Here’s how Pierce County’s metrics compared with rest of the region going into Phase 2
Given Thursday’s announcement from Gov. Jay Inslee on the state’s new Roadmap to Recovery metrics, Pierce County now qualifies moving into Phase 2 of reopening starting Monday.
Moving forward, the state Department of Health will update the metrics every two weeks, and counties only have to meet three out of the four metrics to move to or stay in Phase 2.
To stay in Phase 2 a region must meet at least three metrics:
▪ Two-week decreasing or flat trend of active cases.
▪ Two-week decreasing or flat trend of new cases.
▪ ICU occupancy of less than 90 percent.
▪ COVID test positivity rate of less than 10 percent.
Additionally, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department this week announced it is updating and redesigning its COVID-19 online data tracker to better reflect the metrics the state is now tracking, adding listings such as ICU occupancy rates and new hospitalizations per 100,000 population.
“This focus on two-week rates, hospitals and positive tests gives us a better look at how COVID-19 affects our region. To better emphasize the big picture, these metrics will appear at the top of the dashboard,” the health department noted in a recent blog post.
The Puget Sound region, which includes King, Snohomish and Pierce counties, showed the following metrics on Thursday:
▪ The region was up 4 percent in 14-day rate of new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population. A region needs to show at least a 10 percent decrease in the two-week rate of cases per 100,000 people.
This is the one metric the Puget Sound region didn’t meet.
Pierce County is at 382.5 in its 14-day case rate as of Thursday with a six-day lag. On Jan. 21, it was at 421. Without the lag, it is 341.7 as of Thursday and was 405.5 on Jan. 21.
▪ The region was down 16 percent in 14-day rate of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 population. To move into Phase 2, a region needs to show at least a 10 percent decrease in the two-week rate of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people.
Pierce County has remained fairly steady in hospital admissions, but this exact data point wasn’t immediately available from TPCHD.
▪ The region was at 84 percent average seven-day occupancy of ICU staffed beds. A region needs to show an average ICU occupancy over seven days of less than 90 percent.
This information wasn’t immediately available from TPCHD on Thursday.
▪ The region was at 9 percent in its seven-day percent positive of COVID-19 tests. It needs to show an average test positivity rate over seven days of less than 10 percent.
Pierce County’s last testing rate posted, from the week of Jan. 10-16 showed 9.4 percent positivity.
The next round of measurements are set to be announced Feb. 12.
Beyond Phase 2, the state says in its plan: “Additional phases may be added in the future as the impact of continued vaccine distribution and other changes in COVID-19 response require.”
Inslee also said Thursday regions could revert back to Phase 1 if spread gets worse.
