COVID-19 Update: Pacific Northwest mounts valiant effort to avoid wintertime virus spike

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 here and across the coun­try are work­ing to mitigate.

Wash­ing­ton

Ear­li­er this month, on Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 8th, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee announced his Healthy Wash­ing­ton — Road to Recov­ery program.

As in pre­vi­ous iter­a­tions of deal­ing with the pan­dem­ic, the approach is region­al, with four met­rics and two phas­es used to deter­mine each region’s status.

To move for­ward from Phase 1 to Phase 2, a giv­en region must achieve and main­tain all of the following:

• A decreas­ing trend in the four­­teen-day rate of new COVID-19 cas­es per 100K population
• A decreas­ing trend in the four­­teen-day rate of new COVID-19 hos­pi­tal admis­sions per 100K population
• An aver­age sev­en-day per­cent occu­pan­cy of ICU staffed beds less than 90
• A sev­en-day per­cent pos­i­tiv­i­ty of COVID-19 tests less than 10%

In order to remain in Phase 2, a region must con­tin­ue meet­ing at least three of four metrics:

• A decreas­ing or flat trend in four­­teen-day rate of new COVID-19 cas­es per 100K population
• A decreas­ing or flat trend in four­­teen-day rate of new COVID-19 hos­pi­tal admis­sions per 100K population
• An aver­age sev­en-day per­cent occu­pan­cy of ICU staffed beds less than 90%
• A sev­en-day per­cent pos­i­tiv­i­ty of COVID-19 tests less than 10%

On Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 18th, Gov­er­nor Inslee announced an update to the vac­cine dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­gram with a goal of 45,000 vac­ci­na­tions per day.

This effort will be led by the Wash­ing­ton State Vac­cine Com­mand and Coor­di­na­tion Cen­ter, a new statewide pub­­lic-pri­­vate part­ner­ship to boost vac­cine dis­tri­b­u­tion efforts.  Two new changes include vac­ci­na­tions for Phase 1b, from those 70 and old­er to those 65 and old­er, and a require­ment that both 95% of all vac­cine allo­ca­tions be admin­is­tered with­in a week of receipt and that updates regard­ing usage and remain­ing avail­abil­i­ty of dosages must be sub­mit­ted to the state Depart­ment of Health with­in twen­­ty-four hours of administration.

While infra­struc­ture is being assem­bled or made avail­able through­out the state to pro­vide vac­ci­na­tions, there is stress regard­ing the avail­abil­i­ty of vac­ci­na­tion dosages, as shown with­in Yaki­ma Coun­ty and in a dis­cus­sion with Gov­er­nor Inslee regard­ing efforts in Spokane.

On Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 23rd, the B117 vari­ant of COVID-19, also known as the “U.K. vari­ant,” was announced to have been found in two cas­es in Sno­homish Coun­ty, with a third announced as hav­ing been dis­cov­ered on Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 24th in Pierce County.

More cas­es are expect­ed to already exist with­in the state.

The “UK vari­ant” appears to be eas­i­er to trans­mit with a faster infec­tion rate, but their is no sub­stan­tive proof yet that it is more deadly.

Oregon

On Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 11th, a mem­ber of staff at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Port­land was found to be infect­ed with the “UK vari­ant” of COVID-19.

A sec­ond case was dis­cov­ered with­in Yamhill Coun­ty and announced to the pub­lic on Jan­u­ary 23rd.  The patient in the sec­ond case had no recent his­to­ry of trav­el out­side their imme­di­ate area.

Antic­i­pat­ing a new sup­ply of vac­cine around Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 23rd, the state of Ore­gon had planned to give equal pri­or­i­ty to vac­ci­na­tion for both day­care and school employ­ees, and senior cit­i­zens over 65 years of age.

How­ev­er, upon dis­cov­ery that the new sup­ply effec­tive­ly did not exist to give to the state, Gov­er­nor Kate Brown, on Jan­u­ary 22nd, announced new plans to open eli­gi­bil­i­ty for vac­ci­na­tions to all edu­ca­tors Jan­u­ary 25th and to Senior cit­i­zens over 80 years of age on Feb­ru­ary 8th.

Gov­er­nor Brown believes that, with a very lim­it­ed sup­ply, vac­ci­nat­ing edu­ca­tors first would allow both schools and por­tions of the econ­o­my to open — that to vac­ci­nate seniors first would lead to not enough seniors being vac­ci­nat­ed, schools unopened because not enough teach­ers are vac­ci­nat­ed, and the econ­o­my, at best, mut­ed. As almost all oth­er states have decid­ed to vac­ci­nate seniors between very ear­ly and first in the process, this has led to some con­tro­ver­sy and a tense sit­u­a­tion at Gov­er­nor Brown’s press con­fer­ence on Jan­u­ary 22nd.

Idaho

On Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 12th, a vac­ci­na­tion process cre­at­ed by the state of Ida­ho in mid-Decem­ber was clar­i­fied, and clar­i­fied again on Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 22nd.

