Reopening business and modifying physical distancing measures. Gov. Jay Inslee detailed his phased reopening approach in a news conference on May 1.

OLYMPIA — On May 4, Gov. Jay Inslee extended his ‘Stay Home, Stay Healthy’ order until May 31.

Inslee’s announcement set in motion a four-phase plan to reopen Washington. The state will reopen in four phases, with three weeks in between to give the state time to monitor covid-19 activity.

Phase one is already underway after Inslee allowed existing construction projects to resume and reopened some outdoor recreation.

Ten smaller counties will be able to apply to move to phase two before other counties. Those 10 counties are: Columbia, Garfield, Jefferson, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Skamania, Wahkiakum, Kittitas, Ferry and Grays Harbor. The counties were selected by the Washington State Health Department because none had new cases of covid-19 in the three weeks prior to Inslee’s announcement and because none had a population of greater than 75,000.

Inslee’s announcement came two days after he gave a news conference on the data driving his administration’s decisions of when and what to reopen.

Smaller counties

The 10 counties allowed to begin phase two were selected because of their small population sizes and low covid-19 activity. Each county would need approval from its local health department and board of county commissioners.

Before moving to phase two, the 10 counties would also need to submit plans to the state Health Department regarding surge capacity and PPE supplies.

In the next two weeks the state Health Department and the governor’s office will look at allowing additional counties to apply to move into the second reopening phase.

“We know that not every part of our state has been hit equally hard by this disease,” Inslee said.

Pacific County was notified of its most recent confirmed covid-19 case on May 4. Pacific County’s population was estimated at a little more than 22,000 people in 2019. As of May 5, the county had six confirmed cases of covid-19 involving people within the county, and one confirmed death from covid-19 involving someone who was living outside the county when they were diagnosed with the disease.

Data-driven reopening

On April 29, Inslee walked through the data driving his decisions on how to reopen the state.

Modeling shows hundreds of people will die if social distancing is relaxed at this time, Inslee said during the news conference.

“I have to tell you I just don’t think we can become inured to death,” Inslee said. “We see numbers but each one of these numbers is a person. It’s a son who lost their mother, or brother who lost their sister.”

Part of the reason Inslee said he is being cautious about reopening was because he wanted to avoid shutting the state down a second time. Cases could surge if restrictions are relaxed too fast, he said.

Disease activity

The first set of data points Inslee said his office was watching was covid-19 disease activity. The factors included in that are: Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in Washington, modeling and physical distancing adherence trends in Washington.

The overall number of cases is dropping, but it is not yet low enough as there are still about 200 cases being diagnosed daily. That is too high, Inslee said.

One important data point is the ‘R nought’ rate. This shows how many people become infected for every person that is infected. The goal is to have this rate reduced to less than a one-to-one infection rate. In early March, the ‘R nought’ rate was approaching four, which meant for every person infected about four more became infected, Inslee said.

At the moment, the number is one, which means for every person infected, they will infect one other person. The number dropped that low due to rigorous social distancing, but if social distancing is removed that number will just go back up again, Inslee said.

“We have to get this number down to be in a position to assure ourselves this virus isn’t just going to come roaring back,” Inslee said.

Inslee is also watching testing capacity and availability. Labs in Washington have the capacity to perform a little more than 22,000 covid-19 tests a day. However, just about 4,600 tests are being performed per day, due to a lack of test kit supplies.

C

ase and contact investigations

Inslee wants covid-19 case calls to be treated in a similar way to how a fire department responds to a call about a fire. To know if Washington’s investigation and isolation programs are robust enough to handle this, Inslee said his office is looking at four factors:

Risk to vulnerable populations

Covid-19 is not infecting and killing people equally, Inslee said. Hispanic people make up about 30% of cases and 8% of fatalities. This is despite Washington’s Hispanic population being less than 13%.

“This is a non equitable virus and we are dedicated to fighting all we can to try to reduce the inequities associated with this,” Inslee said.

Part of his plan to do this, he said, is to set standards of hygiene in the agricultural community.

Healthcare system readiness

Should the covid-19 pandemic resurge, Inslee wants Washington’s healthcare system ready. That means it needs enough hospital capacity as well as enough PPE for healthcare workers and first responders across the state.