To mask or not? In many settings, it will soon be up to you

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Editor’s note: Read COVID updates by VashonBePrepared in Spanish and English at tinyurl.com/yan39zeh.

Over the last month, the number of new COVID cases on Vashon has dropped to less than 20 per week.

That’s far better than mid-January when Vashon was hit with more than 150 new cases per week. There have been similar drops in new case rates throughout the state, evidence that the Omicron spike will soon end. However, although much improved, Vashon’s case rate is still at a significant level so the spike is not quite over yet.

It will be wonderful news when we can report that Vashon has fallen to a safe rate of new cases, which would be around one new case per week, about one-twentieth of the current rate. Vashon’s Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) has been developing a monitoring plan to advise Vashon’s Emergency Operations Center on action steps as the COVID risk ebbs.

Update on Indoor Masking Rollback

Most indoor masking requirements in our state will end on March 12, at the order of Gov. Jay Inslee. The governor had previously set a date of March 21 but moved it forward this week based on new guidelines from the CDC. King County public health authorities have also announced their agreement and are rolling back the local indoor masking requirements on the same day.”

The news from the Governor follows word late last week that the CDC was changing its federal masking recommendations. The new guidelines still take into account COVID case rates, but also consider levels of severe disease such as hospitalizations, as well as hospital capacity. King County is rated green on the new CDC map, the best possible risk rating in the three-level system of green, yellow, and orange ratings.

The CDC’s new guidelines apply to indoor masking. However, the masking order remains in effect for public transportation such as airplanes and buses.

Tools for Making Your Personal Masking Choice

With masking and vaccination-checking mandates being lifted, islanders will need to make their own choices for COVID safety. With this newsletter, we begin a series of articles giving you tools for assessing risks and making informed decisions.

As described above, we are sstill at a high level of risk and Vashon’s Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) urges caution as this new phase unfolds. That’s why MRC members say our decision-making about attending a gathering or event should be guided by the questions we have been asking all along:

• What is the current rate of community transmission?

• Will the event be indoors or outdoors?

• How many people will be at the event?

• Do you know attendees are vaccinated or will they be unvaccinated?

• How long will the event last?

• What are the chances of encountering people who have not been vaccinated?

• If I get COVID, what is my personal risk?

• If I get COVID, what are the chances I might infect someone else at high risk?

The answers — to attend or not attend a variety of events, masked or unmasked — will vary according to your individual and family circumstances. Your decision will depend on your personal feelings about how much risk you can accept.

The MRC’s Dr. Jim Bristow knows what his decision will be, for even the most mundane of everyday tasks.

“I am not going to the grocery without a mask,” he said. “I am 67 and have a 92-year-old mother, and I really do not want to get COVID. And wearing a mask is a simple thing to do.”

Many factors will figure in as each of us navigates the road ahead. Bristow noted if he were a healthy 35-year-old, he might enjoy unmasked trips to the grocery store and dinners out when the case rate is at the low level of one case per week on Vashon. But that would not be the case if he were caring for an aging family member or had a child with congenital heart disease, chronic lung disease, or diabetes. Each of us faces different circumstances and has different personal risk tolerance, so decisions about reducing risk are not a one-size-fits-all situation.

“This is a community where people will respect and accept your personal choices, including wearing a mask after the mandates go away. In many communities that is not the case,” Bristow said.

Should Omicron resurge or if a new variant arrives, Bristow encourages islanders to think not only of themselves and immediate family members but also the wider community.

“In that circumstance, we want to be very careful. We want to do more here than in the surrounding communities because we have more people at risk,” he said, emphasizing the island’s high number of seniors. “That will be consistently true unless the next variant causes only minor disease.”

People are eager to put the pandemic behind them — to gather with one another for big birthday parties, to eat in restaurants, to watch movies at the theater, to enjoy large holiday dinners. Bristow said he hopes the time for those activities will come soon and may even be just a few weeks away for all but people in the high-risk categories.

“These are the things we long for. There will be situations where we can do those things quite safely. And there will be times we really shouldn’t be doing those things. When we can relax, we should relax,” he said. “But once we take our masks off, we need to be ready to put them back on again.”

Latest Vashon COVID Statistics

Source: Public Health — Seattle & King County (PHSKC) and Vashon EOC. PHSKC adjusts statistics from time to time as data is refined during its quality control processes. These statistics may not include all recent Vashon cases, due to the lag in posting of data to PHSKC. Some home testing data may also be missing because there is no comprehensive system to collect it. Hospitalizations may include some patients who tested positive for COVID on admission for other reasons.

764 = Total COVID cases for Vashon residents since the pandemic began.

5 = New cases reported since the last weekly report (27 new cases in 14 days).

11 = Patients hospitalized since the pandemic began.

4 = Deaths since the pandemic began.

92.6% = percentage of Vashon residents age 5+ who have been fully vaccinated, compared to 84.3% of the total King County 5+ population.

71.5% = percentage of vaccinated Vashon residents age 12+ with booster shots.

63.1% = percentage of Vashon residents aged 5 to 11 with first doses of vaccine (59.5% have completed the series).

81.7% = percentage of Vashon residents aged 12 to 17 with first doses of vaccine (76.5% have completed the series).

For King County, the PHSKC dashboard for the last 30 days says people who are not fully vaccinated are 3.1 times more likely to get COVID, 24 times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID, and 33 times more likely to die of COVID.

For more resources, visit VashonBePrepared.org. Sign up at tinyurl.com/4smk364m to receive email updates from the group, and/or visit VashonBePrepared on Facebook.