Whatcom health officials offer grim prediction of phased opening with COVID
Whatcom County officials heard a blunt prognosis this week from local health officials fighting the new coronavirus pandemic.
Everyone must accept that wearing masks, social distancing and staying home is the new normal until COVID-19 transmission rates slow or the disease can be prevented, Whatcom County Council members were told in a briefing Tuesday afternoon, July 21.
“There is no getting out of this until we have a vaccine. There is no getting out of this. This will be in our community until we have a vaccine,” Health Director Erika Lautenbach said.
“There are things we can do to mitigate the impacts and to reduce the numbers,” but she said Whatcom County won’t advance to Phase 3 of the state’s Safe Start plan until infection rates drop.
“The plan is incumbent on individual activities and actions,” Lautenbach told the council. “If people aren’t doing the things to keep themselves safe and their families safe, we’re not going to get out of this. There’s a lot of behavior that the Health Department can’t necessarily control that is linked to infection rates,” she said.
COVID-19 infections have been increasing steadily in recent weeks across Whatcom County, fueled by people gathering in large groups and spreading the virus, then infecting relatives and co-workers, health officials have said.
Dr. Chi-Na Stoane, chairwoman of the county’s Public Health Advisory Board, said mask-wearing is imperative because COVID-19 is so contagious.
“If we distance 6 feet and if we wear any kind of face covering, that’s going to significantly decrease the transmission and we can open and our economy can open and people can go places,” Stoane said.
“But you have to wear a mask. If you don’t want to wear a mask, you’re basically saying you’re shutting down the economy and that is OK,” she said.
Further, Stoane said that even if a vaccine is found, coronaviruses like COVID-19 are a fact of modern life.
“We’re going to live with this virus. It’s just a question of how well are we going to live with it,” Stoane said.
“The virus is not going away. All the pandemics we’ve had in the past — MERS, SARS, all of those, they’re all coronaviruses. Even if we could, quote-unquote ‘get rid of it,’ there’s going to be another mutation and a different form of coronavirus will hit us,” she said.
“We have to accept ways to decrease the transmission, keep everyone safe, mitigate, mitigate, mitigate, and find ways to live with the virus,” Stoane said. “We’re not getting rid of it and that I’m saying as a physician. We can’t get rid of it. We’re going to have to learn to live with it.”
The spelling of Dr. Chi-Na Stoane’s name was corrected July 23, 2020.
This story was originally published July 23, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
