Too few Tri-Citians wearing masks may prevent more reopening, say health officials

Initial state talks on reopening the Tri-Cities area have not been encouraging.

Washington state leaders are looking for stronger actions from the Tri-Cities area to fight the spread of the coronavirus, said local officials who were on conference calls with them Friday afternoon and Saturday.

Sending a strong message to the community and convincing more people to wear face coverings in public appears to be a key step toward getting state permission to reopen, they said.

The Benton Franklin Health District Board met on Monday afternoon to discuss progress with the state for at least limited reopening of businesses in the Tri-Cities area and possibly approval for small gatherings.

At that point, Benton and Franklin counties had not heard a decision on whether the state would approve the applications submitted last week.

They were waiting for another meeting to be scheduled, possibly late Monday or on Tuesday, with local officials, state health officials and Gov. Jay Inslee.

“The cases in Benton, Franklin and Yakima counties are of particular concern,” Inslee said in a news release Saturday. “I joined the Institute for Disease Modeling this morning as they shared data with leaders in these three counties.”

The governor called for more testing and more mask wearing, among other steps to tackle the coronaviurs.

Based on what Franklin County Commissioner Brad Peck heard on the Saturday call, he said he is not optimistic that the state will approve moving the local counties to Phase 2 of business reopening.

Benton and Franklin county commissioners serve as the local board of health.

Local officials are hoping that they will come away from the call with the governor with specific actions they can take and then will receive a decision on whether each county can possibly reopen, said Jason Zaccaria, administrator of the health district.

Benton, Franklin and Yakima counties are the only ones in the state not approved yet to move beyond Phase 1.

The Tri-Cities counties applied last week to move to Phase 2, but the state could instead keep them locked down in Phase 1 or allow very limited reopening in Phase 1.5.

New cases in workers

State health officials are concerned with the rate of transmission of COVID-19, as shown by new cases, and the number of people being treated at hospitals in Benton and Franklin counties, said Dr. Amy Person, health officer for both counties.

Transmission appears to be increasing in Benton, Franklin, Yakima and Spokane counties, she said at the local health board meeting.

“There is a concern that if things don’t change we will see a significant increase in hospitalizations and deaths,” she said.

A major piece of stabilizing the rate of transmission is getting people to wear face coverings in public, maintaining physical distance from others and getting people to stay home when they are sick, she said.

Those precautionary measures were not so much an issue when more people were staying home early in the pandemic, she said.

Now 55% to 58% of new cases are in people who are working outside their homes, she said.

People should know to wear masks three months into the pandemic in the Tri-Cities area, said Benton County Commissioner Shon Small.

“It’s a small price to pay to wear a mask to be able to benefit the owners of small businesses ... and get the cash flowing,” he said.

Already businesses are going bankrupt or permanently shutting their doors, he said.

Be mad, but mask up

More businesses may need to tell customers that face coverings are required, he said.

County commissioners are close to releasing a public service video on the steps residents can take, such as wearing masks and social distancing, to help win support for reopening the Tri-Cities, he said.

“It’s fine to be angry about what is happening in our community, especially the economic downturn,” Dr. Person said.

But that doesn’t mean people should be encouraged not to take steps that could help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, she said.

“We really need to have everyone masking and encouraging others if they are able to (wear masks),” she said.

If the Tri-Cities area does not get approval to move forward with reopening “we are going to be in a world of hurt not just economically but I think even in terms of controlling this infection,” she said. “If people get too frustrated, they are not going to do anything they need to do.”

State help offered

The state offered some support to the Tri-Cities in the recent calls with local officials, including National Guard help for free drive-thru COVID-19 testing starting Wednesday at the Toyota Center in Kennewick and the HAPO Center, formerly TRAC, in Pasco.

No doctor’s order is required, but appointments must be made by calling 211.

The state also offered help with contact tracing, a task that has challenged the health district as daily new cases have increased to as many as 83 this month.

The state wants local health districts to telephone most people who tests positive within 24 hours and within another 24 hours call their close contacts and ask them to quarantine at home for two weeks. If they have been infected, they may develop symptoms within two weeks and could infect others before symptoms develop.

The state also wants health district officials to call anyone isolating or quarantining to check in with them each day, making sure they have the care and supplies they need and to see if those exposed have developed symptoms.

The local health district has estimated it needs 30 more contact tracers.

Some of those could come through state programs, some might be new temporary workers and others could be county or city employees who could be assigned to help.

Benton County has offered technology and space at the Benton County Fairground as a base for contact tracing.

Peck said he was concerned that just reporting the daily number of new confirmed cases is not adequate to determine whether the infection rate is increasing or decreasing.

That would require knowing not only how many people tested positive but how many test results were negative.

For instance, if there are 88 new cases is that out of 88 people tested or 8,000, he asked.

Now information on negative tests is not complete because of a backlog at the state Department of Health in assigning 80,000 negative test results to locations around the state, local health officials said.

Hospitals concerned

Even though more testing kicks off Wednesday in the Tri-Cities, the state should look favorably on more testing done and data available even if there are more positive cases, Dr. Person said.

“Getting more testing done goes to our advantage,” she said.

Now the two counties are seeing positive results in 15% to 20% of tests based on limited data available, but that percentage should drop with more testing and few restrictions on who can be tested, she said.

Person said up to 68 people have been hospitalized at once in the two counties this month for suspected or confirmed COVID-19 cases, the smaller hospitals have reached capacity in their intensive care units.

There have still been beds available at the ICUs of larger hospitals, but some hospitals have been concerned about the next steps in the two counties, Dr. Person said.