For all the things Gov. Jay Inslee and Washington got right in the state’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, it took leaders in Olympia until June 2020 to put mask requirements into place. This summer, just over a month into the state’s reopening, mask mandates are back as the spread of the virus has again accelerated.
Gov. Inslee announced the return of required masking for everyone Wednesday along with new vaccination requirements for teachers across the state as the new school year is about to begin.
Health officials across King, Pierce, Snohomish, Kitsap, Clallam, Jefferson, San Juan, and Grays Harbor counties had already issued new recommendations calling for everyone to continue to wear facial coverings “when in indoor public settings where vaccination status is unknown.”
Beginning August 23rd, indoor spaces including businesses and public facilities must again require masks regardless of vaccination status. Exemptions to the requirement include some office spaces, and workers who do not have face to face contact with customers. Small indoor gatherings at homes and in private where everyone is vaccinated are also exempt.
Previously, masks remained required for only people who were not fully vaccinated.
The return of mask requirements for all follows similar announcements recently in other states including Oregon last week after the CDC reversed course and issued new guidance on face coverings.
Washington, meanwhile, is also putting into place what is said to be the strictest school mandate in the United States as it requires all public, private and charter school teachers and employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Inslee’s order expands the requirement announced last week for state employees including the Washington State Patrol to be vaccinated by mid-October to include elementary, junior, and high school educators, staff, coaches, bus drivers, and even volunteers. Staff at colleges and universities are also included, as well as most childcare and early learning providers “who serve children from multiple households.”
King County and the City of Seattle are also echoing the requirements with their thousands of employees.
Washington’s policy is considered particularly strict. Unlike some other states, employees cannot choose regular testing instead of vaccination.
The mandates come as Washington including populous King County returns to levels of “substantial transmission” of the virus and more virulent variants driven mostly by spread among the unvaccinated.
In Seattle and King County, recent totals have shown around 80% of cases and 90% of COVID-related hospitalizations have been among those who are not fully vaccinated. Among COVID-related deaths in King County in July, 91% of the victims were not fully vaccinated.
“We have seen over the last year how widespread masking also saves lives by reducing infection,” Inslee said in Wednesday’s announcement. “I know this will frustrate some vaccinated folks who thought they wouldn’t have to do this anymore. There are not enough people vaccinated. The result is the explosive growth of a much more infectious strain, the Delta variant, and its increasingly concerns impacts on people of all ages.”
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Gee thanks unvaccinated people….,
Get fucking vaccinated people. Don’t make everyone around you pay for your selfishness. If you are coming into work and being out and about without being vaccinated, YOU are the reason we can’t get out of this limbo!
For the pregnant woman/people trying to get pregnant out there who aren’t getting the vaccine, I’ll leave a quote here from the Director of the CDC.
“CDC encourages all pregnant people or people who are thinking about becoming pregnant and those breastfeeding to get vaccinated to protect themselves from COVID-19. The vaccines are safe and effective, and it has never been more urgent to increase vaccinations as we face the highly transmissible Delta variant and see severe outcomes from COVID-19 among unvaccinated pregnant people.”
As they are finding in Israel, even if you are vaccinated you can catch the newer variant. So back to masks. The state could mandate, or even supply high quality N95 or better unvented masks which would actually protect the wearer, or we could continue to see people wearing bits of cloth, scarfs and shirts pulled around their faces.
Even if you wear a mask, you will still eventually get the virus. Masks slow the rate of transmission, they to not reduce it to zero. And unlike the vaccine, they do nothing to aid someone who gets the virus. Death rates among vaccinated people are still tiny.
The solution is vaccination, and rules requiring vaccination in public indoor spaces.
Not entirely accurate… they are finding in Israel that there is a small drop off in the effectiveness of the vaccine after around 8 months, especially if you have an already weakened immune system… the vaccine still works, the vast majority of vaccinated people will not have a breakthrough case and those that do are highly likely to suffer no to mild symptoms. Unvaccinated people are still and will remain the problem.
Not sure it’s small – Pfizer is 50% less effective at preventing infection over 6-8 months. They’ve also had big problems with unvaccinated children under 12 infecting schools.
In a small sample of mostly elderly people – as they were first to be vaccinated….. There are caveats to the numbers, that mean that you cannot draw hard conclusions about everyone from them just yet. Other looks at the same Israeli data shows the Pfizer vaccine works very well and is still working. Even in the elderly population it is still working at around 93% in preventing severe illness/death.
“Notably, the data might be skewed because a significant portion of the coronavirus tests in Israel were conducted in hot spots and among the elderly, while a small number of tests was carried out among the young and vaccinated population.
One medical expert who is consulting the Health Ministry said that the data is still too distorted to make a reliable assessment of the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing infection and mild symptoms.”
