WA Rep: ‘Heartbreaking’ that Tri-Cities region not moved to Phase 2

Governor Jay Inslee announced Thursday that the state is going to have five additional regions moving from Phase 1 to Phase 2 of reopening. Not all regions are reopening, though, as just one now remains in Phase 1. State Senator Sharon Brown (R-Kennewick) says the shutdown has been heartbreaking for the Tri-Cities region. She joined the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH to discuss.

“It is absolutely heartbreaking. People are hurting, families are hurting. There is a way to reopen safely and reopen now. … We question the data and this doesn’t make any sense to me at all,” she said.

“Because every other area of the state is open and you can’t tell me that people that are in the governor’s arbitrarily designated Southwest region, whatever it’s called, are not going to be traveling outside of that region,” she continued. “And also people from outside the region are going to be traveling into our region, so it makes no sense.”

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Brown says if the region is going to be prevented from moving into the next phase, then Inslee should provide the area with more COVID resources to offset this.

“If the governor stands by what he says, that he wants to open all of Washington, then give Tri-Cities additional vaccines, give Tri-Cities additional resources, and let’s get our doors open because our doors deserve to be open,” she said. “Our people are hurting. Our families are hurting. Our businesses are hurting. We need those doors open, and we need them open now and we can do it safely.”

As Jason noted, the area has generally seen a 41% decrease in case rates, a 86% decrease in ICU occupancy rates, and a little less than a 10% increase in COVID hospitalizations. Is there a particular data set that Brown thinks the governor needs to see to make the reopening push?

“You need to look at the totality of the situation,” she said. “I firmly believe in local control. We need to allow our locals to be making this decision whether or not it’s prudent to be opening at this juncture. But again, with 80% of the state open and 20% closed, it makes no sense to me. Like I said, people are going to be traveling back and forth between open places of the state and closed places of the state.”

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“The data is actually a couple weeks old that he’s making his decisions on as well, and so he needs to be making those decisions based on current data.”

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3 – 6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here