By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Lincoln County cannot go into the second phase of the Oregon’s coronavirus reopening process until at least Sept. 8, Gov. Kate Brown said in a letter to county commissioners Thursday.
The county had applied to enter Phase 2 effective Monday — if commissioners still felt comfortable with proceeding with looser restrictions on public gatherings and opening of entertainment venues like movie theaters, pools, bowling alleys and community centers.
Commissioners had hoped to have received a detailed response to the county’s application in time for a special 3 p.m. Thursday meeting. Instead, Chair Kaety Jacobson said she had received only a text message from OHA director Patrick Allen saying that Lincoln County’s reopening would be pushed back to Sept. 8 – if the county met metrics for COVID-19 cases the week before.
The county got those details two hours later, its rate of positive COVID-19 tests the past week — 6.8 percent — was above state standards for going into Phase 2. Also, the state said, Lincoln County as of Thursday does not meet two of six health indicators — knowing the source of 70 percent of all COVID-19 illnesses and starting contact tracing within 24 hours of a positive test — that are measurements of how a county is doing in fighting the coronavirus spread.
“We will not be going into Phase 2 on Monday based on the information I have,” Jacobson said in a brief online meeting Thursday.
Commissioners said they would take up the issue – and whether to continue a 24-hour cleaning hold on lodging in unincorporated areas – at its regular 3 p.m. Monday meeting.
“I really don’t have answers now to any questions,” she told commissioners Doug Hunt and Claire Hall.
Even if the state approved the application to go into Phase 2 Monday, whether commissioners actually went ahead with it was uncertain after a series of coronavirus developments this week.
A Health Department citizens advisory group has already recommended that the county wait until two weeks after the Labor Day weekend to enter Phase 2. Hunt endorses that view and voted against the Aug. 24 reopening date. From the governor’s letter it also appeared that Jacobson had been in discussions with the state to find a “mutually agreed upon date” of Sept. 8.
Jacobson – who with Commissioner Claire Hall voted Aug. 6 to proceed with the application — expressed some discomfort Monday in the county’s continuing case count and a series of disturbing news.
On Monday, Hillside Place, a 37-bed assisted living facility in Lincoln City, announced that two residents with COVID-19 had died following an outbreak there — a 90-year-old man Friday and a 97-year-old woman Saturday. Both had tested positive Aug. 2.
That same day, 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, health officials 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.
Austen said the county had seen cases spike among restaurant workers following the massive June outbreak at Pacific Seafood. Now it appears to be working its way into lodging staff — with 15 positive COVID-19 cases among lodging employees as of Tuesday, including eight 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.”
Bad news may weaken support
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 county has had 16 COVID-19 cases in the past seven days, Aug. 13-20, including six last Thursday and four Wednesday. The county total is 444 positive and 7,330 negative tests.
Austen told commissioners Monday that 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 expected either approval or additional guidance Tuesday or Wednesday.
The commissioners agreed to meet at 3 p.m. 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.
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.
Long term care facilities have 9 of 11 deaths
Nine of the county’s 11 coronavirus-related deaths have occurred in rehabilitation centers or assisted living centers. Before Hillside’s outbreak the previous seven deaths were at Avamere Rehabilitation in Newport.
Tests on two other Hillside 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.
Hillside Place had 10 of residents and five of its staff test positive during weekly testing in early August, 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. Hillside said Wednesday that three more employees who had been caring for the COVID-19 positive residents had tested positive and were quarantining at home.
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.