Almost there: Grant County on the cusp of meeting new Phase 2 criteria

GRANT COUNTY — Though Grant County was absent from the list released Tuesday of Washington counties allowed to apply to reopen their economies sooner, it could qualify by the end of the week if no new cases are reported.

No new cases were reported Tuesday.

At a Tuesday press conference, Gov. Jay Inslee announced that the new criteria will allow counties that have had fewer than 10 new confirmed COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people over the prior 14 days to apply to start Phase 2 of his reopening plan. Phase 2 allows for the limited opening of restaurants, salons, barbershops and retail outlets.

Previously, in order to apply for a variance, a county had to have a low population — 75,000 people or fewer — and have no new COVID-19 cases for three weeks.

Grant County had a population of almost 99,000 in 2019, according to estimates by the state Office of Financial Management, which are used to calculate whether a county qualifies. That means, to qualify for a variance, it needs to have fewer than 10 cases in a two-week period.

Grant County was very close to that measurement over the past two weeks, Between May 5 to May 19, cases increased from 182 to 192, an increase of 10 over a two-week period.

Given that on Thursday, May 7, two new cases were reported, then if no more than one new case is reported in Grant County until Friday, May 22, the county’s new cases will fall below 10 per 100,000, and the county will qualify to apply for Phase 2 of reopening its economy.

A bigger spike of cases before Friday could set that date back, however, and the results of this week will be a matter of luck.

No amount of effort can change the number of cases to be reported this week — with tests taking a number of days before returning with results, and with the illness possibly taking days to cause symptoms, the positive tests of the coming week will reflect people already infected today.

Further, even when Grant County qualifies to apply for a variance, it could still move backwards if a new outbreak were to occur soon after, said Jessica Baggett, a spokesperson for the state Department of Health. Counties would have to report new outbreaks to the Department of Health within six hours, Baggett added.

“If it’s one case, that might not cause us to revoke the variance, but if it’s a widespread outbreak, that’s a conversation that would happen between the secretary of health and the local health department,” Baggett said.