Mill Creek Beacon - Your Hometown News Source

Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers said that he has no intention of taking the county back to Phase 1 during the coronavirus pandemic.

"I support the phased re-opening of Snohomish County," he said in a news release on July 1. "Within each phase, we must review and measure our ability to move safely to the next.

"Though we aren't ready to move into Phase 3 because of our increased case numbers, I want to make clear I have no intention of recommending Snohomish County move back to Phase 1 at this time. The only reason I would even consider it at some point in the future would be if we saw a significant, sustained outbreak that threatened to overwhelm our health-care system or a significant, sustained spike in deaths.

"We are very far from either of those scenarios right now. We are seeing a concerning rise in the number of cases, but it is not negatively impacting our death rates or our hospital capacity. We will continue to monitor the number of cases and work to bring the rate back down. If people continue both to practice effective social distancing and to wear masks when in public, we will continue to progress to the next phase."

Somers said he knows the pandemic has touched all parts of the community, but warned about complacency, especially during the July 4 holiday.

"We will continue to balance keeping our economy as open as possible while also keeping our residents safe. I appreciate the hard work everyone has done in Snohomish County to stay healthy and practice good social distancing. We need to keep it up and not get complacent this weekend."