Washington Updates Phase Guidance, Clarifies Rollback Criteria

OLYMPIA, WA — Gov. Jay Inslee has announced some new tweaks to the Healthy Washington plan, including one that will make it harder for counties to fall back into the earlier phases.

On Monday, the Washington State Department of Health will be re-evaluating all 39 counties to see if some counties need to be rolled back into Phase 2 of the Healthy Washington plan.

For counties with populations over 50,000 to remain in Phase 3, they must have either:

• Fewer than 200 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population per 14 days.
• Fewer than 5 COVID-19 hospitalizations per 100,000 population per 7 days.

Previously, any county that failed either metric would have been forced back into Phase 2. Now, under Inslee's new guidance, counties must fail both metrics in order to be rolled back into the earlier phase.

“Given the incredible progress on vaccinations and our focus protecting people from severe illness, we believe analyzing and requiring both metrics together is the right approach to make sure we’re considering the connection between COVID cases and our medical system and hospitalizations,” Inslee said.

The news comes just days before the state's first review, and may prevent some counties from having to re-enter lockdown, but it doesn't mean that all counties are in the clear. For example: Pierce County is still likely failing both metrics, with a case rate of 241.1 according to the state's COVID-19 Risk Assessment Dashboard and a hospitalization rate of 5.1, according to the latest available data from the county's health department.

The DOH has taken care not to publicly speculate on which counties may be pushed backwards, only saying that the possibility of rollbacks is on the table.

"When we look at our data, there are a handful of counties that are at the threshold or above the threshold for case rates and hospitalizations and there is a decent likelihood that a handful will potentially be moved back on Monday," said Lacy Fehrenbach, the department's deputy secretary for COVID-19 response.

After Monday's evaluation, any counties that fail both metrics will re-enter Phase 2 on Friday, April 16.

All of Washington entered Phase 3 on March 22, allowing for greater indoor capacity at retailers and restaurants, the return of sporting events and concerts and more. Any county that is pushed back into the second phase will lose those benefits. A full list of the differences between the three Healthy Washington Phases can be seen below:

Inslee's guidance update Friday also included a slight tweak to sporting and spectator events, allowing some events continue in Phase 2 as they would have in Phase 3. A full explanation of those changes can be found on the governor's website.