Gov. Jay Inslee said on Monday that he is moving up the date in which the state will no longer require people to wear masks in public indoor spaces and schools to March 12.
Inslee last month set the date to drop the indoor mask mandate to March 21. But on Monday, Inslee said that he is confident that a continuing trend of declining COVID-19 case rates and hospitalizations will make it safe to lift mask mandates about a week before that.
While the hospitalization rate is still high relative to other infection peaks throughout the pandemic, Inslee said hospitalizations “are coming down quite dramatically.” Since a decline in hospitalizations and deaths tend to follow a decrease in the number of infections, the governor said he feels confident that a downward trend in the metrics will continue.
The U.S. Centers for Disease and Prevention on Friday issued new guidance that found more than 70% of the U.S. population in counties where the coronavirus is posing a low or medium threat to hospitals could safely remove their masks.
In Washington state, the CDC classified Kitsap County as “low” when it comes to the threat of the coronavirus to hospital staffing levels and the number of infections. Kitsap’s neighbors, however, including Pierce and Jefferson counties, are classified as “high.” King County is listed as “low.”
Inslee said he felt like waiting until March 12 to lift the mandate would give time for all counties in the state to come out of the “high” risk category.
“We are still bouncing back from the omicron surge,” Inslee said. “We don’t believe it would be right to do it any earlier.”
After March 11, masks will still be required in healthcare, corrections and long-term care settings. Inslee said he will be keeping the emergency order in effect so that he can continue to mandate masks for those higher-risk settings.
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By sunsetting the emergency order, Inslee said he would no longer be able to mandate masks for certain settings. Also, legislation passed last session by the Legislature enables workers to continue to wear masks in workplace settings if they desire without employers telling them they can’t as long as an emergency order is in effect, Inslee said.
Umair Shah, Washington State Secretary of Health, reminded people that the pandemic is not over.
“This is not a time to throw caution to the wind,” he said, adding that those who have medical conditions or who live with people who are immunocompromised should continue to wear masks. He also said people should keep masks available.
“There may be a time when you do need it,” Shah said.
Shah said that local health jurisdictions have the right to set local mask policies.
Shah added that the Department of Health continues to watch for other variants: “We will do everything we can to protect Washingtonians.”
The Democratic governors of Washington, Oregon and California announced the dropping of the mask mandates for schools on March 12 jointly on Monday.
But as California announced it was ending its mask mandate for indoor public businesses on Tuesday, Washington stuck with the March 12 date for dropping all mask mandates. Inslee said he believed waiting until that date despite what California is doing “is the safe thing to do, so we’ve made that decision.”
While businesses can enact their own requirements for masking, on Navy property in Kitsap, no end has been announced to masking requirements on local bases or for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
Naval Base Kitsap posted to its Facebook page on Monday that “DOD mask guidance remains under review, but policy still requires all service members, federal employees, onsite contractor employees, and visitors, regardless of vaccination status, to wear a mask indoors in installations and other facilities owned, leased or otherwise controlled by DOD.”
The Navy added that its “main concern is mission readiness and the health of our service members, civilians and families. NBK plans to relax mask requirements as soon as policy allows us to do so.”
Elsewhere, the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe is dropping its mask mandate on Tuesday. According to a post on Facebook, the tribe said: “As of March 1, 2022, masks will become optional for all PGST staff and guests.”
Kimberly Rubenstein is the local news editor of the Kitsap Sun. She can be reached at kimberly.rubenstein@kitsapsun.com or 360-792-5263. Support coverage of local news by signing up today for a digital subscription.