Whatcom should stay in Phase 3 Monday, but future is hazy as county sees 34 new COVID cases

Whatcom County should be safe to stay in Phase 3 of Gov. Jay Inslee’s Healthy Washington — Roadmap to Recovery plan for three more weeks.

After that? Well . . . things are not necessarily looking so good.

The state is expected to evaluate county-by-county data on Monday, May 3, to determine which counties will remain in Phase 3 and which will have to roll back to the more-restrictive Phase 2 guidelines. Two criteria — rates of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations rate — go into making that decision.