Washington pauses phased reopening plan, no counties roll back for at least 2 weeks

No counties in Washington will be rolling back to Phase 2 of the state's reopening plan this week, but no counties will move forward a phase either.

Gov. Jay Inslee announced Tuesday the phased reopening plan would be paused for at least two weeks. Several counties were expected to roll back to Phase 2, with some counties at risk of rolling to Phase 1.

The pause comes as Washington is struggling to deal with the fourth wave in the pandemic — one that is marked with new variants of the virus thought to be more infectious.

"This means all counties for the next two weeks will stay in the current phase that they're in this morning. At the end of the two weeks pause we will evaluate the metrics at that time," Inslee said during a news conference. "So this is not a change to the phase plan, but we are pausing it for two weeks as we continue to evaluate the changing conditions in the state of Washington."

Across the state, cases started going up again in March and have continued to increase since. Hospitalizations, too, have been rising. State officials have been warning for weeks people need to do more to slow the spread of the virus and avoid rolling back. 

But in recent days, Inslee said, the state has been seeing some flattening in its case rates.

"The most recent data that has come in just in the last few days ... shows a potential plateauing of the COVID activity in the state of Washington which obviously is good news," Inslee said. 

The two week pause will allow the state to reevaluate the data and see if cases and hospitalizations remain flat and start to go down -- or continue rising. At that point, state officials will then decide whether counties should be moved back or forward.

King County, among nearly a dozen others, was not meeting either metric needed to remain in the third phase of the state's reopening plan -- but the county has seen some leveling off of its cases in recent weeks, said Jeff Duchin of Public Health -- Seattle & King County.

He commended the decision to put a two week pause on counties moving forward or back.

"Although it's not possible to predict with certainty where we're headed next, in many other areas of the country that experienced a COVID-19 fourth wave, case have been declining," he said.

"A two week pause recognizes new information ... and provides time to see more reliably which direction we're heading in and whether we're turning the corner on a fourth wave, which we very well may be."

The state had previously reevaluated data every three weeks to decide which counties would be moving back a phase and which ones would remain in the third phase. During the last evaluation, Cowlitz, Pierce and Whitman counties moved back to Phase 2, but all other counties remained in the third phase. 

To move back to Phase 2, counties have to exceed two metrics based on case rates and hospitalizations. 

The case threshold for small counties — those with populations under 50,000 — is less than 100 cases over the past two weeks, while the threshold for large counties is fewer than 200 cases per 100,000 people over the previous 14 days. Small counties must have less than three COVID-19 hospitalizations over the past week, while large counties must have less than five per 100,000 over the previous seven days.

In Phase 2, restaurants, gyms and other indoor places must reduce capacity from 50% to 25%. Indoor social and at-home gatherings are also limited to five people, and outdoor social gatherings to 15.

According to the most recent complete statewide data as of April 25, Washington was seeing a rate of about 251 new cases per 100,000 people over the previous 14 days, up significantly from mid-March, when the state was seeing about 125 cases per 100,000 people.

Hospitalizations, too, had been ticking up. Complete data from April 22 shows Washington was seeing a rate of seven hospitalizations per 100,000 people over the previous seven days, up from about three in mid-March. 

Vaccinations have been ramping up in recent months, but still about 70% of people across Washington are not yet fully vaccinated. More than 43% have received at least one vaccine dose and many vaccine clinics are now advertising thousands of open appointments each day. Officials are offering walk-in slots with no appointments and are working to expand the hours and days clinics are open to give people more flexibility and make it easier for people to get the shots.

Officials have been urging every eligible adult to get vaccinated, saying it is one of the key tools to stopping the spread of the virus and opening up more activities. But until more of the state is fully protected, people need to continue wearing masks, social distancing and avoiding large gatherings to keep themselves and the community safe.

Inslee last week struck a dire tone during this press conference, warning it wasn't the time for people to let their guards down.

"We have simultaneously a new weapon in the fight against this pandemic, mainly this incredibly safe and effective vaccine. Simultaneously we have effectively a new threat, a more powerful and dangerous threat," Inslee said during a news conference Thursday. "And that's what I think we can call COVID 2.0. This is not your grandmother's COVID."

He encouraged people to get vaccinated and to tell their friends, family and neighbors to do the same. 

"We are up against a fourth surge that is very dangerous that has the capacity to overwhelm our hospitals as these numbers continue to rise," Inslee said. "At the moment, the thing that has the capability of breaking this rise, is increasing vaccination rates."