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Governor Kate Brown plans to follow California’s lead and demand state employees get vaccinated as Oregon faces another wave of COVID-19 due to delta plus variant infectious.
Oregon’s vaccination rate has stagnated since most eligible people who were anxious to get vaccinated did so earlier this year.
“We are reviewing the measures taken by California, including those concerning public employees, and determine what other measures can be taken in Oregon,” the governor’s deputy director of communications, Charles Boyle wrote Tuesday.
The state is already paying an incentive of $ 100 to employees who will be vaccinated by the end of July. About 80% of the state’s public workers are vaccinated against COVID, according to researchers at the University of Oregon.
State health officials on Tuesday recommended that all Oregonians wear masks indoors, as daily new cases jumped to 1,000 and hospitalizations of people with the virus increased by 25% in one day. But they stopped before reinstating an indoor mask warrant.
California Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Monday that he would require all state employees and public and private health workers on site to be vaccinated or tested at least weekly starting August 9. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has adopted a similar requirement. which goes into effect in mid-September and President Biden is expected to announce Thursday that all federal civilian employees must be vaccinated or undergo routine coronavirus testing. Federal employees who treat patients in hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs should be vaccinated.
The announcements did not initially move Portland city officials, who said Monday they would not follow California and New York City out of respect for various reasons that city employees might be reluctant to go. get vaccinated, from online disinformation to mistrust of the medical system. However, on Wednesday Mayor Ted Wheeler said he would push to require city workers to provide proof of vaccination or submit to weekly COVID tests.
-Hillary Borrud
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