Large gatherings in backyards or local parks, without masks or physical distance, are putting Spokane County in danger of forced closings and new restrictions.
“It is a different possibility,” Spokane health officer Dr. Bob Lutz said Monday, noting the continued increase in cases.
The Spokane Regional Health District confirmed 91 new cases on Monday, not including the 146 confirmed cases over the weekend. There are now 2,809 confirmed cases in the county, and last week only 36% of the completed case investigations so far could connect the cases to other known cases, meaning that the spread of the virus in the community is increasing.
Inland Northwest is seeing not only dramatic leaps in case counts, but also an increase in hospitalizations. Health care providers at Spokane hospitals are treating 51 patients with COVID-19 at local hospitals, and 32 of them are county residents.
Lutz said local case counts are now being driven by meetings, not just in restaurants or offices, but in people’s patios or parks.
“Our cases are being driven by these meetings; it is not a function of a particular workspace, ”she said. “We don’t want to be like Florida or Arizona, but the behaviors that drive their cases are the same behaviors that drive our cases here,” she added.
The Spokane Veterans Home announced that a contract employee tested positive for COVID-19, even though they were wearing the proper personal protective equipment while on the job and experiencing no symptoms. All staff and residents who were exposed to the employee are being screened for the virus, and Veterans Home will conduct symptom checks and surveillance for residents every four hours for the next two weeks.
Modelers using cell phone data have found that an increasing number of Spokane County residents travel to Idaho and the Coeur d’Alene area on weekends, said Lutz, who is also a COVID hot spot- 19 with a rapidly increasing case count.
The Panhandle Health District reported 110 new cases on Monday, and the five-county region now has 1,240 confirmed cases. There is no mask mandate in Idaho or the five-county region after efforts failed last week to establish one. Hospitalizations in northern Idaho have doubled in just a few weeks to 19. Lutz is in conversation with the Panhandle Health District to coordinate her responses to the virus. Ultimately, however, it all comes down to behavior, he said.
A report from the Disease Modeling Institute released Friday said Washington state, including Spokane County, is “in an explosive situation.” The reproduction rate of the virus in eastern Washington is estimated to be 1.41 infected for every positive case of COVID-19. Daily hospitalizations are increasing on both sides of the state. The only silver lining is in Yakima County, where masking and distancing mandates led to a decrease in case rates, while Spokane County is headed in the opposite direction.
The modelers found that Spokane, specifically, “has experienced accelerated exponential growth in COVID-19 cargo that has yet to show significant signs of slowdown.”
Starting Monday, the governor’s revised orders went into effect prohibiting any live music or entertainment in restaurants and taverns, as well as limiting meeting sizes. Changes in collection sizes do not affect Spokane County, which is in Phase 2, meaning meetings must be limited to five people or less. Restaurant inspectors have restarted their routine inspections, which now include looking at a restaurant’s COVID-19 plan and making sure they follow the necessary safety precautions to keep employees and customers safe.
Indoor and outdoor Washington public face cover is mandatory when people do not keep six feet of physical space between them and large gatherings are prohibited. The Spokane Regional Health District did not obtain the latest results of observational masking surveys on Monday, but last week the district survey showed that less than 60% of residents were wearing masks. .
In a conversation with modelers at the Institute of Disease Modeling, Lutz said he expects case counts to double every 10 to 20 days.
Young people, in their 20s and 30s, account for 46% of confirmed cases in Spokane County, a trend seen at the state and national levels. However, in places like Florida, where young people spread the virus for several weeks, people of all age groups eventually contracted the virus, which modelers use to show that the virus cannot be isolated at a certain age group. Convincing young people to limit group meetings or cover their faces, despite being a state law, is a challenge for health officials.
Lutz is not on TikTok, and Kelli Hawkins, a public information officer in the health district, said reaching out to younger generations via social media is a priority, but it requires some tact. Young adults will not only naturally follow the Spokane Regional Health District on Instagram, for example, and said the state health department is also working on a strategy to reach younger demographics.
“We are doing some preliminary surveys,” Hawkins said, noting that the district had reached out to some school groups and youth in its efforts to engage that age group in the use of face covers, meet in small groups, and essentially take the pandemic seriously.
The real challenge is that while younger people with no underlying health conditions may not experience serious symptoms if they contract the virus, Hawkins said, they work and live near others who might be more susceptible to real challenges with the virus, since be your peers. with underlying health conditions, parents or grandparents.
Lutz recalled seeing a group of young adults on Lime scooters over the weekend, and only one of them had a face covered around his neck.
“It is unfathomable to me right now that they cannot be taking this seriously,” Lutz said.
