Walla Walla Valley leaders sent letters to Gov. Jay Inslee, requesting a return to a county-by-county system of phasing in normal operations rather than the regional Roadmap to Recovery plan he put into effect Jan. 5 to stem an increasing spread of COVID-19.
The new two-phase plan lumps all state counties into eight regions, each of which must meet certain weekly health metrics before they can advance toward the full reopening of businesses and gatherings.
In initiating the plan, all counties and their regions were placed in Phase 1, which has the most limiting restrictions, as it had under the previous plan that Walla Walla County, for example, had progressed out of.
The two counties are now looped into the South Central Region created in the new plan with Benton, Franklin, Kittitas, and Yakima counties. All must depend on each other to move into Phase 2. Previously, each county was responsible for taking its own measures to allow its economy to reopen.
Local leaders argue the new system places the county into a region with counties that have larger populations, are geographically far away and have disparate economies — all of which can diminish local efforts to advance to Phase 2.
According to Inslee’s plan, the regions are delineated based on the available health care services and hospital capacities in the area that are connected to the metrics used for COVID-19 hospitalizations, case data and mobility of people.
The regional system also addressed complaints about the previous county-based system, which did not prevent people from crossing county lines to access services restricted in their home county, according to Inslee spokesman Mike Faulk.
Local leaders, however, say they are frustrated they were not consulted before the plan was released.
“There was no input sought by the chambers, the cities, the counties, anyone, I mean it just came out,” College Place City Administrator Mike Rizzitiello said.
Faulk, however, said that “the governor’s office has spent every day of the last year working 24/7 with stakeholders to get their input. We will continue to work with stakeholders as the plan moves forward.”
College Place sent a letter to Inslee on Thursday seeking a return to the county-by-county approach.
“There’s just a general fear that now that we’re linked by that region, that that could hold us up for a long time,” Rizzitiello said.
He said different counties have different ideologies of approaching the pandemic.
“The problem is that since you’ve gone from that one plan to now this other one, I mean you have the various counties doing their own thing, and now you’re aggregating people together,” he said.
“It allows us to better control our own destiny when it was county-by-county.”
Walla Walla County commissioners Greg Tompkins, Todd Kimball and Jenny Mayberry also wrote a similar letter to Inslee. They and College Place also requested reopening not be based on incomplete health data from the state.
“The State Department of Health Data Dashboard prominently states that ‘Total case counts may include up to 360 duplicates; positive test results from Jan. 5, 2021 are incomplete, as are negative test results data from Nov. 21, 2020 through today. Therefore, percent positivity (testing tab) and case counts should be interpreted with caution,’” both letters stated.
Walla Walla County commissioners also questioned the legality of establishing the regional system, quoting a law in their letter stating regions are “to be made on the basis of efficiency of delivery of needed emergency medical services and trauma care.”
They said the law was not intended to lump counties into regions for public health purposes, which are governed by a separate statute.
“Creating ‘Regions’ for public health metrics based only on regions set by the Department of Health for Emergency Medical Services is inappropriate.”
Ginny Streeter, spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Health, said the concern isn’t just the number of COVID-19 cases in a region; it’s also the hospital capacity.
The regional system was formed to measure capacity to ensure that if one hospital was high, patients could be sent to another in the region, she said.
“It’s set up so hospitals can share the burden,” said Streeter. “Nobody’s going to get sent home because there’s not a bed at (Providence) St. Mary’s; they could be sent someplace else.”
Faulk said that while COVID-19 activity is very high across the state, efforts to stop the spread require statewide thinking and efforts.
“We’ve got to consider everyone’s feedback and then make the best decisions we can that protect the state at large,” he said. “Of all the serious options for an appropriate reopening plan — and that’s what we’re talking about, not politics but what’s appropriate in a pandemic — the same restrictions would still be in place while COVID activity remains high.”
By Chloe LeValley of the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin.
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