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Oregon Health Authority director Patrick Allen told the OPB that a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections could cause “more than 1,000 cases per day” over the next month if people don’t change not their behavior.
The spread of contagious variants and the easing of restrictions on businesses and social gatherings have already led to an increase in COVID-19 cases locally and nationally. Now, that spike in cases has triggered a return to tighter indoor dining capacity limits and restrictions on other business and personal meetings in many of Oregon’s most populous counties.
The state moved six counties to its “high risk” category on Tuesday, triggering tighter capacity limits for restaurants, bars, gyms, shops and limiting private social gatherings to 8 people.
The counties affected include Multnomah and Clackamas in the Portland metropolitan area, as well as the more rural counties of Deschutes (where Bend is located), Klamath, Linn and Tillamook, expanding the list of “high risk” counties to 14. Oregon.
Governor Kate Brown also announced a major change in the parameters the state uses to determine when to judge counties at “extreme risk”, which triggers an outright ban on indoor dining, among other restrictions.
This level of risk will only be triggered in limited circumstances indicating that the condition may be at risk of running out of hospital capacity: COVID-19 positive patients occupying 300 or more hospital beds, and a 15% increase in hospital capacity. the seven-day average last week.
Three counties, Josephine, Klamath and Tillamook, meet the state’s threshold of cases and positivity rates to be designated “extreme risk,” but will instead be considered high risk, according to the new guidelines.
The governor described the current situation as a race between the vaccination effort and the spread of more transmissible variants of COVID-19 that have been detected across the state.
Two states with a high enough case count to be considered “at extreme risk” – Josephine and Tillamook – have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the state.
Overall, Oregon’s vaccination rates are not yet high enough to stop the spread of COVID-19: only about a third of Oregonians have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 19% are fully vaccinated. Statewide, 76% of people 65 and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 57% are fully immunized, but rates vary widely from state to state.
Allen warned that seniors in rural Oregon, where vaccination rates have lagged, are particularly vulnerable as the number of cases, test positivity rates and hospitalizations continue to rise.
Grant County has the lowest rate of seniors vaccinated, with just 23.6% fully vaccinated, while the highest is Baker County with 87.7% of seniors fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
Allen is concerned that rates for seniors may stabilize at 50% or less in some rural areas.
“I think there are a lot of factors, and it’s a bit difficult to get to the bottom of that. I don’t think it’s because of the lack of access to the vaccine. I think it’s a lack of concern about the disease in some cases, a perception that many of us have that we’re healthy and strong, ”Allen said.
Oregon was one of the last states in the country to widely open vaccine eligibility to people 65 and older, and in many counties a fragmented, largely online system for registering for appointments- you was difficult for the elderly to navigate.
Allen says that while demand for vaccines still exceeds supply in the Portland metropolitan area, this is no longer the case in parts of rural Oregon, where vaccination appointments take longer to be. reserved.
Statewide, the pace of vaccinations has accelerated significantly, a factor in the governor’s decision to open vaccine eligibility to all Oregonians 16 and older on April 19, according to a new deadline. set by President Joe Biden.
“Our daily average seven days a week is approaching 35,000 people. While you still have a traffic jam when you qualify for a new group, we accelerate those traffic jams faster, ”Allen said.
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