COVID-19 Update: Governor Jay Inslee prohibits large public gatherings (250+)

It’s time for anoth­er install­ment of of our spe­cial series COVID-19 Update, bring­ing you the lat­est devel­op­ments on the nov­el coro­n­avirus out­break that pub­lic health author­i­ties in the Pacif­ic North­west are work­ing dili­gent­ly to mit­i­gate. Unlike some of the non­sense that is unfor­tu­nate­ly cir­cu­lat­ing on social media, all the infor­ma­tion you’ll find here is accu­rate and based on sound science.

Today marked the begin­ning of a new phase in the Pacif­ic North­west­’s efforts to com­bat the virus. Life around here has already been dis­rupt­ed to a sig­nif­i­cant extent by COVID-19. Now it’s set to be dis­rupt­ed even more.

With­in hours of the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion’s announce­ment that the coro­n­avirus out­break is now con­sid­ered a glob­al pan­dem­ic, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee held a news con­fer­ence with the coun­ty exec­u­tives of the state’s three largest coun­ties and the may­ors of their largest con­stituent cities to announce a pro­hi­bi­tion on pub­lic gath­er­ings of two hun­dred and fifty or more people.

“Start­ing today [and last­ing until at least March 31st], events that take place in King, Sno­homish, and Pierce coun­ties with more than 250 peo­ple are pro­hib­it­ed by the state,” Inslee’s announce­ment explains. “This order applies to gath­er­ings for social, spir­i­tu­al and recre­ation­al activ­i­ties. These include but are not lim­it­ed to: com­mu­ni­ty, civic, pub­lic, leisure, faith-based, or sport­ing events; parades; con­certs; fes­ti­vals; con­ven­tions; fundrais­ers and sim­i­lar activities.”

“This is an unprece­dent­ed pub­lic health sit­u­a­tion and we can’t wait until we’re in the mid­dle of it to slow it down,” the Gov­er­nor said. “We’ve got to get ahead of the curve. One main defense is to reduce the inter­ac­tion of peo­ple in our lives.”

“We rec­og­nize this new lim­i­ta­tion will impact thou­sands of peo­ple, their plans, and their invest­ments in these events,” Inslee added. “How­ev­er, this is one of the most pru­dent choic­es we can make to keep peo­ple safe in this rapid­ly evolv­ing health cri­sis. We want to do all we can to pro­tect Washingtonians.”

The region’s pro sports teams pledged to com­ply with the order.

“As the devel­op­ments sur­round­ing COVID-19 in our region evolve, Seat­tle Sounders FC has been work­ing in real time with region­al health author­i­ties and gov­ern­ment offi­cials to do our part in com­bat­ing this pub­lic health cri­sis. Our orga­ni­za­tion must remain flex­i­ble in these efforts, and at this time, that includes heed­ing Gov­er­nor Inslee’s call to post­pone our home match on March 21st ver­sus FC Dal­las at Cen­tu­ryLink Field,” the Sounders announced.

“The WHL ful­ly under­stands and respects the posi­tion tak­en by Wash­ing­ton State Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee today and will com­ply with the pub­lic gath­er­ing require­ments for the upcom­ing WHL home games of the Seat­tle Thun­der­birds and Everett Sil­ver­tips,” com­ment­ed WHL Com­mis­sion­er Ron Robi­son. “We take the safe­ty of our play­ers, offi­cials, staff, fans, and every­one asso­ci­at­ed with the WHL very seri­ous­ly, and will take every step nec­es­sary to assist in con­tain­ing this virus.”

“Fol­low­ing Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s announce­ment this morn­ing that he is ban­ning large group events through March, the Seat­tle Mariners are work­ing with the Major League Base­ball Office of the Com­mis­sion­er on alter­na­tive plans for our games that were sched­uled for the end of March [includ­ing Open­ing Day] at T‑Mobile Park in Seat­tle,” the club said in a state­ment. “While we hope to be back to play­ing base­ball in Seat­tle as soon as pos­si­ble, the health and safe­ty of our com­mu­ni­ty is the most impor­tant consideration.”

The Taco­ma Dome is can­cel­ing all events through March 31st.

The venue offered the fol­low­ing response:

“We will adhere to this man­dat­ed order and fol­low the expert guid­ance of pub­lic health author­i­ties. We are review­ing each sched­uled event due to hap­pen dur­ing the month of March and will pro­vide an update on new dates for these events as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. Tick­ets will be hon­ored for the new dates. Pur­chasers unable to attend resched­uled dates should con­tact their point of purchase.”

Many church­es are mak­ing plans to livestream their litur­gies if they are not doing so already. Meet­ings, con­fer­ences, and oth­er assem­blies are being can­celed en masse by their orga­niz­ers, or resched­uled to lat­er dates.

Pri­or to the Gov­er­nor’s announce­ment, we at NPI imple­ment­ed our con­tin­gency plan for our 2020 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala on April 17th. The gala is now an online-only event. Tick­ets remain avail­able on our gala page.

In-per­son gala tra­di­tions will con­tin­ue at a new sea­son­al event that NPI will hold in the fall, assum­ing that the cur­rent pub­lic health cri­sis has abat­ed by then.

While the gov­er­nor’s pro­hi­bi­tion on pub­lic gath­er­ings only lasts through the end of March, we can see it being extend­ed through April as well. The cur­rent sit­u­a­tion is unfor­tu­nate­ly more like­ly to get worse before it gets bet­ter. Even if we imple­ment social dis­tanc­ing mea­sures here in our region, the coro­n­avirus could con­tin­ue to spread else­where unless oth­er states and regions adopt sim­i­lar measures.

That’s why it is so impor­tant that oth­er juris­dic­tions fol­low our lead. If you’re else­where in the coun­try, pay atten­tion to what we’re doing. These mea­sures could be adopt­ed by your state, your coun­ty, your city, your town very soon.