If WA 'Lowest' COVID Death Rates, Why State of Emergency So Long?

IF our death rates were so long for so long, why did Inslee keep state of emergency? (townsquare media)

This is an opinion-editorial piece on Newstalk870.am and 610KONA.com

Despite having the sixth-lowest COVID death rate in the US (per 100K persons) Gov. Inslee allowed the state of emergency to linger on and on. Inslee released information late last week touting how low our rates were.

If death rates were so low, then why state of emergency so long?

As part of his news releases concerning the state of emergency finally ending on Oct. 31st of this year, one chart bragged that Washington state has one of the lowest COVID death rates in the nation, according to the CDC.

And, according to data from statista.com, it's been that way for some time. So why keep the state of emergency?

A number of political observers and some regional northwest talk show hosts believed Inslee would have kept it around even longer were it not for the mid-term elections coming up.

There is a lot of evidence the Democrats are possibly going to lose seats in the state house and perhaps the Senate. Whether the GOP will be able to 'pin' the state's woeful economic and societal conditions on those legislators who gave Inslee everything he wanted remains to be seen.

But it's no stretch to think Inslee did this to try to help his party in November. WA was the first state in the US to record a COVID case, but overall, our death rates did not climb to the levels that some other states saw, and yet they re-opened far earlier than we did.

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A growing number of Democratic incumbents are looking at a potential defeat at the hands of angry voters. Several in the State House have already announced they would not seek re-election, privately it was because they feared being bounced.

Inslee's release included this statement:

“Ending this order does not mean we take it less seriously or will lose focus on how this virus has changed the way we live. We will continue our commitments to the public’s well-being, but simply through different tools that are now more appropriate for the era we’ve entered.”

And, in keeping with his penchant for stretching things out, as he did with masks in schools, the state of emergency won't go away for about another six weeks...just in time for the mid-term elections.