Coronavirus cases going down in Washington but officials warn not to let down your guard

WASHINGTON — Encouraging news from Washington state health officials report that cases of COVID-19 are going down, but they also warn that now is not the time to let down your guard.

“I’m cautiously sort of optimistic at this point but realize our position is still pretty tenuous,” said Dr. Kathy Lofy, State Health Officer for the Washington State Department of Health.

During a press briefing on Wednesday, officials said they believe masks are making a difference in the fight against the coronavirus.

In both Western and Eastern Washington, the transmission rate is about one. That number is important because it means the outbreak is no longer growing.

“It appears somewhere around mid, maybe the second or third week in July, we had a peak number of cases being detected per day and had a decline since then,” Lofy added.

Also, what is likely helping are the governor’s new restrictions on bars and indoor dining which went into effect about three weeks ago.

But the number of cases also depends on where you live. The hotspots right now are in Chelan and Douglas counties. Even within counties, like King, there’s variance. A smaller portion of tests in King County are coming back positive. But there are new spikes in the Eastside suburbs, including Kirkland, Bothell and Woodinville.

“If you look at our overall state average we’re still at over 100 cases for 100,000 population over 14 days and if we really want to get schools open, ideally we want to see those numbers drop below 25 cases per 100,000 over 14 days. So we still have a long way to go,” said John Wiesman, Secretary of Health for the Washington State Department of Health.

While school is just around the corner and starting remotely for most kids, health officials have a warning about “pandemic pods” some parents may be turning to.

“While we recognize families need ways to support their children and learning and their own employments, for example, schools are not open for in-person learning because we are doing too much gathering, so if a family chooses to do this, number one, we want them to follow the health and safety guidance we have for schools, so that means wearing masks, increasing ventilations, increasing cleanings, everyone checks symptoms and sick people stay home, etc., and you should not be gathering with more than five people outside your household if you’re in a Phase 2 county or 10 if you’re in a Phase 3 county,” said Lacy Fehrenbach, Assistant Secretary for the Washington State Department of Health.

“We are hearing about a lot, a large proportion of cases who have reported going to some fairly large social event in the few days before their illness began,” Lofy explained.

Officials caution that people still need to keep their social interactions to a minimum. And they worry this shot of good news could send cases skyrocketing once again.

“We do really fear again, I think what we saw happening as we moved to phases and increased counties phases that people just let their guard down and felt like we’re done with this when clearly we weren’t,” Wiesman added.

Cox Media Group