Governor Jay Inslee has made his announcement regarding the status of which phase the counties of Washington will be thrown into. And that answer is-wait two weeks and find out.

Inslee has decided that there will be no moving back or forward for Washington counties for at least two weeks. This means whatever current phases all 39 counties are in they will remain for a two week period of deliberation. 

Counties like Snohomish and King, two of the biggest in Washington, need to average less then five hospitalizations, and 200 cases per 100,000 residents for a period of two weeks. This data will show us after the two weeks if it is truly smart to remain in phase three or degrees back to phase two for our safety. 

If we were to go back to phase two week would see a huge roll back as business such as bars, restaurants, and gyms would be decreased down from 50% to 25%. Inslee mentioned in his statement that well we don’t have a clear path or decision to which phase we will fall in we all have the choice to get vaccinated. 

Inslee and Public Health officials have urged Washingtonians to receive the vaccine for weeks now but stress it even more in these dire times. Well the death toll has not fired up like the previous waves of this disease, hospitalization is still a real fear and is cautioned to the public by Inslee in his address.

With King averaging about 229.3 cases and 4.8 hospitalizations and Snohomish’s averages being similar with 229 cases and 5 hospitalizations per capita, we are moving in the right direction, but still have a long way to go.

In closing Inslee states; “The two-week pause provides us time to see which direction we are heading and whether we are turning the corner on the 4th wave while we continue to do everything we can to get more people vaccinated- especially younger adults – to decrease future risk.”