Inslee Changes Roadmap Rules, Seattle and Olympia Regions Move to Phase 2

Governor Jay Inslee announced Thursday that regions in the state's Healthy Washington - Roadmap to Recovery plan now must only meet three of the four key metrics to advance to Phase 2. Regions will also only be assessed every two weeks instead of the previous weekly basis.

Inslee said the changes were made because the state is in a better position as vaccinations ramp up and evaluating regions over a two week period is more realistic.

"This is really determined by the citizens of these regions. It's what they decide to do and how much they decided to be diligent. How much they decide not to have people over for dinner and infect them." stated Inslee, "They have control over this."

A region in Phase 2 must still maintain three of the four metrics or it will slide back to Phase 1.

Inslee also announced that two regions will move into Phase 2 Monday. They are the Puget Sound region which contains Seattle, Tacoma and Everett, and the West region which contains the Olympia area. All other regions will have to wait until at least February 15th to move to Phase 2.

The North Central Region, home to Chelan, Douglas, Grant and Okanogan counties, actually is performing worse as compared to last week. According to the state dashboard, the region is now only meeting one of the plan's four key metrics.

The full Roadmap to Recovery plan can be found here.