By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Lincoln County health officials issued a warning Friday evening about a surge in COVID-19 cases in the county, saying there were nearly as many new cases this week as in the entire month of May.
Lincoln County Public Health said there were 46 new COVID-19 cases from Monday through Friday and 101 cases for the month – 77 percent more than June. There were 47 cases in all of May.
“The only months in 2021 with more cases were January and April,” said Susan Trachsel, spokeswoman for LCPH.
The agency said the last two weeks of July saw a more than doubling of cases – a 126 percent increase – compared with the first two weeks of the month.
For the third straight day Friday the Oregon health Authority reported more than 1,000 new COVID-19 cases in the state. It also said 80 percent of all new cases involved the Delta variant, which is easier to transmit by both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.
While the OHA said 94 percent of Oregonians who fell ill with COVID-19 in June were not vaccinated, it did not have that percentage yet for the month of July.
But, Lincoln County health officials said this week that 11 of 25 new cases last week were so-called “breakthrough” cases involving fully vaccinated people. But, only one of four hospitalizations involved a fully vaccinated person.
County health officials said Friday that people should follow Gov. Kate Brown’s recommendation this week to wear a mask indoors “regardless of vaccination status, as well in crowded outdoor settings.”
“Some locations are requiring masks like state agencies, healthcare, and some businesses may choose to require it,” Trachsel said. “It’s possible more locations will begin to require them.”
The county said there will be free COVID-19 testing Saturday at the Lincoln City Community Center and at Church of the Nazarene in Newport and vaccines at the Lincoln City testing site. Tests are also available at urgent care outlets in the two cities and at most pharmacies, the agency said.
New models suggest problems ahead
COVID-19′s spread in Oregon is on the verge of another deadly wave, with new modeling suggesting the state could see nearly 1,200 new cases and almost 100 new hospitalizations every day by mid-August, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported Friday.
Even with more than half the state’s population considered immune via either vaccine or having contracted the virus previously, state health officials say the fast-traveling delta variant has once again left Oregon at a crossroads. The answer to that onrush, state epidemiologist Dean Sidelinger said Friday, is for eligible people to get vaccinated and for everyone to mask up while in indoor public spaces.
“If you’re not willing to do one of those, you need to change your plans or plan on getting COVID-19 and maybe plan on getting very ill,” Sidelinger said in a press conference.
The messaging comes as the nature of the delta variant’s potential is becoming better understood. New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that even vaccinated people can become potent carriers for the variant. That’s prompted new guidance that people should wear masks in public places regardless of vaccination status.
The state’s new modeling sounds a dire tone far more similar to the urgent warnings health officials were offering last winter than the celebratory “reopening” event Gov. Kate Brown held in Portland exactly a month ago.
The data suggests that every case of COVID-19 in the state is now spreading to more than one person on average — 1.58 to be exact — a worrisome scenario that can lead to exponential spread. That’s far slower than experts expect the virus would be spreading without vaccines and other tools, but faster than the state has seen since the last rise in the spread in April.
Still, the OHA says the virus is much more prevalent in counties with low vaccination rates, with more hospitalizations and deaths among the unvaccinated.
Lincoln County data
The county has the results of 29 laboratory samples from earlier in the summer and five more were submitted to the state by labs last week to see what coronavirus variant they might be. Results of those tests take at least two weeks and are not known, said Trachsel. But the Oregon Health Authority announced Monday that 80 percent all of the most recent virus testing from samples gathered throughout Oregon shows they are the more transmittable Delta variant.
“… with the news that all statewide results show Delta, our increase in cases over the last few weeks, and a surprising number of breakthrough cases, it appears the Delta variant is in county,” Trachsel said in an email to YachatsNews.
On Friday, Trachsel said that of the 108 total cases in June and July, 19 people were fully vaccinated and 17 were under the age of 12 and too young to be inoculated. “It’s getting into our younger population and those who have been vaccinated,” she told YachatsNews.
Other data from Lincoln County shows:
- Of the cases in June and early July, 82 percent of the people who tested positive were not vaccinated and 18 percent were fully vaccinated;
- That changed for the 25 cases reported July 20-26; 52 percent were not vaccinated and 47 percent were fully vaccinated.
- In the past three weeks the COVID-19 infection rate has nearly doubled from 43.5 cases per 100,000 population to 82.8 cases per 100,000.
- The county’s test positivity rate has also nearly doubled from 3.4 percent in June to 6.3 percent by mid-July.
Lincoln County has one of the highest vaccination rates in Oregon, with more than 73 percent of the population over the age of 12 having at least one dose of a vaccine.
But the latest numbers appear to show that both vaccinated and unvaccinated residents are testing positive for COVID-19, health officials said. The key is that vaccinated people do not get seriously ill and have not required hospitalization.
“What it means is that those people could have been way sicker,” LCPH interim director Florence Pourtal told county commissioners Monday. “The vaccines we have available to us to fight Covid are very, very good … but even though they are very, very good, they’re not 100 percent effective.”
The statewide picture
Since lifting statewide restrictions June 30, Gov. Kate Brown and the Oregon Health Authority have left it to counties to decide what to do to curb the spread of the coronavirus. But on Thursday the governor told the OH to develop rules requiring masks in all public schools this fall.
On Tuesday, reversing a decision made just two months ago, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that people vaccinated for the coronavirus resume wearing masks indoors in areas of the country with low vaccination rates. The change follows reports of rising breakthrough infections with the Delta variant of the virus in people who were fully immunized, and case surges in regions with low vaccination rates. The vaccines remain effective against the worst outcomes of infection with the virus, including those involving the Delta variant, the New York Times reported.
