By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Days before Lincoln County commissioners again debate whether to proceed with entering Phase 2 of the state’s reopening process, health officials say visitors appear to be bringing the coronavirus into beach communities and announced a workplace outbreak at a large, popular hotel in Lincoln City.
On Monday, Public Health Director Rebecca Austen told commissioners that since late July her department is seeing more cases among motel housekeepers and front desk staff, especially in the Lincoln City area.
On Tuesday, Lincoln County Public Health announced a COVID-19 workplace outbreak at the Surftides Hotel complex in Lincoln City after five of 64 staff members tested positive. The hotel said it was instituting increased sanitation protocols throughout the hotel and adding additional safeguards in public and private areas.
On Thursday, commissioners plan to decide whether to proceed with its application to enter the second of the state’s three-stage reopening process, which would allow entertainment venues, offices and community centers to reopen.
Austen said the county had seen cases spike among restaurant workers following the massive June outbreak at Pacific Seafood. Now it appears it to be working its way into lodging staff — with 15 positive COVID-19 cases among lodging employees this month, including eight total in Lincoln City, health officials told YachatsNews.
“This could indicate that travelers are bringing the virus into the community,” Austen told commissioners. “… we can’t put our finger on it completely; it’s a new phenomenon … and a lot of these cases are sporadic.”
“I do maintain that travelers put us at risk,” Austen told YachatsNews on Tuesday. “The more you open up and the more you move around, the more cases you have.”
Two long-term care residents die
On Monday, Hillside Place, a 37-bed long-term care facility in Lincoln City, announced that two residents with positive COVID-19 tests had died — a 90-year-old man Friday and a 97-year-old woman Saturday. Both had tested positive Aug. 2.
Tests on two other residents who died Saturday — a 66-year-old man and a 93-year-old woman – came back negative late Tuesday, said Logan Pratt, a spokesman for Caring Places Northwest of Forest Grove, which owns and manages the facility. Those two had been tested the day before they died, Pratt said.
All four had underlying medical conditions, Lincoln County Public Health said.
Nine of the county’s 11 coronavirus-related deaths have occurred in nursing homes or long-term care facilities; the previous seven at Avamere Rehabilitation in Newport.
Hillside Place had 10 of residents and five of its staff test positive during weekly testing, said Pratt. The first indication of a problem was a staff member who tested positive July 29, and all 25 residents and 20 staff were tested July 31. Austen said the employee picked up the virus in the community.
The county said previously that it had been working closely with Hillside Place since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in March and inspections by state and county after the initial outbreak found no concerns with its infection prevention protocols.
The Oregon Department of Human Services, said the agency issued an executive order July 29 outlining requirements that Hillside must implement, including testing of all staff and residents within three days of a positive test, state approval of admissions or re-admissions, no visitors, no communal dining and group activities, staff training, and relocating residents with suspected or positive tests to private rooms, if available.
Agency spokeswoman Elisa Williams said state health workers have been visiting Hillside once a week, and were there again Monday.
Jonathan Modie, an Oregon Health Authority spokesman, said that agency’s staff is working with Lincoln County and also consulted with Hillside on July 31 and Aug. 14 to go over strategies to protect staff and residents, use of personal protective equipment, and monitoring and observation procedures.
The reopening debate
During their regular Monday afternoon meeting, county commissioners decided to meet again at 3 p.m. Thursday to decide whether to continue with its reopening application. The county’s application asks to move to Phase 2 of the three-stage plan on Monday, Aug 24.
But Commissioner Doug Hunt opposes the reopening date and Monday commission chair Kaety Jacobson – who with Commissioner Claire Hall voted Aug. 6 to proceed with the application — expressed some discomfort in the county’s continuing case count.
The county has had 21 COVID-19 cases in the past seven days, Aug. 11-17, including seven last Wednesday and six on Thursday. The county total is 441 positive and 7,202 negative tests.
Austen told commissioners most of the new cases were “community spread” or “sporadic” – meaning they could not be traced to a specific source. The county is currently only able to trace 55 percent of its cases to a specific source; the state goal is 95 percent.
Jacobson, Austen and County Counsel Wayne Belmont met with Oregon Health Authority’s top two officials last week to get comments on the county’s Phase 2 application. Belmont said they got “good feedback” and expect either approval or additional guidance before Thursday.
The commissioners agreed to meet late Thursday to see if they still wanted to proceed. Commissioners said previously that they would stop the application process if the county suffered more outbreaks or if overall coronavirus numbers increased sharply.
Lincoln County is one of seven Oregon counties still in Phase 1. The others are Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas in the Portland area, and the eastern Oregon counties of Umatilla, Morrow and Malheur counties, which were pushed back after outbreaks there.
The differences in allowed activities between Phase 1 and Phase 2 were once significant, but not so much since the governor in July re-instituted statewide restrictions on restaurants, bars and indoor and outdoor social gatherings.
The biggest change would be to allow entertainment venues to resume operation with capacity limits of 100 indoors and 250 outdoors, and allow theaters, cinemas, pools, bowling alleys to reopen.
Phase 2 also allows more professional offices to reopen, with precautions for keeping workers separate. And, cities could reopen their community facilities like offices, libraries and community or recreation centers.