The vast majority of COVID spread is from the unvaccinated and yes, children who cannot get the vaccine yet are at risk, and have no recourse other than to pressure people to *get vaccinated* or at very least wear a mask
It’s problematic enough to give most of the population of israel a 3rd dose….
Yes – governments are taking a better safe than sorry approach. Can you blame them? *If* we do get a year more down the road and it proves out that more doses are warranted, what government in their right mind will want to have been on record saying wait and see… especially one with an uptake rate as high as Israel.
In any case it isn’t actually unusual or a sign that the vaccine is flawed that several doses may be needed – most vaccines require multiple doses and many more than 2 – you just don’t think about it, because you receive most of them as an infant/toddler)
It seems to be becoming more likely that COVID vaccine will become more like flu vaccine. You get it before ‘flu season’ starts and enjoy around 60ish%, depending on the year, immunity from flu for most of the next year. It’s effectiveness starts to wane, but in the part of the year that flu is less prevalent – repeat yearly… I work in a hospital, they’ve actually advised us to not get an early flu shot, for just this reason – it’s better to wait until at least October, so that your vaccine is still at peak efficacy during the times when it spreads the most. Yes…. with COVID, we aren’t seeing it being cyclical… but if we can just get it under control within the larger population we may. Right now it is just too prevalent and there are too many people left who can catch and spread it easily. We need to get shots into arms of the entirely unvaccinated to break the pandemic.
The larger question right now is should we be boostering healthy people (no question those with immune deficiencies should be), when it is likely better policy to simply get shots into far more people (worldwide), especially considering that there has been little to no drop in the amount of protection that is being seen for not developing severe cases and deaths. It’s still able to accomplish it’s main duties of keeping hospital beds free and people alive. While it may be less comfortable for people who fear getting sick period, it may be better in the long run, for the whole world, to tamp down all transmission so that we really stop the potential (not inevitability, but potential) that a worse variant emerges.
Remember it is still *unvaccinated people* driving infection rates… not vaccinated ones.
Damn right!
I’m so over this governor this state this city the folks who refuse to get vaxxed the most of all. I got the shot and was happy to see peoples faces again smiling going out to dance ahh the freedoms. Not anymore it was a nice little 1 month break but people can’t keep their shit together and now we’re paying for it funny how this works right? Do the right thing get punished do the wrong thing get a pass….should be Seattle’s motto.
I am as upset with the unvaccinated as you are, but have a little perspective. Our vaccination rates are much higher than in some other states, especially in the south, so we are doing pretty well. But we need to do better!
but you’re over the governor trying to protect people…ok
Stop inviting your stupid unvaccinated family out to visit here. I met a whole family at Pink Door the other night all bragging about how they’re from Missouri and not vaccinated.
Just putting the risk in perspective for most of the readers of this site:
In 2020 there were 302 homicides in Washington State.
For the entire pandemic 322 people in the under 50 group have died of covid in Washington state. Most of the pandemic no one was vaccinated.
I get the risk isn’t zero but once youre vaccinated get on with your life. I’ll wear the mask again if it’s required but we are just living in a culture of fear now for something extremely non probable.
I wish Inslee had either allowed businesses to require proof of vaccination for all patrons so that we could enjoy being unmasked with other safe people, or require all customers to be masked if the business chooses not to require this proof.
It’s infuriating that people who did the right thing to get us back to normal are being punished for the smaller number of selfish idiots who refuse to do so.
here’s the thing that you (and most other people) don’t understand when you make statements like this: for every one of those people that died, many, many more were hospitalized or required medical resources, putting an extreme strain on local hospitals, which we in this area are fortunate to have a large number of; many other localities are much worse off.
surgeries for people that need them were cancelled or postponed, supplies became (and continue to be) in very short supply, and staff are being pushed to the max. the toll is not simply the death count – this is having drastic effects on the entire medical world and rippling out to every person that needs medical care.
this view that only the number of virus deaths is all that matters is extremely narrow and ignorant. further, we have barely begun to understand the long term effects of those who survive this virus – preventing as much of it as we can will only help in the long run.
It’s “extremely non-probable” if dying is all you’re worried about. But non-fatal covid is often a pretty miserable experience in itself, and even if you’re vaccinated if you go around unmasked in public spaces day after day your odds of eventually catching it are not all that low. Plus some symptoms can endure for weeks, months and maybe longer (just google “long covid” if you’re unfamiliar with this phenomenon). Indoor masking remains essential to both personal and public health.
CDC’s latest data as of last week is 160 million vaccinated with 8054 breakthrough cases requiring hospitalization and 78% of those breakthroughs were people over 65.
I’d say odds are extremely low of needing hospitalization after being vaccinated – .005% to be exact.
All youre left with is – covid scary.