Washington State, We (Maybe) Did It!

After 975 days, the curve is flattish — like always

These days there’s not much good news coming out of Olympia, but today we have an exception. Governor Jay Inslee has announced the end of his covid emergency powers — 975 days after assuming them. And even then, only maybe. The order goes into effect on October 31st, which is just about when seasonality really starts to kick up in Washington state. The cynical might expect Inslee to ‘reluctantly’ cancel the order just before his powers expire, forcing us to suffer through another winter of covid-mania.

I defeated za covid! Maaaayyyyybe.

Diving into the announcement, past the headline there’s very little reason to be optimistic. Inslee doubles down on his commitment to covid measures — including masks for healthcare settings and jab mandates for state workers — and takes credit for the state having the 5th-lowest covid death rate in the country.

Of course, nowhere does Inslee mention that bloodwork from donations taken in Mid-December already showed 2% of people had active antibodies. This was four months before we did anything at all to slow the curve — and four months in the middle of winter. We had four months of holiday travel and get-togethers. Four months of church and basketball games and going out to sing karaoke at the bar. Four months — and we didn’t even notice the virus until Inslee put covid patients into nursing homes. It’s EXTREMELY likely that our ‘low death rate’ is because we missed the bulk of the curve because the virus swept through the area before we had tests available.

It’s also worth remembering that it was April 8, 2020 when Inslee determined that the temporary hospital set up in Century Link Field should be dismantled — and on that day he told us that the hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed. (In words AND actions, because a coward like Inslee would have left that hospital up if there was even a 1% chance it would be needed.)

Again, this was April 8th, 2020. On that day (if not sooner), Inslee knew that our hospitals would not be overwhelmed. Yet the state remained in some form of lockdown for another 16 months. And those hospitals? Their usage remained flat the entire ‘crisis’ — and that usage was so embarrassingly light, the state altered the criteria for ‘covid success’ in (at that time) the most shocking example of moving the goalposts ever.

How the data appeared on 11/23 — hovering between 55% and 60% full

The day after, moving the goalposts and ‘removing’ 5,000 beds from the supply

Eventually, the data had to be changed again, because the effects of Inslee’s vaccine mandate were clear in the (actual) drop in bed supply of roughly 10%.

Suddenly, the data was ‘migrated’ to a new site — one that didn’t show the total number of beds at all (though you obviously need to know the total number to show occupancy rate).

Interestingly, the chart here only goes back to 2021, not all the way through the pandemic. But view the two years’ information together with multiple screenshots, and it’s clear that Washington state never experienced any type of increase in hospital utilization the entire ‘crisis’. No matter how many covid-positive patients were in the hospital, total utilization remained flat. (Inslee’s stupid mandate excepted) This suggests that covid patients were in the hospital for other reasons — perhaps even catching the virus while they were there — or were unhealthy enough that they would have been in the hospital for something else if they were not there for covid. (In effect, not taking up a ‘new’ bed)

So while it’s good that Inslee is finally (perhaps) relinquishing some of his covid powers, let’s not be too hasty to fall over ourselves in praise of his covid response. It’s almost certain that the state would have been better off doing nothing at all.

What do you think, readers? Will Inslee actually allow his powers to expire?