You may have heard last week the White House 'congratulated' WA State for reaching the 70% vaccination threshold. We were told repeatedly by Gov. Inslee if-when the state hits that mark, we would re-open 'early,' perhaps even prior to his June 30th date.

Not very many people are holding their breath on that one, because of repeated promises and statements that have not been followed through with, or panned out. Witness the epic fail of the Safe Start Phases program which quietly went away during the winter. Remember the infamous Phase 1.5, or 2.5?

Then the Healthy Washington Re-Open Plan, with it's disastrous 8 regions, which lumped populated counties with rural ones and took away necessary local control for COVID related policies and decisions.

But regardless, here's what the Department of Health is posting to the public and sharing on their social media pages.

They claim the reason the CDC says WA state is at the 70% threshold is because the Feds are counting persons 18-and older. The state counts 16 and up.  DOH claims by using 18 and up data, you have a smaller population base; therefore vaccination percentages are higher.

The DOH has not explained why they choose persons 16-and older.

It's nick picking, really. DOH says they use population data from the Office of Financial Management, while the CDC uses the official U.S. Federal Census. Which one do you think is more accurate

DOH also included this statement:

"However, the federal government gets data from DoD, VA, Bureau of Prisons, and potentially a few other sources that don’t get automatically funneled to DOH state totals."

This is a way of saying the Feds allegedly have data not available to the state, so DOH can't use it in their metrics. Perhaps they could reach out to the Feds and get the numbers so the state can open up?

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The reason DOH has been pushing this information is because state officials, including Inslee, have been heavily criticized for clinging to numbers 'just under' the 70% mark so they can continue to implement their COVID restrictions.

Perhaps that's a cynical view, but in the eyes of many legislators (especially GOP) businesses and other leaders, that's what they believe.

 

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