WA Dept. of Health: Gov. Inslee ‘may soon loosen’ some stay-at-home restrictions

The Washington State Department of Health hinted Thursday that Gov. Jay Inslee could soon start to lift a small handful of social distancing measures.

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“Because of the successes our collective efforts have had, it is likely that the governor may soon loosen some of the restrictions around elective surgeries, outdoor recreation, and some construction,” the DOH stated in a recent blog post.

That being so, it also stressed that Washingtonians will “all need to continue to practice physical distancing for some time.” That includes continuing to work from home, ongoing distance learning for students, and maintaining six feet of distance from others while in public.

In order to safely relax those measures, the DOH estimated that Washington will need to be processing between 20,000 and 30,000 coronavirus tests daily, “far more than we are currently doing.”

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Getting to that benchmark will require increased “new testing resources [and] new public health resources,” according to the DOH.

“Working together, and following the science and data, we can work our way out of this crisis,” it added.

Gov. Inslee will be delivering a press conference Friday morning at 11:30 a.m., alongside a pair of representatives from the private construction industry. With the state’s stay-at-home order still extending through at least May 4, the governor has repeatedly emphasized that any changes to that order will be made based on data, not “irrational forces.”

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