Lewis, Thurston, Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties Moving to Phase 2 of Inslee’s Reopening Plan

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Lewis, Thurston, Grays Harbor and Pacific counties are among the first wave of reopening efforts realized under Gov. Jay Inslee’s newest COVID-19 plan, as the governor announced their region is eligible to move to the next phase on Monday.

During a press conference Jan. 28, Inslee announced that two of the state’s eight regions defined in the “Healthy Washington” plan the governor announced earlier this month would be moving into the next phase of reopening. The regions — Puget Sound and Western — will be able to lift some restrictions come Feb. 1.

Regions in Phase 2 can allow restaurants to have 25-percent capacity indoor dining, and fitness centers can operate inside at the same capacity amount, the governor said. Sports competitions can resume with limited spectators, though school-based competitions follow a different set of rules, and wedding and funeral services can increase their capacity above Phase-1 restrictions.

Inslee noted that the regions moving forward represented about half of the state’s population. He explained that now, regions only need to meet three out of four criteria, which includes recent case rates, hospitalizations, intensive care unit capacity, and test positivity percentage.

Inslee added that regions relapsing into past phases remained unchanged, which would involve a region missing two of the aforementioned four criteria.

Inslee added that the timeframe for evaluating the criteria would be shifted to a two-week evaluation, as opposed to the previously weekly one, which the governor said would provide greater stability for the plan.

This story will be updated.

Here's the full press release: 

Roadmap to Recovery update; Two regions to move into Phase 2

OLYMPIA – Today, the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) announced that based on Governor Jay Inslee’s updated Roadmap to Recovery phased reopening plan, the following regions will move into Phase 2:

Puget Sound

West

The following regions will remain in in Phase 1:

East



South Central

North Central

Northwest

Southwest

North

Phase changes will go into effect on Monday, February 1, 2021 and remain in effect until Monday, February 15, 2021.

As Governor Inslee just announced, regions now need to meet any three of the four metrics outlined in the Roadmap to Recovery plan in order to move into Phase 2. The four metrics have not changed and include:

Trend in 14-day rate of new COVID-19 cases per 100k population

Trend in 14-day rate of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100k population

Average 7-day percent occupancy of ICU staffed beds

7-day percent positive of COVID-19 tests

In addition, DOH will calculate regions’ metric to determine phase status every two weeks from now on.

DOH is releasing region status today to coincide with the Governor’s announcements. Going forward, DOH will reassess the metrics for all eight (8) regions every two weeks and announce any phase adjustments on Fridays. The next announcement will be Friday, February 12, 2021.