By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – Gov. Inslee’s latest plan to divide Washington state into 8 regions to tackle the pandemic instead of doing so county-by-county is set to begin on Monday, January 11.
Clallam County is now part of the Northwest Region, along with Jefferson, Kitsap and Mason Counties and, as Health Officer Dr. Unthank says, we will all have to work together to meet the metrics needed to move into Phase 2 of the new plan and stay there.
“I can see some of the thought process behind moving to regions. One of the biggest things they wanted to gather was health care system capacity. In our region, one of the primary places we would go for higher-level care, if we needed it, would be Kitsap County. Certainly there are some downsides as well. You know, we don’t have as much control over what happens in other counties. And so, especially in places like Clallam and Jefferson, where things are going rather well, we can see our ability to move through the phases somewhat delayed by being linked to two other counties, specifically Kitsap, and what I’m most concerned about is Mason County.”
Mason County, with a population of about 65,000, compared to Clallam’s 77,000, has had about 500 more total cases. Their rate per 100,000 is more than twice ours, and their positivity rate is 10.5% compared to Clallam’s 3.9%.
“Their pandemic trajectory is not good. And so that’s limiting our ability to move forward in the reopening. One thing that this will spur for us is seeing what kind of partnerships we can develop with the other counties. We do already coordinate responses with Clallam, Jefferson and Kitsap County, and I think many of us are now interested in seeing what we can do to help Mason County so that we can have a better shot at moving forward sooner than later.”
Moving into Phase 2 will require decreasing trends in cases and hospital admissions per 100,000 population in a 2-week period, along with an ICU occupancy rate of under 90% and a positivity rate of under 10%.
Assuming our region collectively achieves that, the new guidance from the state Health Department says you must maintain or improve 3 of those 4 metrics in order to stay there, or risk falling back to Phase 1.
“I think the biggest thing to understand about it is that it is harder to get moved back than it is to get moved forward. Once you move forward, it’s okay to lose one of the metrics that got you forward. But I think that’s the biggest takeaway is that they’re looking at a couple different metrics, you know, how much virus is circulating and particularly how much strain on the Health Care system and once we are able to move forward it’s harder to get moved back.”
To see a map of the state’s 8 regions and learn more about the Governor’s new Healthy Washington-Roadmap To Recovery plan, click here.