Officials may tighten local restrictions if WSU fall reopening sparks COVID-19 surge

Public health officials have already linked early returning WSU students to a recent uptick in local COVID-19 cases and fear an in-person reopening of campus next month would require stricter limitations on social or business activities to prevent widespread outbreaks.

Public Health Director Troy Henderson on Monday afternoon told Whitman County Commissioners, who also serve as the Board of Health, that several of the most recent cases involved college-aged patients. The county now only publicly identifies patients within 20-year age brackets.

“I will tell you, within the 20-39 year old age bracket, most if not all of those were closer to 20 than 39,” he said. “We are seeing an impact from the student body returning. … It’s pretty straightforward to imagine what’s going to happen when that number goes up.”

Officials announced eight new COVID-19 cases over the weekend, bringing the county total to 66 people. The county has had no COVID-19 deaths and just one hospitalization. After a slow start, local cases have accelerated since mid-June. Read about the county’s testing and ventilator capacity as of early June here.

(Update, at 11:10 a.m. July 21: County officials today announced four new COVID-19 cases, including three individuals in the 20-39 age bracket. Total now 70 cases.)

Henderson said his staff has been conducting contact tracing on younger COVID-19 patients who attended large social gatherings, including a recent party along the Snake River where people reportedly numbered “into the hundreds” with few to none wearing masks.

While WSU has taken many key steps to limit COVID-19 spread, he said there’s only so much the university can control once students return to the Pullman area. Any in-person instruction will mean students still live and socialize in close proximity outside the classroom.

“WSU has put quite a bit of effort into how does the classroom look and how do we spread folks apart in a classroom,” he said. “My concern is Friday night at 10:30, where these … 20,000 people are.”

Henderson asked the Board of Health to consider what local restrictions they might be willing to impose if COVID-19 numbers climb in the coming weeks. He said his staff would be discussing options, but acknowledged it would be difficult to force college students to comply with health guidelines.

“If you close the bars, they go into a backyard,” he said. “If you make a curfew, they ignore it. If you close liquor sales, they can drive across the state line. So there’s challenges should we have a large number of folks in the 20- to 25-year-old demographic impacting the viral load in the county.”

Henderson also voiced concerns about the rapid increases in COVID-19 cases in Spokane County and Idaho in recent days. He said large holiday gatherings and general lockdown fatigue had led to numerous outbreaks.

“As Spokane County goes, so do we,” he said. “We have enough folks who go up there and shop and work.”

Washington health officials on Friday released a report warning the state could see “runaway growth” in COVID-19 cases in the coming weeks. Spokane County was singled out as “experiencing accelerating exponential growth.” The report also noted alarming increases in patients age 20-29.

Henderson said he believes the governor will take whatever steps he feels necessary to prevent COVID-19 cases from overwhelming the state.

“The state is likely to implement further restrictions if there’s not some other way to get the current curve under control,” he said. “The state COVID-19 curve is not under control. It’s growing pretty rapidly.”

Whitman County’s infection curve, while involving much smaller numbers, has mirrored general trends at the state and national level.

Commissioners asked Henderson about the local testing and contact tracing capacity. Henderson said testing had kept up in recent weeks and he was proud of their efforts so far, but that tracing had become more complicated as people started going out and mixing with larger groups.

Tracing a person’s contacts in April might involve three or four people, he explained. New cases often link to 20 or 30 potential contacts.

WSU has offered help and volunteers to provide standby staffing for surge tracing. Officials estimated they had standby capacity to conduct tracing on as many as 100 cases a day if needed.

“If WSU has the full student body return in the fall, it would not be unimaginable to have 100 cases in a day,” Henderson said. “That’s not beyond the realm of possibility at all.”

(Update: WSU just published an update on its contact tracing efforts this morning.)

Commissioner Michael Largent said the latest numbers helped justify recent decisions to cancel the Palouse Empire Fair and other local events. But he noted that starting up in-person classes would still bring thousands of students back to the area, even if classes eventually move online again.

“WSU, more than anything else, … what they do and what they plan on doing in the next three to six weeks is going to have huge impacts,” Largent said. “Once the students return, even shutting down the university, you still have all those people in town. Bored.”

“I believe there’s a real possibility that there will not be in-person classes,” Henderson responded. “And I think there may not be public school classes this fall.”

Henderson said he planned to meet with the presidents of both WSU and UI as well as the Pullman and Moscow mayors on Thursday. In a follow-up email, Henderson wrote he hopes the meeting will help get local leaders on the same page. He also plans to discuss community efforts to protect vulnerable populations in the region.

WSU postponed a recent town hall with updates on its evolving plans for fall semester. A new time has not yet been announced. (Update, July 22: Town hall now rescheduled for 1 p.m Friday.)

From a public health perspective, Henderson said, the fewer people in the county the better. But he expected that one way or another there would be more people coming in the next few weeks.

“The biggest chunk of this comes down to some personal responsibility among the students re-entering the county,” he said. “As the students come back and the viral load increases, you can never say that masks are a good idea too many times. We absolutely have to all do our part. … It’s just common sense. Masks help. Countries that wear masks have been successful, and you need mask-wearing at a high percentage.”

Recent research indicates that mask usage in public should be at 90-95 percent to achieve the most effective virus suppression. Henderson noted communities see more effective COVID-19 suppression when mask-wearing rises from 60 to 90 percent than they do when raising it from just 30 to 60 percent.

But even in the best-case scenario, Henderson said, without in-person classes at WSU or public schools, “I think it will still be a tremendous challenge.”

The county Board of Health planned to hold its next meeting at 2 p.m. Aug. 17. Find the schedule for county meetings and links to attend remotely here.