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Oregon health officials have said they have no plans to reinstate coronavirus restrictions statewide amid a new and worrying resurgence of infections, and have instead encouraged county governments on Thursday to consider measures to slow the spread.
The Oregon Health Authority is consulting with local health agencies and urging them to take action, but will not offer to impose masks or vaccinations on health workers or other employers. Some counties, alarmed by the recent spikes in cases, are now considering targeted actions.
“A localized pandemic requires effective localized public health interventions, not a statewide response,” Oregon Health Authority director Patrick Allen said at a news conference.
Allen said counties with low vaccination rates should “take action now” and local authorities should urge their populations to get vaccinated, wear masks and avoid social gatherings if they have not received any. vaccines.
Gov. Kate Brown’s office went further, saying in a statement that they “strongly recommend that local leaders consider implementing temporary measures such as masks and physical distancing.”
Thursday’s comments came just three weeks after Brown lifted all statewide restrictions on June 30, including mask warrants and social distancing requirements. Hospitalizations and daily new cases of coronavirus have increased since then in Oregon, as in the rest of the country, and are now slightly higher than they were at this point in 2020.
The state’s growing concern over the resurgence came after officials failed to directly address the threat for weeks. When asked earlier this month whether they think lifting a statewide mask warrant would lead to an increase in cases, officials on July 12 did not respond directly. and instead pointed to outdated modeling that showed a continuing decline in cases.
Oregon reported 169 hospital beds filled with confirmed COVID-19 patients on Thursday, up from 134 on July 1. Over the past week, Oregon has averaged 376 cases per day, just over double the first of the month.
These numbers are significantly lower than at various peaks of the pandemic, but the recent growth in cases differs in a significant way from the outbreaks of the past: it almost exclusively affects a portion of the population that has chosen not to be immune to the disease. coronavirus since vaccines became universally available in April.
“The virus has evolved and now poses an even greater threat to the unvaccinated,” Allen said. “And this threat is concentrated among unvaccinated people living in counties with low vaccination rates. “
State officials have not released recent data analyzing cases and deaths among the vaccinated and unvaccinated. But for June, the health authority said more than nine out of 10 cases and deaths were in people who had not been fully vaccinated.
Only about 71% of adults in Oregon have been fully or partially vaccinated against COVID-19, with low rates in counties such as Josephine, Morrow and Umatilla. These are some of the same areas that currently have the highest case rates, with Umatilla County, for example, recording more than five times as many new cases per capita as the highly vaccinated Multnomah County in a recent recent past. two week period.
This was even before the highly contagious delta variant fully emerged in Oregon. Officials said Thursday that this variant would now account for half of all cases, a lower rate than the rest of the country – suggesting that the trajectory in Oregon may only worsen in the weeks to come.
But some local health officials are wary of warrants, even though they are worried about the growth in cases they have seen.
Umatilla County in eastern Oregon has seen some of the largest increases in cases of any county in the state, from an average of 10 new cases per day on July 1 to 36 new cases daily on July 20.
Anything over 30 is “just too high,” county health director Joseph Fiumara Jr. told The Oregonian / OregonLive, and “can overwhelm that area extremely quickly.”
If cases remain above that baseline this week, he said he would ask county commissioners to issue recommendations such as the wearing of masks by the public and businesses limit the number of people who can be inside both.
However, the warrants are unlikely to work due to the rejection of a community that has consistently disdained state-issued restrictions, he said.
Part of Fiumara’s goal in convincing the public to protect themselves is to avoid the possibility of Brown reinstating the statewide restrictions, he said, although he did not heard that she was considering doing it.
“I guess at some point she would be forced to do it” if cases continue to rise, he said.
The Jefferson County health director is worried because the trends in cases over the past week match the trends from exactly one year ago. His department has not been able to link the increase in cases after Independence Day to specific outbreaks.
With the data he has in hand, Michael Baker said things could turn out in two ways: either the rise in cases is mainly due to the July 4 rallies and will ease soon, or the rise is caused by larger forces and will continue to grow without further intervention.
In the latter case, Baker said he, like the Umatilla County health director, would ask local commissioners in central Oregon County to ask the public to mask themselves and take other action.
Baker said he believed the cases were motivated by a “false sense of security” that Brown’s lifting of restrictions gave.
“I think we stopped a little too early,” Baker said of the mask and social distancing requirements.
The Jackson County health worker is also concerned about the spread of COVID-19 in his county, calling the rapid spread of the disease “disturbing.” About 39 people tested positive per day in the county on July 20, up from about July 1, according to state data.
Dr Jim Shames said his immediate goal is to reach out to every last person who actually wants a vaccine in his community in southern Oregon.
And he doesn’t think it would be effective to impose masks to curb the spread of disease, given the socio-economic and political factors that “make our work difficult,” he said.
The cases will continue to rise, Shames said, and it is unclear what the county can do to stop him.
“I don’t see a way out,” Shames said. “I don’t see a simple solution.
Do you have any advice? Send me an email.
– Fedor Zarkhin
503-294-7674; [email protected]
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