Gov. Inslee announces new ‘Healthy Washington’ plan that focuses on reducing case rates
So long, Safe Start. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday unveiled a new plan for reopening the economy from COVID-19 restrictions.
“2020 is officially behind us, we know that brighter days are ahead,” Inslee said at a virtual press conference, “and we’re here to talk about a new way to move our state forward economically while we’re beating the pandemic.”
Under the new “Healthy Washington — Roadmap to Recovery” plan, counties are grouped into eight regions based on health system resources. All regions are now considered to be in Phase 1 of the two-phase plan, which goes into effect Jan. 11.
Thurston County is in the west region with Lewis, Grays Harbor and Pacific counties. Pierce County is combined with King and Snohomish counties in the Puget Sound region.
COVID-19 data for a region will need to be improving in order for the region to move into Phase 2. The data will be calculated and made public each Friday.
The governor’s office foreshadowed that there would be a new plan last week, when he extended current statewide restrictions only one week through Jan. 11. Those limitations closed restaurants and bars to indoor dining, stopped indoor activities at gyms, and limited occupancy at retail stores to 25% in mid-November.
What’s in the two phases
Phase 1 of the new plan mostly aligns with statewide restrictions currently in place, but includes what Inslee called a “small resumption of activity statewide.”
While fitness centers have been closed to indoor activity, some very limited fitness activities will be allowed in Phase 1. For example, appointment-based training in gyms with a maximum of 45-minute sessions with no more than one customer per room (or per 500 square feet in big facilities) will be allowed.
“Outdoor entertainment establishments,” including zoos and outdoor concert venues, have been closed but now will be allowed. Timed ticketing is required under the plan, along with the standard mask and physical-distancing requirements.
Indoor social gatherings are still prohibited, but the maximum number of people allowed at outdoor social gatherings in Phase 1 will increase to a maximum of 10 people from outside a household, with a limit of two households. Current restrictions set that limit at five people from outside the household or fewer.
Indoor dining is still prohibited in Phase 1, while outdoor dining is allowed with a maximum of six people and two households per table.
Retail stores are still limited to 25% capacity.
In Phase 2, restrictions relax a bit: Indoor social gatherings of 5 or fewer people from outside the household and a limit of two households are allowed, for example, and the outdoor social gathering restriction loosens to 15 people from two households.
Restaurants in Phase 2 can open for indoor dining at 25% capacity. Indoor fitness centers can open at 25% capacity. Outdoor sports can go from practice and training to competitions, but still no tournaments. “Indoor entertainment establishments” such as theaters, museums, and bowling can go from offering private rentals or tours for households of up to six people to opening at 25% capacity.
More phases could be added as the state of the pandemic in Washington evolves, according to the governor’s office.
For a more detailed look at restrictions in Phases 1 and 2 of the new plan, see the governor’s page on Medium, an open online publishing platform.
How regions will move through phases
To advance to Phase 2 under the new plan, a region has to meet four targets:
- A 10% decline in case rates per 100,000 population over the last 14 days compared to the prior two weeks;
- A 10% decline in two-week COVID-19 hospital admission rate per 100,000 population;
- A total intensive care unit (ICU) occupancy rate below 90%, and
- A test positivity rate below 10%.
Regions have to keep meeting at least three of the metrics to stay in Phase 2, though the trend metrics will have a little more flexibility than ICU occupancy and test positivity rates. Regions can have declining or flat case rates and COVID hospital admission rates and still be considered meeting those metrics, said Lacy Fehrenbach, Deputy Secretary for COVID-19 Response at the state Department of Health.
Regions that fail two or more metrics slide backward to Phase 1 under the plan.
The flexibility to meet just three of the metrics and to have flat trends while in Phase 2 are meant to provide stability within the system, especially when a region moves forward and activity initially increases there, according to Fehrenbach.
There’s no application process this time to move through phases. The state will run statistical analyses each Friday, including this week, to determine whether regions will move backward or forward in phases the following Monday, officials say.
Each region’s metrics will be available on the state’s Risk Assessment Dashboard on Fridays, according to the governor’s office.
“The numbers will tell the tale,” Inslee said.
Restaurants face a future where reduced capacity remains
Bars and restaurants were generally not surprised when Gov. Inslee extended November’s rollback through the new year.
With locations in Seattle and Tacoma, the owners of Red Star Taco Bar, Padraic Markle and Billy Beckett, were surprised the extension announced in late December was only a week.
“I hope they’re prepared to give guidance and give us benchmarks to shoot for, and hopefully the community starts rallying around it and starts changing their behavior,” Beckett said.
Operating with takeout in Tacoma and limited outdoor dining on weekends, in addition to daily to-go in Seattle, revenues are down 90 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels — a bitter pill to keep swallowing as the state nears a full year of restricted activities.
“It’s no joke; it’s really grim for us — but we are hopeful,” continued Beckett. “We manage our business very conservatively when it comes to cash flow.”
Adam Norwest has dealt with a shuttered Tacoma Comedy Club since last summer, transitioning the venue into a burger restaurant in the interim. He anticipated learning that, at some point, indoor dining would return at 25 percent capacity.
“It will help us a little,” he said, though takeout accounts for more business right now. He said he would be “beyond ecstatic” if he were able to bring back shows at limited capacity, but perhaps most of all he wished for a formal return date.
Markle remains optimistic for what may come this spring.
“I’m hoping it will all kind of break in the springtime when people can go outdoors,” he said, adding that a more comprehensive vaccine rollout under a new presidential administration is integral to that hope. “Optimism is a coping strategy just to be able to function. It’s a psychological block to be super pessimistic.”
Still, he said, limited capacity dining is “not nearly enough.”
‘We’re not out of the woods yet’
Before the current statewide restrictions put in place in November, counties’ progression through the state’s four-phase “Safe Start” reopening plan had been paused since summer.
Inslee announced that plan in early May, and an expansion by the end of the month allowed counties to move through phases of reopening. By the end of June, cases were rising, a statewide mask mandate went into effect, and officials paused counties moving to Phase 4.
Not long after, the state paused all county advancements, though requirements in some phases had been tweaked since, allowing more activity in some phases.
The rules introduced in November were the most sweeping for Washington since March, when Inslee issued the initial two-week “stay-at-home” order. Residents were allowed to go out only for necessities such as groceries, a doctor’s appointment, or the pharmacy.
The November restrictions were introduced in response to a raging “third wave” of the virus. The state is seeing signs that disease growth has slowed, and Washington has one of the lowest rates of the disease in the nation, Secretary of Health Dr. Umair Shah said Tuesday.
Shah said the governor’s latest restrictions are working, but “we’re not out of the woods yet.”
This story was originally published January 5, 2021 at 2:51 PM with the headline "Gov. Inslee announces new ‘Healthy Washington’ plan that focuses on reducing case rates."
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