Editor s note: This story has been updated to clarify the latest statistics from Kitsap Public Health District.
With COVID-19 cases on a dramatic rise in Kitsap in recent weeks, the county faces the possibility of tighter restrictions and being sent back a phase in the state’s reopening plan next week.
Counties must either keep new case rates below 200 cases per 100,000 residents over a two-week period or new hospitalizations below 5 per 100,000 over a one-week period to stay in Phase 3. In a statement to the Kitsap Sun on Friday, Kitsap Public Health District Administrator Keith Grellner noted that Kitsap’s case rate is now well above 200 and that the most recent data from the state’s Department of Health showed the hospitalization rate was just over 5, but said that the rate of new hospitalizations fluctuates from day to day, making it very difficult to project whether we will be above the state’s threshold of 5 per 100,000 for last seven days.
No one knows why COVID-19 cases were getting high in Pierce County at the end of March. Not for sure, at least. Maybe it was indoor gatherings, maybe a post spring-break bump. Maybe the reason is what so many of us feel after a year of this: We’re tired, and sometimes let our guard down or take risks we shouldn’t.
In the end, none of these reasons would have mattered anyway. Pierce had exceeded the guidelines allowable in Phase 3 of the Healthy Washington reopening plan, which allow for a maximum of 200 cases and 5 hospitalizations per 100,000 members of the population. Their numbers were 268 cases and 6.4 hospitalizations. They would be rolled back to Phase 2 until their numbers improved.