June 4 - 10, 2020
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Getting creative to celebrate grads, page 2
Police chief Tanksley on race in America, page 6
Blaine High School scholarships, page 7
PRSRT STD U. S. Postage PAID Permit NO. 87 Blaine, WA 98230
County applies for phase 2 of re-opening By Oliver Lazenby
(See Phase 2, page 15)
s Taking touch-free payments via smartphone is one of the ways Miguel Ramos, owner of Blaine’s Paso del Norte has prepared to reopen once Whatcom County is approved to start phase 2.
Photo by Oliver Lazenby
Restaurants prepare for unknown re-opening date By Oliver Lazenby Early this week, local restaurant owners were scrambling to be ready for a possible re-opening, even though it wasn’t clear when Whatcom County would move onto phase 2 of governor Jay Inslee’s four-phase re-opening plan, which allows restaurants to open with less than 50 percent of capacity. Local restaurant owners thought that bigger restaurants and those with outdoor seating would be able to reopen profitably, with less challenge than smaller restaurants. Some small restaurants in Blaine and Birch Bay were reconfiguring, aiming to make reduced capacity profitable, or just waiting to see if re-opening would pencil out. Whatcom County applied to move to phase 2 on June 2 and expected to be approved within two days, according to the county. Shifting guidelines and dates added a lot of confusion to the restaurant industry in the weeks before re-opening. Some
restaurant owners previously thought they might be able to open on June 1, the day the governor’s stay-home order expired. On June 1, they were coming to terms with the idea that opening would come with little or no lead-time. In addition to seating less than 50 percent of building occupancy, phase 2 requires that restaurants comply with a long list of other state requirements. Hand sanitizer must be available at the entry, bar seating is not allowed, all parties must be five guests or less, tables must be placed far enough apart that guests at adjacent tables are a minimum of six feet apart, menus must be single-use, and the number of staff serving any one table must be minimized. Those are just the customer-facing requirements: there’s another list for employees that includes supplying personal protective equipment and screening employees at the start of each shift. Some guidelines have changed over time; weeks ago, Inslee said restaurants
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would be required to retain contact information for every guest, a measure that would help health workers that do contact tracing find and call each person who may be infected in a potential outbreak. The governor removed that guidance, but not (See Restaurants, page 3)
INSIDE
On June 2, Whatcom County applied to move to phase 2 of Washington’s Safe Start four-phase Covid-19 re-opening plan. The county’s website states that it should receive approval within two days. Phase 2 allows inside and outside social gatherings with no more than five people from outside your household. Businesses activities allowed include more manufacturing and construction, in-store purchases at retail stores (with restrictions), domestic services, real estate, professional services, nail salons and barbers, with restrictions. Restaurants can open at 50 percent of seating capacity. Telework remains strongly encouraged and people should still frequently wash and sanitize hands, physically distance, wear a mask in public and take other precautions. Whatcom County became eligible to apply on June 1, after governor Jay Inslee announced new, relaxed guidelines on Friday, May 29. The new guidelines allow counties to apply if they have fewer than 25 new cases per 100,000 residents over a 14-day span, up from a previous target of 10 per 100,000 over 14 days. In the 14-day period ending May 30, Whatcom County had 32 new cases, or about 14 cases per 100,000 people. The application process requires counties to meet a series of other benchmarks, including having a flat or decreasing trend in the number of people hospitalized with Covid-19, less than 10 percent of hospital beds occupied by Covid-19 patients, protections for high-risk populations, and targets for the amount of testing and the speed at which the county performs contact tracing. The county planned to apply for phase 2 on June 1, but was delayed by a change to the application process on the day before, a Sunday, county health department director Erika Lautenbach said in a June 1 press briefing. The new application, which the county received while working on a previous application, required more data from Peace Health St. Joseph Medical Center; a summary of the epidemiology of cases in the county, including populations disproportionately affected and the proportion of
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