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Whatcom County leaders are pushing back hard against Governor Jay Inslee’s reopening plan. The county has fewer case rates than other counties, but says it’s not being treated the same.

COVID rates dropping in Whatcom County, the state’s previous hotspot

Councilmember on the Whatcom County Council says while the county does have what he would classify as “high case numbers,” the region’s hospitals are not overburdened.

“We see high case rates, yet the severity of the cases have been pretty mild,” he told the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “And … the point of flattening the curve was always to not overwhelm our infrastructure, and over time, we’ve been able to do that successfully.”

“We were asking the governor to take into consideration other things than just case numbers,” he said.

Whatcom County is with Skagit, Island, and San Juan counties, which currently remains in Phase 1.

Elenbaas says he and other local officials have sent a few correspondents in the last couple days to the governor, one of which asks to allow Whatcom County to move to Phase 2 “simply because we’ve done a good job with the mandates and not overwhelming our health care system.”

“And another thing we’re asking for is equity and clarity on reasons for vaccine distribution,” he added. “Because what we’re seeing is that areas that are less populated than our area are receiving more vaccines than we are, for no apparent reason.”

“I guess my thought process is if we’re in Phase 1 and other areas are in Phase 2, well then the administration must feel that we’re somewhat more at risk than those areas. So you think they’d be equitable with their vaccine distributions, but they’re not,” Elenbaas explained.

He says without any transparency or explanation from the governor on why the vaccines are being distributed in the way that they are, he’s sure constituents’ minds will start to wander.

“If he would give us some clarity on why the decisions are being made, … I don’t think that the folks up here in Whatcom County would be scratching their heads so hard,” Elenbaas said.

While it’s been suggested by some that the political views of a county have led to whether they’re allowed to move to Phase 2, both Elenbaas and Jason think that’s not the case. Additionally, Elenbaas is not saying that King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties or those the West region should be closed, but rather that Whatcom County should be open.

“I’ve seen people making the accusation that, ‘Oh, only the areas that voted for Inslee are now open,’ or ‘oh, only the areas that generate the majority of the tax revenue are open.’ And I don’t know if there’s any truth to those statements. But like I said, without any transparency, people can make up anything they want,” he said.

Washington now has capacity to administer 45,000 vaccines a day

In Whatcom County, Elenbaas says it’s the same as everywhere else in the state in that it’s the small businesses that are being destroyed.

“The ma-and-pa store, the fifth, sixth generation local tavern that isn’t able to pay their bills because one morning they woke up and the governor said, ‘You can’t do business anymore,'” he explained. “But Costco is still running at full capacity.”

“The thing that gets frustrating to people, I think, is when they hear the narrative, ‘you don’t care about grandma because you’re advocating for these businesses to be open,'” Elenbaas said. “But then they forget that Costco’s open, Fred Meyer’s open, Target’s open — they’re not getting accused of wanting to kill grandma.”

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3 – 6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here.