Inslee releases guidelines for nursing home visitors amid COVID-19 pandemic
OLYMPIA, Wash - Washington Governor Jay Inslee on Thursday announced a new phased plan for visiting loved ones at long-term care facilities in the state.
The state is issuing a four-phase guideline on visitation that encourages outdoor meetings and correlates with the governor’s four-phase county reopening plan.
Nearly all care facilities in the state are in the first phase for visitation, which allows for compassionate, window, remote and outdoor visits.
The four phases range from outdoor visits in LTC Phase 1, to limited indoor visits in LTC Phase 2 and 3, and normal visitation in LTC Phase 4.
Image: Office of Gov. Jay Inslee
Inslee said the long-term care phases were different than the phased reopening plan for counties in Washington state.
The governor said that Washington was seeing less than 10 cases per 100,000 (7-day average) in long-term care facilities.
Image: Office of Gov. Jay Inslee
Authorities say the COVID-19 is still spreading too extensively in the state, which saw the nation’s first confirmed virus case in late January. Since then Washington has seen more than 60,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 1,620 deaths.
See the full announcement below:
Just a day earlier, Inslee said that schools in the majority of Washington’s counties should strongly consider online-only learning for students this fall due to COVID-19 and canceling or postponing sports and all other in-person extracurricular activities.
Inslee also announced Wednesday $8.8 million in federal funding to help the state pay for internet plans and technology needs for low-income families. Critics of online learning say not enough consideration has been given to students who lack reliable internet or computers.