I don't know about all states as they have different rules, but in Washington they track:
1. Trend in 14-day rate of new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population, shown as Trend in case rate;
2. Trend in 14-day rate of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 population, shown as Trend in hospital admission rate;
3. Average 7-day percent occupancy of ICU staffed beds, shown as Percent ICU occupancy;
4. 7-day percent positive of COVID-19 tests, shown as Percent positivity.
And there are phased reopening plans, where restrictions are slowly lifted based on different tresholds for the above. So if the above 4 metrics meet some treshold we might go into phase 2 where now indoor dining at half capacity is permitted for example. If the numbers than stay under the treshold and eventually keep going down, we'd go to phase 3, etc. If the numbers get worse after moving to phase 2 we'd go back to phase 1 with more restrictions.
Seems pretty reasonable to me. They're always kind of revising the tresholds to some extent as well, so it's not set in stone. But it makes sense for me to take a staged approach to reopening and just make sure we're truly over Covid before going all back to normal (so it doesn't come back).
1. Trend in 14-day rate of new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population, shown as Trend in case rate;
2. Trend in 14-day rate of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 population, shown as Trend in hospital admission rate;
3. Average 7-day percent occupancy of ICU staffed beds, shown as Percent ICU occupancy;
4. 7-day percent positive of COVID-19 tests, shown as Percent positivity.
And there are phased reopening plans, where restrictions are slowly lifted based on different tresholds for the above. So if the above 4 metrics meet some treshold we might go into phase 2 where now indoor dining at half capacity is permitted for example. If the numbers than stay under the treshold and eventually keep going down, we'd go to phase 3, etc. If the numbers get worse after moving to phase 2 we'd go back to phase 1 with more restrictions.
Seems pretty reasonable to me. They're always kind of revising the tresholds to some extent as well, so it's not set in stone. But it makes sense for me to take a staged approach to reopening and just make sure we're truly over Covid before going all back to normal (so it doesn't come back).