As of Jan­u­ary 12th, over thir­ty thou­sand health­care work­ers and long-term care staff had been vaccinated.

On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 22nd, Gov­er­nor Brad Lit­tle denounced the Ida­ho state Leg­is­la­ture, which vot­ed for and passed on to the state Sen­ate a res­o­lu­tion to end the emer­gency order in effect regard­ing Covid-19.

But this should­n’t be a sur­prise for Gov­er­nor Little.

Mem­bers of the Ida­ho state leg­is­la­ture, since the start of their 2021 leg­isla­tive ses­sion start­ing Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 11th, have been con­sid­er­ing putting for­ward pro­pos­als to remove local health dis­tricts’ abil­i­ty to cre­ate restric­tions due to a pub­lic health emer­gency and hand the author­i­ty over to coun­ty commissioners.

On Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 14th, mask man­dates were rolled back in mul­ti­ple east­ern Ida­ho coun­ties. On Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 19th, for­mer Repub­li­can mem­ber of Con­gress Raul Labrador was vot­ed onto the Cen­tral Dis­trict Health Board by Ada Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­ers instead of an alter­nate can­di­date, an epi­demi­ol­o­gist and infec­tious dis­ease expert. This was done in spite of Labrador hav­ing recent­ly reg­is­tered to lob­by for three local health care groups with­in the state.

Final­ly, end­ing the emer­gency order has been known for months to be a desire of a group of Repub­li­can leg­is­la­tors that on Octo­ber 1st, 2020, along­side Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Jan­ice McGeachin, ques­tioned the exis­tence of COVID-19 and declared that they would fol­low no state or local emer­gency orders regard­ing the pandemic.

British Colum­bia

On Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 7th, a peti­tion was filed with­in the Supreme Court of British Colum­bia seek­ing judi­cial review to over­turn exist­ing orders restrict­ing church ser­vices with­in the province dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, cit­ing a vio­la­tion of Canada’s Char­ter of Rights and Free­doms. The gen­er­al con­sen­sus of the pas­tors involved in the law­suit is that there isn’t jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to declare the pan­dem­ic a health emergency.

A four-phase immu­niza­tion pro­gram for the province is cur­rent­ly in effect. Den­tists and teach­ers are unhap­py that they are not pri­or­i­tized for vaccinations.

The British Colum­bia Teach­ers Fed­er­a­tion is call­ing for the sus­pen­sion of the Foun­da­tion Skills Assess­ment this year, admin­is­tered to chil­dren in Grades Four through Sev­en, say­ing it adds a lay­er of stress to kids adjust­ing to COVID-19.

On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 22nd, two Van­cou­ver res­i­dents were charged with vio­la­tion of the Yukon Civ­il Emer­gency Mea­sures Act for char­ter­ing a plane to the Yukon, pos­ing as local employ­ees, to receive vac­ci­na­tions ahead of sched­ule. The charges come with a max­i­mum fine of $500 and up to six months in jail.

On the same day, the provin­cial gov­ern­ment declared a total of six infec­tions from the “UK vari­ant” and three infec­tions from a South African vari­ant of COVID-19.

The hard, cold numbers (plus vaccinations)

Wash­ing­ton has had 303,491 cas­es and 4,196 attrib­ut­able deaths.

48th worst infec­tion rate among the 50 states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion population.

45th worst death rate among the 50 states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion population.

4,373,646 tests have been recorded.

• Dos­es of vac­cine dis­trib­uted to the state: 820,875
• Dos­es admin­is­tered: 373,423 (45.49%)

Ore­gon has had 138,168 cas­es and 1,880 attrib­ut­able deaths.

49th worst infec­tion rate among the 50 states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion population.

48th worst death rate among the 50 states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion population.

3,043,792 tests have been recorded.

• Dos­es of vac­cine dis­trib­uted to the state: 479,325
• Dos­es admin­is­tered: 216,928 (45.26%)

Ida­ho has had 159,506 cas­es and 1,669 attrib­ut­able deaths.

961,106 tests have been recorded.

15th worst infec­tion rate among the 50 states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion population.

38th worst death rate among the 50 states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico per mil­lion population.

• Dos­es of vac­cine dis­trib­uted to the state: 178,175
• Dos­es admin­is­tered: 73,372 (41.18%)

British Colum­bia has had 63,484 cas­es and 1,128 attrib­ut­able deaths.

1,636,665 tests have been recorded.

British Colum­bia has the fifth worst infec­tion rate among the thir­teen Cana­di­an provinces and ter­ri­to­ries per hun­dred thou­sand pop­u­la­tion. (If it were an Amer­i­can state, it would be fifty-sec­ond out of fifty-three.)

• Dos­es of vac­cine dis­trib­uted to the province: 144,550
• Dos­es admin­is­tered: 110,566 (76.49%)