On Tuesday afternoon shortly after it announced 1,032 new Oregon cases, the OHA followed suit and recommended universal mask use in public indoor settings throughout the state.
“Today’s reported sharp rise in cases and hospitalizations in Oregon are sobering reminders that the pandemic is not over, especially for Oregonians who remain unvaccinated,” said Dr. Dean Sidelinger, state epidemiologist and state health officer. “The highly contagious Delta variant has increased tenfold in the past two weeks in Oregon, and it is now estimated to be associated with 80% of the new cases in Oregon. The use of face masks provides significant protection for individuals who are unvaccinated as well as an additional level protection from a small but known risk of infection by the virus for persons who have already been vaccinated.”
Unlike the CDC’s recommendation, Sidelinger said his recommendation applies statewide, and not just areas with higher infections and high transmission.
The new CDC guidance recommended indoor masking among vaccinated and unvaccinated people in counties with “high” or “substantial” coronavirus case rates in the past week. That initially excluded 11 lower risk counties in Oregon — including Lincoln. But Lincoln moved into the higher risk category this week.
Some health directors in other Oregon counties have said they are considering releasing mask or social distancing recommendations, depending on case trajectories.
Lincoln County commissioners did not comment Monday on whether they might take any voluntary or mandatory measures, and Pourtal did not recommend any. But, Pourtal said, “I myself have decided to put a mask back on.”
OHA director Patrick Allen told reporters last week that Oregon counties with low vaccination rates are all the counties with the highest infection rates, and that counties with high vaccination rates are almost entirely counties with the lowest infection rates.
“It’s that stark. It’s that simple,” he said. “… the virus has evolved. And it now poses an even greater threat to the unvaccinated – the Delta variant. And that threat is concentrated among unvaccinated people living in low vaccination counties.”
Politics and the vaccine
What’s true across the nation appears to be true in Oregon: If you’re a Republican, you’re less likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Oregonian/OregonLive looked at the county-by-county statistics of Oregonians inoculated against the coronavirus and saw a clear correlation: The 10 counties with the lowest percentages of residents vaccinated all voted — by a landslide — for Donald Trump in the last presidential election. That’s Lake, Malheur, Umatilla, Grant, Harney, Gilliam, Morrow, Union, Douglas and Baker counties.
Eight of the 10 counties with the highest vaccination rates voted overwhelmingly for Joseph Biden. That’s Washington, Hood River, Multnomah, Benton, Lincoln, Deschutes, Lane and Clackamas. Polk and Tillamook — where Trump beat Biden by slim margins of less than 2 percentage points — also made Oregon’s top 10 list of most-immunized counties.
If you dig deeper, the numbers also hold up at the county level – comparing vaccination rates to presidential voting from last November by Zip codes in Lincoln County.
Overall last November, Lincoln County voters favored Biden over Trump 56 percent to 40 percent.
In all but one case, Lincoln County Zip codes with the lowest vaccination rates also preferred Donald Trump over Joseph Biden last November – and visa versa.
In the Yachats-area 97498 Zip code, voters preferred Biden over Trump 77 percent to 21 percent, according to a New York Times nationwide breakdown of voting data. Similarly, the COVID-19 vaccination rate in the Yachats Zip code is 81.5 percent, according to the Oregon Health Authority.
The lowest vaccination rate in the county is in Tidewater’s 97390 Zip code with 42.9 percent. Last November, 53 percent of voters in that same Zip code preferred Trump compared with 44 percent for Biden.
Toledo has the second lowest vaccination rate in Lincoln County – 44.3 percent. Voters in that area supported Trump 60 percent to Biden’s 39 percent.
The only anomaly is the tiny Eddyville Zip code where almost 89 percent of its 222 residents have been vaccinated but which favored Trump over Biden last November, 56 percent to 40 percent.
Other rates and voting preferences are:
- Newport (97365): 69 percent Biden and 66 percent vaccination rate;
- South Beach (97366): 60 percent Biden and 66 percent vaccination rate;
- Waldport (97394): 61 percent Biden and 63.2 percent vaccination rate;
- Siletz (97380): 50 percent Trump/47 percent Biden and 52.1 percent vaccination rate;
- Depoe Bay (97341): 57 percent Biden and 65.9 percent vaccination rate;
- Lincoln City (97367): 59 percent Biden and 68.6 percent vaccination rate;
- Otter Rock (97369): 64 percent Biden and 99.5 percent vaccination rate.
- Otis (97368): 50 percent Trump/47 percent Biden; 46 percent vaccination rate.
The Lincoln County Health Department is trying to target Zip codes with lower vaccination rates with shot clinics, sometimes sponsored by businesses, community groups or tied into summer celebrations.
A clinic three weeks ago at a park near Tidewater drew 20 people, which the agency said was a good turnout. The agency will return to Don Lindly County Park on Thursday to administer second doses or first doses to anyone else who shows up.
But those efforts have generally struggled in vaccine-resistant areas like Toledo. A two-day clinic featuring a catered barbecue at the big Georgia-Pacific mill attracted just 19 people, said Trachsel. Another Toledo clinic gave just six vaccinations, she said, and just 10 people received their second dose Saturday at the Toledo Summer Festival.
Outreach to the county’s Hispanic community seems to be improving turnout to clinics targeting that group. A third clinic Friday at La Juquilita Mexican grocery in Newport inoculated 66 people, 42 of those getting their first shot, Trachsel said.