SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash — As Spokane County approaches the one-week mark for Phase 2 of reopening, 30 new coronavirus cases were reported on Friday.
That's more than 100 new cases in the past week.
Spokane County has 570 cases as of Friday, and one new death of a man in his 50s, Spokane County Health Officer Dr. Bob Lutz said on Friday.
Spokane County has seen a total of 32 deaths. Currently there are eight people hospitalized. Eighty-four people have been hospitalized since the outbreak began in Spokane County.
Many of the new cases are related to an outbreak at the Philadelphia Macaroni Company in Spokane. At least 35 workers at the company tested positive, and some also infected members of their household. Some of those people may have infected others from there, Lutz said.
Some other new cases are due in part to more testing, Lutz said. Last week, 160 tests happened at the Spokane County Fairgrounds, and this week there were 265 tests at the fairgrounds. That's in addition to other tests at healthcare facilities.
What that means for Phase 2 in Spokane County
The new guidelines for reopening stated that Spokane couldn't have more than 10 cases of coronavirus per 100,000 people over a two-week period.
Gov. Inslee announced on Friday that the metric has now been changed to fewer than 25 cases per 100,000 residents over a 14-day span.
But now that Spokane County is already in Phase 2, health officials have told KREM that the new cases won't push Spokane back to Phase 1 - as long as the county is successful at contact tracing when an outbreak happens.
"With respect to going back, I do not have a sense that that is that is going to happen. Do I have concerns that that might happen? Always. I’m always trying to be somewhat realistic," Lutz said on Friday.
Spokane County could move into Phase 3 as soon as June 12, but Lutz implied on Friday that this might be an unrealistic goal.
"Given what we're seeing right now, I think it's very unlikely that we will be moving to Phase 3 in three weeks from last Friday," he said.
The Washington Department of Health website indicates that Spokane County is one of five counties in the state with 391 to 780 coronavirus cases. Clark County is the closest in population size with Spokane and it has 421 confirmed cases.
The 14-day projection graph below shows what the numbers will look like on average every two weeks.
In the past two weeks, there have been more than 140 new coronavirus cases in Spokane County. There were 101 cases in one week alone.
Although there have been a substantial increase in cases, the Spokane Regional Health District doesn't believe the increase is due to community spread.