Gov. Jay Inslee loosens COVID-19 restrictions for some activities in Washington state
Gov. Jay Inslee has loosened some restrictions on youth sports and businesses such as restaurants and movie theaters under different phases of the state’s Safe Start plan.
“We have shown progress because we have masked up and as a result we are rolling out some new protocols to allow people to start playing sports again and to allow many businesses to start getting back into business,” he said at a virtual press conference Tuesday.
He still is not allowing counties to advance into new Safe Start phases, but he did not move any counties backward either.
Instead, he announced some specific things that will now be allowed in different phases.
Members of different households will now be able to be seated together at restaurants indoors, and restaurants will be able to serve alcohol as late as 11 p.m. in Phase 2 and Phase 3 counties. The table size will be six in Phase 2 and eight in Phase 3.
Seventeen counties including King, Pierce and Whatcom are currently in Phase 2; 17 also are in Phase 3, including Thurston. The remaining five counties, including Benton and Franklin, are in a modified Phase 1.
Asked about the change in the indoor dining restriction among people from different households, the governor said: “We found out that restaurants were not totally abiding by this and not really enforcing it. ... It was aggravating to people and it was not reducing transmissions.”
Libraries will be allowed to have some indoor activity at 25 percent capacity in Phase 2 counties, similar to museums.
Movie theaters will be allowed to have 25-percent occupancy in Phase 2 and 50-percent occupancy in Phase 3, with social distancing required and masks required when people are not eating and drinking.
The governor seemed to be trying to address the many concerns struggling businesses have raised.
“We wanted to do targeted things where we can show how to do this in a safe way,” Inslee said.
“I think increasingly the way we need to think about this is not just so much as prohibitions about what you can’t do, but adaptations to show how we do something safely. And so we think we’ve been able by working with the communities to develop ways to do these things safely. And we expect that effort will continue.”
Sports changes
The guidelines for school-related and non-school related sports will be now be in line, and both indoor and outdoor sports will be put into different risk categories as far as when they can restart. Local metrics will be part of that decision, and “some tournaments may still be restricted,” the governor said.
There will also be rules about transportation, group size and masks. Spectators are still prohibited at professional and college sporting events, and for the most part at youth sports and adult recreational sports.
Asked by a reporter about the possibility of youth football opening up, the governor said: “We’ll continue to look at this, to listen to people, but at the moment we don’t think that that’s in the cards.”
He said it’s a sport that appears to be high risk, because “it has more close facial interactions,” and that the state hasn’t been able to come up with protocols yet to address that.
“Schools can just not afford“ the sort of safety measures college and professional sports are taking, Inslee noted.
Events
There are also new outdoor recreation rules in phase two and phase three counties “for races, bicycle tours and rides, runs, cross country skiing races, biathlons, canoe and kayak races, marathons, cross country running competitions, triathlons, and multi-sport competitions with more than 12 participants,” the Governor’s Office said in a statement announcing the changes.
Water recreation facilities will be available by appointment in modified phase one and phase two counties, and in phase three will be at 50-percent occupancy.
The limit for wedding receptions will be 50 people in phase three. In phase two it remains 30.
Real estate open houses are allowed, limited by the restrictions on gathering size in a county.
Local health department responds
The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department said in a statement Tuesday after the governor’s announcement: “Modified Safe Start guidelines the governor announced today for movie theaters, restaurants and other industries do not change the vigilance we need in Pierce County. Our COVID-19 case rates have been rising recently, and we need everyone to help bring them back down.
“Everyone needs to do their part to care for one another: Stay close to home and limit unnecessary trips. Wear a mask when away (from) home. Practice physical distancing. Wash hands and keep up best hygiene and sanitation.”
On Tuesday, Pierce County reported that 712 new cases of COVID-19 had been reported in the past 14 days, and as cases have climbed, the county has struggled in advancing with in-person classroom instruction.
The county this week is on track to “move back into the ‘High’ category of the COVID-19 Activity Level per the Department of Health’s Decision Tree for the Provision of In Person Learning,” the department noted in a blog posted Oct. 1 to encourage residents to adhere to safety precautions.
In late September, the state Department of Health acknowledged Washington was at a crossroads heading into fall and the flu season alongside the continuing pandemic. King County health officials offered similar warnings on Friday.
But many businesses, running out of emergency aid through government assistance programs, are struggling to stay in operation as hopes for another round of stimulus faded even more Tuesday in D.C.
Bruce Kendall, president and CEO of the Economic Development Board for Tacoma-Pierce County, told The News Tribune last week that many businesses were struggling with the continued uncertainty.
“The most anxiety that our businesses are feeling, I think this is statewide ... but at least in Pierce County, the biggest anxiety they have is around the understanding what the guidelines are, and then how to implement those guidelines for their business to enable them to do even more business.”
Outside of industries directly tied to the pandemic response such as logistics and health care, he noted, “no one’s back to where they were in terms of level of customers and employees as they were pre-COVID,” he told The News Tribune in a phone interview.
“To get there ... they would like more help understanding what the steps are to get there, because there seems to be a little bit of a moving of the goalposts as they go. And I don’t think it’s intentional because the state’s going through this for the first time ever, in anybody’s living memory.” He added that from a business perspective, the question becomes: “If we’re flattening the curve, and we flatten the curve, then why can’t we open further if people are social distancing ... and we’re wearing masks. And we’re cleaning surfaces and all the rest of it. Why can’t we get there faster?”
Masking up this fall, preparing for a vaccine
The governor reiterated the the importance of facial coverings as people spend more time indoors as the weather changes
“Wearing a mask is not a sign of weakness,” Inslee said. “It is fundamentally a sign of strength.”
He also emphasized that: “You don’t look strong when you hurt other people. ... A mask is not a sign of party affiliation, and I am so glad that Washingtonians understand that.”
Dr. Joshua Schiffer, associate professor for vaccines and infectious diseases at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington, joined Inslee on the call to talk about some of the science behind masks.
“The point is just by boosting the mask use a little bit, by everybody teaming up and doing a good job, it makes everybody so much safer,” Schiffer said.
He noted that if someone is wearing a mask and the person they’re exposed to is wearing a mask, and they still get infected “our model very strongly suggests that the amount of virus that you would be exposed to is much less. And we think that that would make you much less likely to develop a severe version of COVID-19.”
He also noted that a University of Washington and John Hopkins symposium earlier in the day about the future of a vaccine left him optimistic.
“The best minds in the world are putting their energy into this,” he said, and he’s “very hopeful that there will be roll out of a vaccine, you know, within the coming year, and I’m just optimistic in general that that’s a possibility.”
The goal is to limit cases and deaths until then, he said.
Asked if he’s confident vaccines that are approved will be safe and effective given allegations of political interference in the process, Inslee said: “If a vaccine is distributed in the state of Washington, it’s going to be a safe vaccine. We will see to that. It’d make it easier if the president keeps his mitts off the FDA, but one way or another we are going to succeed.”
He said the state will have an independent evaluation of the clinical trials.
“We are now pursuing the right mechanism for doing that,” the governor said. “There may be some announcements forthcoming of some institutions that are looking at this issue.”
Vaccine manufacturers, he said, are being very transparent and doing something they’ve never done before by sharing protocols during a clinical trial.
“We’ll be able to make our independent assessment, and if the vaccines don’t pass our standards, we’ll insist on better results,” the governor said. “So I feel good in that sense. We might have to do some work ourselves, but we are certainly up to it.”
This story was originally published October 6, 2020 at 2:50 PM with the headline "Gov. Jay Inslee loosens COVID-19 restrictions for some activities in Washington state."
