Some Washington Counties May Roll Back To Phase 2 Next Week

WASHINGTON — Washington's top health officials confirm they are considering potentially pushing several counties back into an earlier phase of the Healthy Washington plan next week, a move that would reimpose stricter COVID-19 safety restrictions, limiting capacity at some businesses and outright shutting down other industries and activities.

The move comes in reaction to growing concerns that Washington is in the early throes of a fourth wave of COVID-19 transmission.

"I think it is really important for us to keep this in mind, that this pandemic continues," State Secretary of Health Dr. Umair Shah said. "Case counts are increasing in many places, including four of the five largest counties."

As epidemiologists explain, each of the three previous waves was larger than the last, and even when the waves decline they set a new, higher "baseline" for daily case counts. For example: when the curve flattened after the third wave in early March, daily case counts were still nearly as high as they had been at the peak of the second wave last summer. That's why the Washington State Department of Health says the state cannot afford a fourth wave, and must do everything it can to tamp down on transmissions as case counts are rising.

That is likely to include rollbacks for counties with particularly high transmission rates.

When asked about the possibility of rollbacks at the department's weekly briefing Wednesday, Lacy Fehrenbach, the department's deputy secretary for COVID-19 response, said that it was under consideration, and to expect more news on that front early next week.

"When we look at our data, there are a handful of counties that are at the threshold or above the threshold for case rates and hospitalizations and there is a decent likelihood that a handful will potentially be moved back on Monday," Fehrenbach said.

Unlike Washington's Safe Start plan — which was scrapped during the unprecedented third wave of transmission in the fall and early winter — the current reopening plan "Healthy Washington - Roadmap to Recovery" has a built-in safeguard allowing the state to roll regions back into earlier phases.

Under the program, each county is evaluated on two metrics every three weeks. For larger counties, with populations of 50,000 or more, to remain in Phase 3 a county must have a 14-day case rate below 200 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents, and fewer than 5 COVID-19 related hospitalizations per 100,000 residents in the past week. Smaller counties need a 14-day case rate below 100 and fewer than 3 hospitalizations.

Health officials have not said definitively which counties may be rolled back, but Pierce, Yakima, Kittitas, Chelan, Douglas and Whitman counties are all failing the case count metrics, per the latest update to the state's COVID-19 Risk Assessment dashboard.

Because the whole state entered Phase 3 on March 22, the first three-week evaluation will be this coming Monday. Any rollbacks announced Monday would take effect Friday. The selected counties would then be knocked down to Phase 2, meaning they'd lose access to indoor and outdoor events like school graduations and concerts, and see tighter capacity limits on restaurants, gyms and movie theaters, among other changes.

Health leaders say it's not something they want to do, but may be forced to when push comes to shove.

"We will have to take action when people may be at risk, and if we feel that because of case rates or because of other metrics that we need to dial back, we will have to do that," Shah said. "We are also hopeful we don't have to do that."