By DICK HUGHES/Oregon Capital Bureau
Gov. Kate Brown hopes that some rural areas with few or no COVID-19 cases could start reopening for business and other activities as soon as May 15.
Brown held video conferences Friday afternoon with county and hospital officials in central and eastern Oregon to talk about testing, contact tracing and isolating of people infected with the coronavirus.
“Assuming these counties have these processes in place, that would enable us to safely and slowly begin the reopening process on May 15 for some counties – only if they meet all the criteria,” she said during a Friday morning press conference conducted by phone and video.
Brown said criteria would be released soon for counties that have had more than five COVID-19 cases. All of Oregon’s urban counties and some rural counties are in that situation.
“We’re not going to be able to reopen Oregon quickly or in one fell swoop,” Brown said, adding that Oregonians will still need to maintain physical distancing, wear masks in public and follow proper hygiene to prevent spreading the coronavirus. “Handshaking is probably out the window for a long time.”
“I wish I could tell folks in Eastern Oregon that our lives are going to get back to normal. It is just going to be a different type of normal. And until we have a vaccine or we have medicine, we are going to have to be extremely careful regarding the virus.”
The Oregon Health Authority and Brown’s staff, working in consultation with advisory groups, has been drafting guidelines for how specific business sectors could reopen. As of Friday, medical, dental and veterinary facilities were allowed to resume regular procedures so long as they followed those rules.
Brown announced what she said was a thorough strategy to diagnose those who have COVOID-19 and to determine places where the coronavirus might be hiding. She said testing should available throughout Oregon for anyone who displays COVID-19 symptoms, as well as to people in nursing homes, farmworker housing, prisons, fishing boats and other group living situations where the disease was suspected.
Public health officials will trace who came in contact with infected individuals. Anyone who did so will be asked to self-quarantine at home for 14 days.
In addition, Oregon Health & Science University will launch a year-long statewide study in which 100,000 Oregon are selected at random and asked to volunteer for daily monitoring. Invitations to volunteer will be mailed out the week of May 11.
“In order to reopen and hopefully stay open, we must have randomized, widespread testing across the entire state,” Brown said. “This program is a game changer. It will give us a more accurate understanding of the true rate of infection in Oregon and to have ongoing precision monitoring of any new outbreaks.”
OHSU President Dr. Danny Jacobs said the data would help Oregon manage through the pandemic until a vaccine is developed. But he cautioned, “If we move too quickly in resuming our pre-COVID-19 lives, we put ourselves at increased risk of a secondary or second wave of infection.”
Dr. Dean Sidelinger, the state health officer, acknowledged the risks. “Our projections show that the disease will increase in Oregon as we open up, that more people will be hospitalized and even die,” he said.
Brown said the state would be ready to tighten restrictions if COVID-19 surged. Key metrics include the number of people going to hospital emergency departments for COVID-19 treatment, the average number of new cases and hospitalization rates.
The state’s major hospital systems – including Providence, Legacy, Kaiser, Asante, St. Charles and OHSU — have agreed that testing for the disease will be managed on a unified, statewide basis so every region has adequate resources. Brown said rural hospitals would be included.
Although the state has sufficient testing capacity overall, Oregon Health Authority documents show shortages in the central and southern Willamette Valley, along the central and southern coast, and in some of Eastern Oregon.
Harney, Umatilla, Baker and Douglas counties have submitted letters asking the governor for approval to reopen. Umatilla County Commissioner George Murdock said the Friday afternoon video conference with Brown left him feeling optimistic about a mid-May reopening.
“We don’t think our businesses can last much longer. They’re hanging on by a thread,” he said.
Murdock said officials were still seeking guidance about the feasibility of large gatherings, such as county fairs and the Pendleton Round-Up. Brown said that information would be forthcoming.
The Oregon Capital Bureau in Salem is staffed by reporters from EO Media and Pamplin Media Group and provides state government and political news to their newspapers and media around Oregon, including YachatsNews.com
Later Friday, Lincoln County commissioners and health officials released their plans for how to reopen the county. Here are the details in a news release:
NEWPORT – Lincoln County, along with community partners has begun working on a local plan to reopen local business and recreation that will follow Governor Brown’s Reopening Oregon Framework. The plan will be developed in a way that makes sense for Lincoln County and submitted to the Governor for her approval.
The Governor has provided draft guidance on how counties will reopen. She stated today that some counties may be able to enter Phase 1 on May 15th. Most businesses closures were a result of state orders, not county or city ones. Thus, it is the state that has to lift those orders so that most businesses can reopen.
The current draft guidance provided by the state requires that counties meet seven prerequisites before a county can enter phase one of Reopening Oregon. Lincoln County and its partners are working on ensuring we will be able to meet these gating criteria. These criteria are:
- Declining prevalence of COVID-19: This metric only applies to counties with more than 5 cases. Lincoln County currently has 5 total cases, but only 2 active cases. If we increase our case count, we will need to verify:
- The percentage of emergency department visits for COVID-19-like illnesses (CLI) are less than the historic average for flu at the same time of year.
- Minimum Testing Regimen: Regions must be able to administer COVID-19 testing at a rate of 30 per 10,000 people per week. In Lincoln County this would be approximately 150 tests per week. Our local healthcare system is able to do that now. However, this metric is measured at the Health Region level, not at the county level. An individual county cannot move into phase one if regional hospital capacity is beneath that level. Lincoln County is in Region 2 and includes, Yamhill, Polk, Lincoln, Benton, Marion and Linn counties. The region is meeting Monday to plan for this requirement.
- In Lincoln County, Samaritan Health Services has expanded their testing capability to test all symptomatic patients with doctor’s orders at the Depoe Bay or Waldport sites. We are testing asymptomatic people working in congregate care settings and their families.
- Contact Tracing System: Counties must have a minimum of 15 contact tracers for every 100,000 people.
- Lincoln County has met this requirement. Public Health has expanded training to additional public health staff and have begun taking names of volunteers for future training if needed. Also, the State of Oregon has committed to training 600 additional people to meet surge demand in counties.
- Isolation Facilities: Counties must have hotel rooms available for people who test positive for COVID-19 and who cannot self-isolate.
- Lincoln County has already been working on developing a solution for this but does not have this plan finalized yet.
- Finalized Statewide Sector Guidelines: Each sector must adhere to Oregon Health Authority statewide guidelines to protect employees and consumers, make the physical workspace safer and implement processes that lower risk of infection in the business.
- These guidelines are being finalized by the State and will be posted on Lincoln County’s website.
- Sufficient Health Care Capacity: Each region must be able to accommodate a 20% increase in suspected or confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations compared to the number of suspected or confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations in the region at the time Executive Order No. 20-22 was issued.
- This metric is measured at the Health Region level, not at the county level. An individual county cannot move into phase one if regional hospital capacity is beneath that level.
- Sufficient PPE Supply: All hospitals in the health region must report PPE supply daily to OHA’s Hospital Capacity system. Large hospitals and health systems in the region must attest to a 30-day supply of PPE, and rural hospitals must have a 14-day supply. This metric is measured at the Health Region level, not at the county level.
- Counties must attest to sufficient PPE supply for first responders in the county. The Lincoln County incident management team has already set up distribution systems to long-term care, foster homes, jails and other facilities. A sterilizing machine will be ready next week in Eugene to clean N-95 masks. This benchmark is dependent upon stockpiling PPE.
For more information on Lincoln County’s ongoing reopening plans, go to https://www.co.lincoln.or.us/hhs/page/reopening-lincoln-county