By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Lincoln County commissioners plan to debate again Monday whether to proceed with their application to go to Phase 2 of Oregon’s reopening plan, or pull back if there continues to be uneasiness about the level of coronavirus in the county.
Commissioners voted 2-1 Aug. 3 to apply to the state to enter Phase 2 on Aug. 24. But commissioners said they would halt the application or seek a later date if coronavirus trends didn’t improve or if there was another large business or community outbreak.
During their regular meeting this week, commissioners continued to express concern about fluctuating COVID-19 case numbers, especially as Public Health Director Rebecca Austen repeatedly urged caution.
“I’m not a Phase 2 person ‘Come hell or high water’,” said commission Chair Kaety Jacobson, who voted with Claire Hall to proceed with the original application. “I guess next week we’ll have that discussion …”
As of Wednesday, Lincoln County has had a total of 428 COVID-19 cases since March and nine deaths, all but two were residents of a Newport nursing home. In the past seven days there have been 18 cases, according to the Oregon Health Authority, including an additional seven Wednesday.
New state statistics are showing that the county’s contact tracers cannot determine where 55 percent of people with new, positive tests may have caught the illness, said Austen.
“A little over half of our cases we cannot say where it’s coming from,” she told commissioners.
And in the past week the percent of all tests that have been positive is 9.4 percent, according to the OHA, up from 3.6 percent.
“It is going in the wrong direction,” Austen said. “Testing rates are going down and positivity rates are going up. It’s very disconcerting.”
But the source of COVID-19 cases has changed. In June it was the massive outbreak at Pacific Seafood that spread into the community, including numerous restaurants. Then in July and August the big outbreaks at Avamere Rehabilitation in Newport, and more recently Hillside Place in Lincoln City, which as of Wednesday has reported 19 positive cases.
Now, Austen told commissioners said the virus is generally moving around the county’s largest cities. Without pointing to particular numbers or cases, she also said tourists are having an impact. This comes as Gov. Kate Brown is exploring the idea of somehow limiting out-of-state visitors, according to her office and various newspaper reports.
“There’s no longer one thing we can point to as the culprit. It’s everything,” she said. “If you look outside any window it does not look like there’s a pandemic going on.”
Despite Austen’s dire warnings, according to the OHA’s latest figures there are just 31 people hospitalized with the disease in the five-county region that includes Lincoln, Marion, Benton, Linn, Polk and Yamhill counties.
The county ranks seventh in Oregon for the number of cases per 100,000 people — 868.
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, local cities could reopen their community facilities like offices, libraries and community centers.
24-hour lodging hold stays in effect
Commissioners also voted 2-1 Monday to extend a regulation until Aug. 25 that says motels and vacation rentals in unincorporated areas of cannot allow housekeepers into rooms or homes for 24 hours after the previous guests leave. Hall and Doug Hunt voted for the extension; Jacobson against it.
The county’s 24-hour hold was due to expire Monday, Aug. 18.
The 24-hour hold is the longest for any jurisdiction in Lincoln County. Since adopting similar holds in May, Newport has gone to three hours and Yachats one hour. Depoe Bay and Lincoln City no longer have any restrictions; Waldport never approved one.
Commissioners debated what a 1-, 3- or 24-hour hold did to combat the spread of the virus. Hunt said three hours was enough to kill the virus but said his intent all along in support of the 24-hour rule was to limit the number of tourists.
Motel operators say the restriction has the effect of cutting occupancy by up to 30 percent.
“It forces rooms to be vacant, limits the number of people who can come to the county, and therefore helps limit spread,” Hunt said.
Commissioners said they would take up the issue again at their Monday, Aug. 24 meeting.
