Official: "Not Aware of Any Immediate Plans" to end Emergency

As of Friday, May 20th, we will be in it alone.

Nevada to lift COVID state of emergency (SOM), leaving only us

With that news, we decided to press some officials on this. Unlike most other media in our state, who lob softball questions about nothingburgers at Gov. Inslee and his administration, we directly asked his Press Secretary, Mike Faulk.

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Faulk is the Deputy Communications Director as well, he's the one who issues the most statements or comments on governmental matters (aside from Inslee). We emailed him Monday, May 16th, and asked if any plans to lift S.O.M. We also asked if any plans to reveal a specific date when it would be lifted. We referenced Nevada, and that we will be the only ones. This was his response (verbatim):

" I’m not aware of any immediate plans regarding the rescission of the remaining proclamations. They’re in place because we’re hearing from stakeholders, other elected leaders and policy analysts that they are still needed based on current conditions – whether it’s the status of the virus itself or labor and supply chain issues. They’ll be lifted when they aren’t needed to help Washingtonians mitigate the ongoing disruptions of the pandemic."

We followed up and asked what he meant by "stakeholders." In these political times, stakeholders has gone from being a term only used for those with investments in financial happenings, to describing special interest groups who 'benefit' from certain policies.

This was his reply, verbatim:

"I don’t have a complete list on me. They include other legislators, county and city officials from around the state, relevant industry groups depending on the sector impacted: the retail and hospitality associations, teachers’ groups, health worker groups and hospital associations, growers and farmworkers, and so on."

It will be curious to find out if all of these groups are consulted on a regular basis about whether they would like to have the state of emergency lifted.

So no end in sight

As of this writing, once again it appears WA state will be snickered at by the rest of the nation, as officials stubbornly cling to every last shred of 'emergency' concerning this wearying situation.

Speaking of Twilight zone-like situations...