected against measles through two doses of vaccination, which is about 97% effective at preventing infection and usually lasts a lifetime.

Snohomish County health officials are also planning to keep a close watch on disease activity, heat-related illness, radiation poisoning, fire/smoke inhalation and other public health trends over the next month, relying on a new internal data dashboard the department built to have real-time "eyes on diseases," Hadley said.

Public health experts encourage people in crowded settings to consider wearing a mask and remember to wash hands, as well as drink water, find shade and identify cooling centers if it gets too hot.

Hadley added that the preparation is not about creating concern; instead, the planning aims to encourage people to feel safe and excited about the games.

"Hopefully we do all this planning and none of it's necessary," said Taylor, from Harborview. "We just want to make sure we're ready."

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This story was originally published June 17, 2026 at 6:35 AM.