Grant County will move to the low-risk level Friday.

Gov. Kate Brown announced the updates to the COVID-19  county risk levels under the state’s public health framework in a press release Tuesday.

According to the press release, the new metric will be based on statewide hospitalizations as the key indicator for measuring the threat of COVID-19.

The governor’s press release noted that vaccine distribution increasing, case counts alone as a metric, is shifting in relevance since its severity is becoming a more significant concern.

Effective immediately, the press release said that they must meet the county metrics for case rates and percent positivity for counties to move to the extreme risk level.

Additionally, a county must meet a new statewide metric: the number of COVID-19 positive patients occupying 300 hospital beds or more and a 15% increase in the seven-day average over the past week.

Grant County Public Health Administrator Kimberly Lindsay said barely made it out of moderate. “It was close,” she said. “One more case and we would have stayed in moderate.”