SPOKANE, Wash. — On Wednesday, Spokane Interim Health Officer Dr. Francisco Velazquez addressed a growing concern about increasing COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations causing a move back to Phase 2 for the county.
Currently, Spokane County is failing both metrics - new cases over 14 days and hospitalizations over seven days - needed to stay in Phase 3 of Governor Jay Inslee's reopening plan.
"We indeed as a community are not trending in the right direction," Velazquez said about the county's new case rate. "Our case rate from yesterday or the day before is about 260-plus, which is obviously not where we want to be. When you think about it about, six or seven weeks ago we were at about 140."
Velazquez said some of this rise is due to gatherings related to events such as spring break, Easter Sunday and the NCAA Tournament. But, he added that there is a way to help get the county back to where it needs to be, and he was confident the numbers will drop.
"We are working very diligently to find and immunize as many as we can to help in the long run prevent new transmission. As you may know, we have done several clinics already at our higher education institutions and are encouraging all that are 16 and older to get immunized," Velazquez said.
Mark Starr, who owns David's Pizza, is trying to do just that. He has been trying to get hospitality industry employees, many of whom are younger, immunized.
As part of his efforts, he was handing out free slices of pizza to people getting vaccinated at the Spokane Arena Mass Vaccination Site on Wednesday. He said another shut down would be a disaster for the local restaurant industry.
"I'd hate to consider what that [a move back to Phase 2] means. It would put a lot of people out of business," Starr said. "It would put a tremendous hardship on an awful lot of families. I'm really hopeful that's not going to be the case."
Starr and the rest of the local hospitality industry came up with an idea. A way to try to keep restaurants open for the time being and to help keep COVID-19 rates low is to make sure employees are healthy.
But, as Starr said, that isn't easy to do during the pandemic, especially given the hours that most in the industry work.
"Consequently, the ones that are working in hospitality are tied up," Starr said. "They don't get as much, they don't get the time off. So, we realized it was a demographic we needed to hit both in age and in occupation so we put this push together and its been quite successful."
All people aged 16 and older are eligible to get vaccinate in Washington state. The Spokane Arena Mass Vaccination Site is also now open until 8 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for those who can't get vaccinated during normal working hours.
The next statewide county evaluation is set for May 3. One Eastern Washington County - Whitman - was moved back to Phase 2 during the last evaluation period.