WVCC's Statement to the Board of Health

Sasha Sleiman

Thursday, July 2, 2020

The Wenatchee Valley Chamber of Commerce (WVCC) asked the Board of Health to be the convener of the reopening work group to prepare the application for continuing to open our community. The WVCC Board recognized that a change of leadership within the health district could slow the process of reopening and that we were uniquely positioned to unite our community around a common goal.

Regrettably, the recent trend of COVID-19 cases in our region, and around the state, are moving in the wrong direction. At the Chelan Douglas Health District (CDHD) Board meeting it was decided to delay submitting the next phase application until the numbers reach 75 cases per 100,000 people and is trending downward. Our current caseload is 126 cases per 100,000 people and trending up. We have 152 new cases in the last 14 days (6/18 – 7/1). When we applied to move to a phase 1.5+ our caseload was 94 cases per 100,000 and trending down and the new cases in the 14 day period prior to applying was 115.

The working group is made up of 19 leaders from a cross section of our community including local elected officials and law enforcement, healthcare professionals, leaders in the Latinx community, the agricultural industry, the PUD, the Chamber. They provided a summary and recommendations for next steps to the CDHD Board today. You can find this document here. This working group is going to continue to meet to ensure an application is ready to be submitted to the State within 24 hours of our numbers trending down towards a more manageable rate.

At Thursday's Board of Health meeting, Shiloh Burgess Executive Director of the WVCC, made the following statement:

“The mission of the Wenatchee Valley Chamber of Commerce is to champion our community’s quality of life and economic vitality through collaborative leadership and sound business advocacy. Never has this been more challenging or more important in our community’s history.

The well-being of our community and the economic vitality of our region is intrinsically connected. We must be vigilant in our response to COVID-19 as our collective problem; and we must own our responsibility in being the solution that will suppress the disease and re-open our economy.

We recognize that COVID-19 continues to disproportionately impact segments of our community, and at the same time it is also disproportionately impacting the economic viability of certain industry sectors in our region.

The focus of the work group has been absolutely amazing to us. The collaboration that has occurred looking at the situation from all angles have been both inspiring and provides hope. We appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with the CDHD Board of Health, the County Health Officer, our medical community, our Latinx leaders and we ask that we have the opportunity to continue to work towards unifying our community around this common goal of reducing our rate of infection, or cases, that are prevalent in our community, protecting the medically vulnerable and those disproportionately affected by COVID-19, and safely re-open our local businesses.

The Chamber supports the recommendations that are before you, and we ask that you work with us to create a process that recognizes that all businesses are essential and should be able to operate with a COVID-19 safety plan. We believe that we can get the rate of infection back to a manageable place by wearing masks. We are very grateful to our employers, employees and patrons that are participating in this effort. We agree that it can seem like an inconvenience, especially moving into this Fourth of July Holiday, to refrain from gathering in large groups but we must be vigilant in practicing our physical distancing."

Our community has shown that by working together, we can safely reopen our economy. We need your help keeping the economy open and our hospitals COVID free by wearing a mask, refraining from large gatherings, and keeping 6 feet distance. With the cooperation of our entire community, we are confident we will be prepared to take the next step when our community efforts and data supports this movement forward.