Governor Inslee reimposes statewide mask mandate, adds vaccine mandate for educators

With cas­es of COVID-19 con­tin­u­ing to mount in Wash­ing­ton State and the Pacif­ic North­west, large­ly dri­ven by the refusal of a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of the pop­u­la­tion to get vac­ci­nat­ed, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee today took action to pro­tect lives and liveli­hoods, requir­ing that all Wash­ing­to­ni­ans wear masks in shared indoor spaces by issu­ing a new emer­gency proclamation.

“We have seen over the last year how wide­spread mask­ing also saves lives by reduc­ing infec­tion,” Inslee said. “I know this will frus­trate some vac­ci­nat­ed folks who thought they wouldn’t have to do this any­more. There are not enough peo­ple vac­ci­nat­ed. The result is the explo­sive growth of a much more infec­tious strain, the Delta vari­ant, and its increas­ing­ly con­cerns impacts on peo­ple of all ages.”

In addi­tion to requir­ing masks in shared indoor spaces, the Depart­ment of Health is also rec­om­mend­ing that masks be worn in crowd­ed out­door spaces.

NPI is fol­low­ing this guid­ance for its upcom­ing Eigh­teenth Anniver­sary Pic­nic this Sun­day (an out­doors event) and had actu­al­ly been plan­ning on requir­ing mask­ing before the new guid­ance was devel­oped. In our view, relax­ing the mask­ing guid­ance (which start­ed at the fed­er­al lev­el with an extreme­ly mis­guid­ed CDC deci­sion) was a seri­ous mis­take. We knew COVID-19’s delta vari­ant was com­ing down the pike months ago, and we could have been bet­ter pre­pared for it.

Gov­er­nor Inslee also announced today, with Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion Chris Reyk­dal by his side, that all edu­ca­tors need to be vac­ci­nat­ed. This includes not only pub­lic school­teach­ers, but teach­ers in pri­vate schools as well, plus vol­un­teers, coach­es, sup­port staff, bus dri­vers, and admin­is­tra­tive staff.

“K‑12 edu­ca­tors, school staff, coach­es, bus dri­vers, school vol­un­teers and oth­ers work­ing in school facil­i­ties will have until Octo­ber 18th to be ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed as a con­di­tion of employ­ment,” Inslee’s office announced. “The require­ment includes pub­lic, pri­vate and char­ter schools, and comes as schools across the state pre­pare to return for the 2021–2022 school year amid rapid­ly increas­ing case and hos­pi­tal­iza­tion num­bers. This does not impact stu­dents, regard­less of age.”

“As our school build­ings reopen this fall for in-per­son learn­ing, vac­ci­na­tion of our school employ­ees will be a key mit­i­ga­tion mea­sure to pro­tect the health and safe­ty of our stu­dents, staff, and fam­i­lies,” explained Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion Chris Reyk­dal, the state’s chief edu­ca­tion admin­is­tra­tor, who was reelect­ed last autumn along with Inslee. “Our abil­i­ty to main­tain con­tin­ued in-per­son learn­ing with­out major COVID-relat­ed dis­rup­tions will depend on low virus trans­mis­sion with­in our schools. I appre­ci­ate the governor’s lead­er­ship in tak­ing this impor­tant step in the fight against the spread of this virus.”

Gov­er­nor Inslee’s press con­fer­ence can be watched in its entire­ty right here.

Vac­ci­na­tion is one of three main defens­es that are known to work against COVID-19, with the oth­ers being phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing and mask­ing, and is the most effec­tive of the three. How­ev­er, as men­tioned, many Wash­ing­to­ni­ans have still not received one of the safe and effec­tive COVID-19 vac­cines, despite months of wide­spread avail­abil­i­ty, coax­ing on the part of elect­ed lead­ers and pub­lic health offi­cials, var­i­ous incen­tive gim­micks, and grim head­lines about the delta variant.

So states like Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon are tak­ing the next step and mov­ing to man­dates. If peo­ple who have cho­sen the noble field of edu­ca­tion decline to choose to pro­tect them­selves and oth­ers pri­or to com­ing into work, then they’ll either have to choose anoth­er career or get vaccinated.

Inslee’s order encom­pass­es col­lege and uni­ver­si­ty fac­ul­ty and employ­ees, which means that Wash­ing­ton State Uni­ver­si­ty coach Nick Rolovich may soon be required to get vac­ci­nat­ed or else face ter­mi­na­tion. Inslee’s order pro­vides excep­tions only for med­ical or reli­gious rea­sons; there is no “per­son­al exemp­tion” avail­able to be abused by peo­ple who sim­ply don’t want to get vaccinated.

The unvac­ci­nat­ed pop­u­la­tion are the virus’ best friends and will increas­ing­ly find them­selves unwel­come in a grow­ing list of places if they con­tin­ue to stub­born­ly refuse the out­stand­ing pro­tec­tion from COVID-19 that the vac­cines offer.

Proof of vac­ci­na­tion is like­ly to be a con­di­tion of entry at Seat­tle Krak­en games, accord­ing to report­ing by The Seat­tle Times’ Geoff Bak­er. The Eagles are also mak­ing vac­ci­na­tion a require­ment for their upcom­ing Seat­tle con­cert, and cruise lines have been requir­ing pas­sen­gers to be vac­ci­nat­ed in order to trav­el onboard to des­ti­na­tions like Alas­ka, the Bahamas, or Belize. Cana­di­an author­i­ties are also requir­ing Amer­i­cans who wish to trav­el to Cana­da to present proof of vaccination.