Inslee Throws Curveball, New Event Vaccine Mandates Coming in November

Gov. Inslee threw a surprise curveball at businesses statewide, especially those who stage large sporting or entertainment events.

  Inslee said effective Nov. 15th, all indoor events that have crowds larger than 1,000 and outdoor events larger than 10K will require vaccine proof or a negative COVID test within three days. He made  the announcement at a press conference Thursday,

  The major collegiate and pro teams in our state are already doing this, UW football, Seahawks, etc. but now this will affect events statewide.

   This will also apply to venues such as theme parks or other entertainment venues where potentially the crowd limit numbers could be reached. Concerts, theatrical performances and more.

  Inslee offered a tweaked version of the same verbage he was uttering a year ago about masks, saying:

 “We cannot and we will not surrender to this disease. We cannot and we will not think that the status quo is good enough. We have got to get on top of this disease and knock these numbers down.”

  Like before, he sounded like the ability to knock down the virus was the 'job' of Washington residents.

   This mandate will not apply to religious services or events that occur on school grounds K-12.

  This will impact the Western Hockey League as well.  The Seattle Thunderbirds already had such a mandate in place and saw their opening night crowd in the ShowWare Center in Kent plummet to just over 3,200 fans.

  This will, as of Nov. 15, be in effect for the Americans at the Toyota Center.