Pepper Fisher
CLALLAM COUNTY – Things are looking better in Clallam County in terms of Covid-19 numbers, with the total number of cases holding steady at 221 over the long weekend and the important metric of cases per 100,000 in a two-week period dropping to just 30 as of Tuesday.
But Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry Unthank is only cautiously optimistic at this point in the hopes that we don’t see a spike in the next several days like we saw as a result of 4th of July gatherings that eventually put that number near 100, deep into the high-risk category.
“It’s really quite promising. We don’t want to get too excited until we see any Labor Day numbers. We do worry about a spike after that, and we would start to see those about a week to two weeks after Labor Day. But so far this is really promising. We’re hopeful that this is the sign of a good trend moving forward.”
Getting that all-important number below 25 and keeping it there is the goal of communities nation-wide and is seen as the point at which counties here in Washington would consider applying to move into the next phase of the Governor’s reopening plan. At least, that was the case until early August when Gov. Inslee put a pause on the plan, barring any counties from moving forward indefinitely until the state as a whole saw similar improvement.
“The state’s been…the numbers of cases in the state have been going down as well. So it is hopeful that that pause will be lifted at some point in the near future. But whether or not that happens really depends on all of us.”
Dr. Unthank wanted to touch on another subject today before we said goodbye, and that is the subject of today’s air quality, which may be around a while, depending on winds and other factors.
“That smoke really is bad for your health right now. And so I would recommend that we bring our activities indoors right now until the air quality improves. Keep windows closed, close those blinds so that it doesn’t get too hot in your house, and really avoid those interactions that were bringing us out of doors until things improve.”