After witnessing roughly 2,500 people protesting on Sunday in Olympia against his “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order, on Tuesday night, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced his plan for reopening the economy of the state, acknowledging that the current data on the coronavirus in Washington, the first state which was bludgeoned by the disease, is starting to look more optimistic.
In his public address, Inslee did not set a date for scaling down his stay-at-home order, which is set to expire on May 4. Inslee said that if the situation keeps improving and the number of coronavirus cases keep dropping, he would encourage elective surgeries as well as outdoor recreation. Inslee’s plan includes a huge amount of testing and contact tracing; he expects 1,500 people conducting contact tracing by the second week of May. Inslee posited that between 20-30,000 tests would need to be performed daily to reopen the economy, but currently the state hasn’t even reached 4,000 daily tests.
The Seattle Times reported that Inslee’s office “has agreed upon a plan with the construction industry and labor unions,” that would permit limited return to construction” as long as safety measures are taken.
On Monday, the three Franklin County Commissioners, all Republicans, voted to ignore Inslee’s stay-home order and open the county, as the Tri-City Herald reported. Commissioner Brad Peck stated, “As far as I’m concerned the county is open, and I’d encourage people within the law and within the parameters of their own safety — we’re adults, we can make decisions — to behave accordingly. That’s what I’m doing.”
David Postman, Inslee’s chief of staff, responded by calling the decision “a wrong-headed approach” for which they could be sued, adding that the commissioners were “putting businesses in jeopardy” and putting “citizens’ health in jeopardy.” He added, “Local governments can be stricter than the state if they choose; they can’t be looser. The law doesn’t allow it. The order is clearly rooted in statute and constitutional authority, and a county governing body does not have the right, the legal authority in any way, to take a vote and deem something unconstitutional. That’s a role for the courts.”
On April 2, Inslee announced a month-long extension of his “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” emergency order, stating, “Epidemiological modeling from the University of Washington predicts we will have at least 1,400 deaths this year. We are yet to see the full toll of this virus in our state and the modeling we’ve seen could be much worse if we don’t continue what we’re doing to slow the spread.”
He continued, “We have taken dozens of steps under my emergency powers to help people in this time – including moratoriums on evictions, mortgage forbearance, utility ratepayer assistance, unemployment extensions, flexibility on tax payments and cash assistance to families. We will do more.”
The same day, as Inslee’s website noted, “Inslee announced a delay in the implementation of new state building codes from July 1 to Nov. 1 to provide adequate time for training and outreach that was interrupted by the COVID-19 outbreak.”
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