Washington state reported its lowest daily total of COVID-19 cases in more than a month on Wednesday.
However, Gov. Jay Inslee says the numbers don’t yet indicate that it’s time to start relaxing the social distancing requirements and “stay home” order believed to have helped minimize the spread of the disease.
Speaking at a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Inslee showed projections from the Institute for Disease Modeling and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, two Seattle-area research organizations, both of which say that cases and fatalities could rebound if social distancing and other precautions are removed or relaxed now.
“We’ve been making decisions based on science and data in our state and it has served us very well. We are a very technologically-oriented state,” Inslee said during a news conference. “I think that’s one of the reasons we’ve had considerable success bending the curve down now.”
The charts were pretty fuzzy on that live stream, so we contacted the governor’s office and got the originals.
One projection, from the Institute for Disease Modeling, shows cases rising back up to more than 300 per day in the state by mid-May, from less than 100 in the latest daily count, if officials were to relax the “stay home, stay healthy” order starting now, in mid-April.
Projections from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation show how deaths would rise, as well.
“Each one of these is a tragedy in a family,” Inslee said. “It’s unacceptable to us.”
Cases have been generally on the decline in the state. The Department of Health reported 89 new positive COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the cumulative total to 10,783 cases. That’s down from hundreds of daily cases in recent weeks. The state reported a cumulative total of 567 deaths, an increase of 26 deaths from the day before.
Seattle and King County are responsible for 43% of the state’s cases and 55% of deaths.
Asked if the state will lift the social distancing order on May 4, the tentative end date, Inslee said it is “unknowable.” He added, “If you look at the modeling, it would suggest probably not, given the rate of the curve at the moment.”
Inslee said the biggest hurdle is testing kit supplies. "This is a huge frustration for all of us." The state is running ~4,500 tests per day, even though it has analysis capacity for ~13K. Inslee said the state will need more testing after the "transition" than before.
— GeekWire (@geekwire) April 15, 2020
Whenever it happens, Inslee says, there will be a gradual “transition” back to normal life — but said it won’t start until more social distancing drives down COVID-19 case numbers, and a “fire brigade” approach is ready to rapidly test and treat those affected, along with contact tracing in place.
WATCH: Update on State Response to COVID-19 https://t.co/6f5LUjSo65
— Governor Jay Inslee (@GovInslee) April 15, 2020
After emerging as the initial U.S. epicenter for COVID-19, Washington state has slipped out of the top 10 among US states for total cases of the disease.
Earlier this week, after President Trump said he had “total authority” to determine when different parts of the country will emerge from stay-at-home and social distancing orders, the governors of Washington, Oregon, and California banded together and said they will only re-open their economies once COVID-19’s rate of spread is on the decline.
