#GOV. JAY INSLEE PRESS CONFERENCE UPDATE#

So the point is, we’re having some success. And you’ll see that in King County, the numbers have essentially plateaued, might be coming down a bit, whereas they were predicted in the gray band to have gone up significantly, had the R0 stayed as it was. So if you look at this slide, this shows the red line and for King County of the observed cases that we’ve had and the gray band, the dark gray band is what was anticipated had we not been successful in our mask up campaign. I want to show you that we also believe we have reduced the number of cases, looking at what some of the earlier projections were. So this is really encouraging for the rest of the state that we’ve had one county demonstrate a significant decline associated with a strong masking up campaign. We really don’t have another explanation for this coming down so significantly. We want to thank the local leaders, business leaders, and local officials who started a local mask up initiative, and it appears to be having success. We think the reason for that is that we had an early mask up campaign in Yakima County. This indicates the numbers of infections diagnosed in Yakima County and you’ve seen they come down dramatically starting in early July. The numbers have been very high there for some period of time, but there is some good news in Central Washington, particularly in Yakima County, where we have seen the numbers come down. There are still higher rates of disease spread in Central Washington, particularly, that we’d like to see. So we have some encouragement, but many, many miles to go. What’s our next graph here, Sam? Yeah, this just shows how far we have to go down to 25. So the point is we just have so far to go in this effort and we want to thank those who have committed themselves to keeping themselves and their families and their community safe. Walla Walla, Spokane, and Pierce County particularly. Fortunately, only a few counties are actually going up, but there are some. We are four times higher than a reasonable target where we really need to be. Our target for a two week period, and it’s indicated on this graph as the lower line, is 25 cases per 100,000. I want to thank Washingtonians in this regard, but here’s a really important caveat however, we have to be honest with ourselves to realize that we are so far away from success on this, that we have to remain incredibly diligent. And we think we’re showing some success with that effort. Business leaders have adhered to my order to make sure that people are masked when they’re in retail spaces. We think that we’ve had some success on this because Washingtonians have masked up. Now, we also are seeing some positive trends, as I indicated in the number of infections, showing you a graph here that has shown that it’s peaked some time ago and has come down with some significance.Īnd we’re hopeful that this trend is going to continue. And the only way we’d literally get down to pandemic levels, that where we can resume normal activities, it has to be significantly lower than one to be able to really continue to knock these numbers down. And we’ll have a graph up to demonstrate where we are on that curve, but we have to understand that it’s not below one. That means every person who’s infected infects one more person. This is of course the number that shows the number of people that an infected person infects, we think that number is about one. And I am a cautiously pleased to tell you that we have seen a decline in diagnosed cases in the last two weeks, and that some of our other data shows some positive trends.

#GOV. JAY INSLEE PRESS CONFERENCE UPDATE#

With that said, I’d like to give you an update on our COVID efforts. I knew his wife, Sally, and we hope they realize that the state is honoring his public service in so many regards. And that’s an independence that I think can be very valuable in our country. I also want to note that he had a unique independence and strength that he showed in many occasions, voting for the impeachment of Presidents Nixon and Trump. They literally would probably not have been here without Senator Gorton’s efforts as an Attorney General and otherwise. And I’m wearing a Mariner’s mask in honor the work he did for the Seattle Mariners. And there are many things he touched in Washington State to help protect our people and our interests. It was really an amazing public service career. As we know, we lost Senator Slade Gorton the other day and I have to say he had the most amazing life in public service of all kinds, of both controversy and comebacks and independence and courage.

Gov. jay inslee press conference