Spokane County health officials are bracing for another holiday weekend and wondering if it will lead to the same results as the last holiday weekend.
Spokane County had just moved to phase 2 of the reopening protocol heading into Memorial Day and the case numbers have since rapidly risen.
Today [Wednesday], the health district reported 37 new cases, which is a decrease from the average of 80 new cases the past two days.
But Health Officer Bob Lutz says the evidence is troubling.
“Right now what we’re seeing is that it’s all over the place. We’re seeing a lot more worksites, outbreaks in worksites, clusters associated with those. Family clusters associated with worksites," he said.
The outlook for the next two weeks is not an optimistic one, says Dr. Dan Getz from Providence Sacred Heart.
“Taking care of sick Covid patients takes a lot of resources, so the more Covid patients you get, you have a finite number of resources," Getz said. "We’re already starting to look at getting travelers to come into our community, help staff up because we’re concerned about the predictive numbers that we’re seeing. I think we are going to see double our hospitalizations in the next two weeks.”
For now, he says Spokane’s hospital system has enough beds to handle Covid cases and non-emergency procedures.