After almost two and half years, Gov. Jay Inslee announced that Washington’s COVID-19 state of emergency will end effective Monday, October 31.

While Inslee has spent the past few months lifting mandates and rolling back emergency orders, the September 8 announcement sets a final day for the remaining 10 orders. These remaining orders include:

• Requirements related to in-person K-12 and higher education programming;
• Contact tracing and personal information under the Public Records Act;
• Travel restrictions aligned with CDC requirements;
• Protections for recently vaccinated workers and workers in quarantine due to adverse employer actions; and
• Vaccine mandates for employees in certain fields.

While these orders are lifting at the state level, employers still have the option to require vaccinations for employment.

The lifting of these emergency orders does not change or end the statewide face-covering order for health care and long-term care settings enacted by the Washington Department of Health (DOH). MRSC has a on how the end to the state of emergency may impact local governments.

In related news, the FDA and CDC both approved of two updated COVID-19 booster shots that have been reformulated to be more effective against the current omicron strains of the virus. Barring any major evolutionary curveballs in the future, CDC expects that most people will be able to protect themselves from COVID-19 with a regular annual updated booster shot, similar to annual flu shots. Washington received its first 200,000 doses of the new boosters in early September and has gotten more shipments since. City employees can visit the DOH’s Vaccine Locator site to find an updated booster near them.