COVID update: No new cases anywhere this week in San Juan County

||| FROM BRENDAN COWAN for DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT |||

Note: Current positive case numbers are available online at the County Case Data Dashboard. As indicated on that page, these numbers are only updated after case confirmation is complete,  usually daily. It is possible that other information sources in community may be quicker to report on new cases, but ensuring privacy and accuracy is critical for this official information source.

Since the last update on Friday Feb. 26, total cases in San Juan County have remained steady at 129. Note that there are zero close contacts of a positive case currently in active quarantine.

ORCAS ISLAND
There are no new cases on Orcas Island since the last update.
There are no positive cases under active monitoring on Orcas Island at this time.

LOPEZ ISLAND
There are no new cases on Lopez Island.
There are no positive cases on Lopez Island at this time.

SAN JUAN ISLAND
There are no new cases on San Juan Island.
There are no positive cases under active monitoring on San Juan Island at this time.

OVERALL PICTURE

• COVID life has been an exercise in pattern recognition. With no precautions, cases rise. When cases rise, we use more precautions. When we use precautions, cases fall. When cases fall, we eliminate precautions. Then repeat. This ebb and flow is a natural human reaction to a very complicated (and difficult) situation and is our collective way of balancing protection from COVID with protection from harming the social and economic fabric of our lives.
• We’re now in the loosening of precautions/cases falling phase. The decisions we make will influence the speed and severity of the next wave. There are some precautions, like mask wearing, or not being indoors unmasked with those outside of our bubbles that are not things we want to relax. There are some things that can be relaxed safely: schools reopening, some group activities, etc. We need to keep in mind that we can relax some things, while still maintaining the most important of our precautions.
• The next four to six weeks will reveal a lot. We’ll see what the impact of the new COVID variants is on disease spread and severity. We’ll better understand the degree to which the vaccines both protect us as individuals, but also protect our community. We need to watch carefully and we still need to be thoughtful.
• We haven’t had a case in the islands for two weeks. And given that 98% of our cases to date have come from islanders traveling or hosting, we can keep that track record going through thoughtfulness and finding the middle ground in our precautions.