Credit Courtesy of Ferry County Memorial Hospital
Ferry County has become the fourth Washington county to move back to Phase 2 in the state’s coronavirus reopening protocol.
The Northeast Tri-County Health District on Friday announced that it has moved Ferry County back a step because of an outbreak, brought upon, at least in part, by two maskless parties at an Eagles’ Lodge in Republic in mid-April.
The health district reports the county has had 106 positive Covid cases since April 12, including seven people who were transported out of the county to be hospitalized. One person infected with the virus has died. The health district reports the hospital in Republic has worked with the state to receive help in medical staffing and other logistics needed to care for the sick.
Credit TVW screenshot
Washington health officials say a dozen counties are in danger of moving back to Phase 2, or perhaps even Phase 1, in the state’s coronavirus reopening plan.
They include rural Ferry County. It has been battling an outbreak that public health officials link, in part, to two events in Republic on April 10 and 11. Governor Jay Inslee mentioned the gatherings during a press briefing on Thursday.
“They wanted to show that Covid’s no big deal. That was at the Eagles’ Club, I’m told, over in Republic. They flouted public health guidelines. They ignored clear science and it ended up turning into a superspreader event, Inslee said.
SPR s Doug Nadvornick reports.
Spokane County’s chances of staying in Phase 3 of Washington’s coronavirus reopening protocol beyond the first week of May are becoming more tenuous.
Interim Health Officer Francisco Velazquez says the county is failing one of the two metrics state officials consider when evaluating counties’ progress.
That’s the two-week case rate. The county is at 295 cases per 100-thousand residents, well above the state’s acceptable standard of 200. In the other metric, hospitalizations, he says the county is teetering around the acceptable level of 5%.
“We’ve gone over 5% a couple of times. We were at 5.3% Tuesday. So we’ve fluctuated around that 5%, that magical number, for hospitalization. Our case rate is high. It’s going to be hard to bring it back below 200. We’re going to have to do some work on that. So it’s not clear if we’re going to be able to continue on Phase 3, he said.
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A Washington legislative committee heard testimony Wednesday on a bill that would allow businesses shuttered by the pandemic to partially reopen.
More than 1,600 people signed up to weign in on legislation that takes aim at Governor Inslee’s latest re-opening plan.
It would mandate moving the entire state from Phase One to Phase Two restrictions. That would allow many venues to serve customers indoors at 25% capacity.
Testimony before the Senate State Government & Elections Committee was held online. More than 16-hundred signed up to speak. Not all were heard, because of time restrictions. One of those was Blair McHaney, the president of the Washington Fitness Alliance.
If you ve found yourself like most of us, online searching for information on the COVID-19 vaccine, here s something you might not know.
So you are one of the folks in the Hudson Valley that has made it! You got the COVID-19 vaccination. Congratulations! But PLEASE don t think that once it s done, you can just go back to the way things were before all of this started.
As much as I would love to tell you that it s OK to go and throw all of your masks away, put the plastic gloves back in closet, or throw a huge party with fellow vaccinated people, I can t, and neither can health officials.