SEATTLE — With Washington state on the brink of lifting its indoor mask mandate Saturday, King County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin discussed the status of COVID-19 and his thoughts on masking guidance.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its masking guidance in late February, altering how it measures transmission levels throughout the country and recommending that counties with a high transmission level continue to mask indoors.
Currently, King County has a low COVID-19 transmission level, with hospitalization rates far below the threshold for a medium transmission level at a seven-day average of 1.8 COVID hospital admissions per 100,000 residents.
Additionally, about 5% of the county’s staffed hospital beds are occupied by COVID patients. These numbers are about the same as just before the omicron surge hit in late December.
For the county to move into the medium transmission level, the number of new hospital admissions would have to reach 10 per 100,000 and at least 10% of staffed beds would have to be taken by COVID patients.
However, Duchin said during a Friday briefing that it remains to be seen whether or not these thresholds are optimal in order to reimplement things like indoor masking requirements or social distancing.
“I am a little bit concerned about what seems to be a high hospitalization threshold for triggering implementation of community measures, like masking. I think a seven-day new hospitalization rate of between 10 and 20 per 100,000 is a bit high to trigger your first community-wide mitigation measures,” Duchin said.
He went on to explain that a hospitalization rate of 10 patients per 100,000 was the highest weekly hospitalization rate the county has seen during the last 12 flu seasons. He also said that a rate of five COVID patients per 100,000 residents still puts a lot of stress on the hospital system.
“I'm hoping that there'll be some additional modeling done that can help us explore and inform optimal metrics and the timing to trigger those mitigation measures under a variety of scenarios,” Duchin said.
He offered a number of ways the county could look to take preventative action ahead of a future potential surge.
“It may be we’ll be able to improve upon what they've proposed,” Duchin said. “I think considering the rate of rise of transmission and the rate of rise of hospitalizations, and also considering data from other areas that may be experiencing surges before our community, may also allow us to take earlier action and improve prevention opportunities here.”
Duchin also stressed Friday, as the county prepares to move into the next phase of the pandemic with the rest of the state and drop its indoor mask mandate for most places, that it’s time for everyone to prepare for future surges.
“While we celebrate this progress today, it's critical to understand that COVID-19 remains with us both in the U.S. and globally. It's causing major outbreaks in other countries as we speak, and the emergence of new variants and future surges locally are real possibilities,” he said.
Duchin urges King County residents to focus on improving ventilation and filtration in their homes, businesses and all public spaces as well as stay up to date on their COVID vaccinations.