In a Friday morning press briefing, Snohomish County officials provided an update on their efforts to apply for a variance that would move the county into Phase 2 reopening as specified under the Safe Start provisions of Gov. Jay Inslee’s Stay Home, Stay Safe proclamation.  The briefing also included an update from Community Transit on the impacts of the COVID-19 shutdown to its operations and financial condition.

Present were County Executive Dave Somers, Snohomish Health District Health Officer Dr. Chris Spitters and Community Transit CEO Emmett Heath.

“Our case counts have been dropping for some time,” Somers began. “We’re flattening the curve, and at the same time avoiding exceeding the capacity of our health care system. Our residents have paid a steep price — many have lost loved ones; many are out of work. We now must move forward with our request to enter Phase 2 and help our people safely get back to work, bearing in mind the importance of continuing to progress as we move to the next phase. I believe we are ready to take this step, and I am hopeful that our application will be accepted by the Department of Health.”

As specified in the recent instructions issued by the Washington State Department of Health, counties applying to move to Phase 2 need to meet a number of criteria, including adequate supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE), sufficient hospital capacity, plans for testing and contact tracing, adequate quarantine facilities, and recording no more than 10 new infections per 100,000 population over a 14-day period.

“Two days ago, the county council authorized spending $143 million of our recently-approved CARES funding on helping meet the Phase 2 criteria,” Somers continued. “We can now assure the state that we have adequate PPE on hand and in the pipeline, our quarantine sites are funded through the rest of the year, and that our testing, contact tracing and hospital capacity is adequate to meet any potential surge.”

Somers went on to explain that while the county’s numbers have been coming down, they do not yet meet the standard specified in the Phase 2 criteria. He added, however, that if more recent trends continue, the county will be “very close” and that he believes this will be sufficient to have the application accepted.

“I want to thank the Snohomish Health District Board of Health and the Snohomish County Council for agreeing to apply for a variance to move us into Phase 2 of the Governor’s Re-opening Washington plan,” Somers added. “I fully support their actions. Depending on announcements later today, we expect the plan to be submitted by the end of the day on Monday, June 1. The residents of Snohomish County have done the hard work in flattening our curve and taking care of one another by social distancing. As we apply for, and I hope enter, Phase 2, we will all need to remain vigilant about our activities. We need to get people back to work and not have a major spike in cases. It will be up to everyone to be smart and maintain the measures that have worked so far.”

“I’m fully in accord with Executive Somers in supporting the variance for moving to Phase 2,” noted Dr. Chris Spitters, Snohomish Health District Health Officer. “I feel we are well-equipped in the capacity of our health care system, our supplies of PPE, and our programs of contact tracing, case investigations, epidemiologic and data monitoring to move forward with reasonable anticipation of success.”

Spitters also echoed Somers’ points about the critical importance of continuing to adhere to safety guidelines while entering Phase 2, and that the public’s cooperation is critical.

“Even though we’re opening up, we need your help in continuing to follow social distancing practices, limiting contacts and wearing face masks in public,” he said. “And if a public health official should contact you about contact tracing, please be responsive — it’s geared to protecting the health of all of us.”

Spitters moved on to provide additional detail on the numbers of cases, and how close the county is to meeting this Phase 2 criterion.

“Given our population, 10 cases per 100,000 over 14 days translates to about 80 cases for us over a two-week period,” he began. “Looking back over the past two weeks, we’ve been at around 240, three times the target level. But if we consider the past six days and extrapolate out, I have every reason to believe we can cut this by about a third, down to 160 cases, about double the target number.”

Stressing that this number is but one measure, Spitters emphasized the importance of looking at the full array of criteria (e.g., PPE supplies, hospital surge capacity, contact tracing, containment availability), recognizing that all of these contribute to the county being ready to move to Phase 2.

“It’s a constellation of features,” he concluded. “Although we may not have a bright green light on every criterion, I believe we are well-positioned to move forward for a successful venture into Phase 2.”

Community Transit CEO Emmett Heath then provided an update on the agency’s operations and finances during COVID crisis.

“When the crisis first hit, our ridership fell off by about 70 percent overall, 95 percent on trips going south,” he began, adding that with sales taxes down and no fares being collected during the COVID crisis, he is expecting the 2020 revenue shortfall to approach $50 million.

Heath went on to detail the measures CT is taking to protect the public and employees, including daily disinfection of all buses, bases, and transit facilities, closing off the front 10 feet of the bus passenger compartment to isolate the operator from riders, closing of half of the seating for social distancing, and strongly encouraging riders to wear masks.

“While we have suspended collecting fares during the COVID crisis, we plan to resume collection on our Swift lines beginning Monday, June 1,” he added, noting that no date has been set for resuming fare collection system-wide.

Questions from the press focused exclusively on the application for Phase 2 reopening, touching on how this was being coordinated with the Governor’s Office, the timeline of when to expect implementation of Phase 2, and how active a role the county might take in enforcing social distancing, masks and other safety measures.

Regarding coordination with the Governor’s Office, County Executive Somers explained that he’s been in daily contact with Gov. Inslee’s office expressing his desire to move forward into Phase 2, and that he believes that while we’ve been “boxed up” with Pierce and King counties as one of the larger jurisdictions, Snohomish County is different in that it is not as densely populated, the numbers are closer to the thresholds, and it meets the other criteria, such as PPE and testing.

“The Health District has been working on our application for some time already,” he said. “Now that the final pieces are falling into place, we’re poised to move forward.”

Spitters addressed the question of timing, saying that at present the draft is almost done and should be ready to submit on Monday — but that once it’s in the Governor’s Office the timeline is up to them.

“In the past they’ve moved pretty quickly,” added Somers.

Asked about masks, social distancing, the role of the county in enforcing these standards as we move forward, and possibly moving toward making masks mandatory in certain situations, Spitters responded that “masks in public need to become the new social norm — we need to do everything we can to suppress transmission while we’re under the shadow of COVID-19, and masks have been shown to be effective.”

Somers added that it’s important for us to keep these measures in place and for folks to take them seriously.

“A good part of the population doesn’t want to be told what to do, but businesses also need some ability to say no and not allow customers without masks to come in,” Somers said. “We hope the public will support businesses who are doing the right thing, and if they feel uncomfortable, they should simply not patronize those businesses. At the end of the day we rely on our residents to do the right thing.”

Spitters echoed this, adding that monitoring all businesses is beyond the county’s capacity.

“Patronize businesses where you feel comfortable,” he advised.  “It comes down to our own self-interest and that of our families.”

Concluding on a more personal note, Somers said, “I know how much people are suffering right now. Seeing our family members and neighbors mourning, sick or out of work is causing pain across our community. With one out of every five workers unemployed in Snohomish County, we all have a lot to do. We will need everyone’s help to get us reopened safely, just as we needed everyone’s help at social distancing. We cannot prevent infections or re-start our economy by government fiat. It will be individuals making smart decisions over the coming days, weeks and months that will determine whether we can maintain our positive trajectory.  The residents of the county deserve credit for making it through what we hope is the worst of the pandemic. But we need to maintain that good work.”

View the full press briefing with Somers, Spitters and Heath here.

— Story and photos by Larry Vogel