Health district officials discuss living with coronavirus while reopening the county

MOSES LAKE — We’re going to have to learn to live with the novel coronavirus and the disease that it causes, COVID-19, according to Grant County Health Officer Alexander Brzezny.

“It cannot be stopped, it is going to stay here,” Brzezny said during a meeting of the Grant County Health District conducted online Wednesday evening. “We’re probably not able to control it.”

Brzezny said the virus is likely going to persist until at least 60 to 70 percent of people have some kind of immunity, though he said it is unclear how long that immunity will last.

Which means we are now living in a “new normal” that will involve some kind of social distancing and wearing of personal protective gear like masks for some time to come, he said.

“This is the new norm,” Brzezny said. “Can we accept and adjust to that new norm? Are we emotionally and physically prepared?”

Brzezny said he understood the importance of ending the stay-at-home order and allowing people to get back to work and reopen their businesses. But he also noted that relaxations of lockdowns have always resulted in an uptick in cases, whether that has been in South Korea, Germany or China.

Despite becoming increasingly unpopular, Brzezny said, the stay-at-home order has been very successful in slowing the transmission of the virus in Washington. He cited data from the Department of Homeland Security showing that four of the 10 counties in the United States showing the most progress in reducing cases — Snohomish, Spokane, Clark and Kitsap — are in Washington.

However, he also noted that Yakima County is seeing some of the highest rates of new infections in the state right now, with an average of 60 to 100 new cases reported every day for the last 10 days.

The virus, formally known as SARS-CoV-2, “picks and chooses” whom it kills, Brzezny said. It also appears to be fond of crowded indoor locations, as with the infection clusters in Quincy and Mattawa.

Brzezny said he and other health officers across Eastern Washington are trying to get Gov. Jay Inslee to accept other kinds of metrics to evaluate progress — for example, he said he thinks it would be safe to move forward with reopening Grant County if the case rate got down to five per week from the current six — and allow economic activity to resume.

“We need to keep the numbers down so we don’t get shut down again,” he said.

However, he said that whatever decisions are made, the choices will be tough ones and there will be suffering and loss no matter what is decided.

“Nobody knows 100 percent how to get out of this,” he added.

Members of the health district board also were concerned that the closure cure is worse than the disease.

“I know we’re trying to save lives, but we need to have a life to come back to,” said Tom Harris, the Quincy City Council representative to the health district. “There are businesses in my town that are really, really struggling.”

“I understand the seriousness, I understand the deaths, but it’s really hard to see this happening to the business community,” Harris added. “Their livelihoods are going away, and that’s really troubling to me.”

County Commissioner Richard Stevens said the Grant County Commission, along with commissioners from a number of other counties, have sent yet another letter to Inslee asking that the state’s economy be restarted more quickly.

“We’ve not seen much reply from the governor,” he said. “It’s a pretty futile effort.”

Stevens also said he found the prospect of a “new norm” in which “half the county is out of work” deeply distressing.

“We’re in trouble,” he said. “Let’s hope something happens soon. We’re running up against a wall.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at [email protected].