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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2021
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APPEAL TRIBUNE
Tracing
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Address: P.O. Box 13009, Salem, OR 97309
people who have tested
positive. Contact tracers
get in touch with people
who have been in close
contact with those who
have tested positive, keep
track of any symptoms
and help them get what
they need to quarantine.
Although an increas-
ing number of Orego-
nians are getting inocu-
lated against the virus,
COVID-19 continues to
spread here. As of Jan. 15,
the state has designated
26 counties as “extreme
risk,” including Marion
and Polk.
The week of Jan. 3,
8.1% of Oregon tests for
COVID-19 came back pos-
itive, according to the
Oregon Health Authority.
If positive testing is high-
er than 5%, it could be a
struggle to complete con-
tact tracing soon enough
to prevent the spread of
the virus, according to
the World Health Organi-
zation.
Health workers from
Marion, Polk and Wash-
ington counties who
talked with the States-
man Journal said their
job is to educate people
and help them quaran-
tine, and to limit the
spread of the disease,
rather than “shame and
blame.”
The week of Jan. 3,
health officials were able
to contact 68% of people
who tested positive for
COVID-19, within 24
hours of identifying the
case, for an initial inter-
view.
Just about 39% of
cases could be traced to a
known source that week
— the state’s goal is to de-
termine the source of
70% of cases.
A spokeswoman for
the state’s health agency
said OHA does not have
data on how many close
contacts health officials
are able to reach.
Tracking disease
You can infect people
Phone: 503-399-6773
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Web site: www.SilvertonAppeal.com
Staff
News Director
Don Currie
503-399-6655
dcurrie@statesmanjournal.com
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Public Health-Epidemiologist Rachel Posnick poses
for a portrait at Marion County Health and Human
Services. Posnick has been conducting contact
tracing for the last four years. Over the last several
months, her focus has been tracking the spread of
COVID-19. BRIAN HAYES / STATESMAN JOURNAL
Public Notices
PUBLIC NOTICE
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
Review Body: Planning Commission
Hearing Date & Time: February 9, 2021, 7:00
p.m.
Hearing Location: Teleconference meeting via
Zoom with a telephone call in number. Due to
HB 4212, the Planning Commission may hold
public hearings by telephone, video, or through
some other electronic or virtual means. The
instructions to listen to or virtually attend the
meeting will be included in the Planning
Commission meeting agenda which will be
posted on the City’s website and outside of City
Hall, 306 S Water Street, on February 2, 2021.
This will include a hyperlink to the meeting
and a call in number to participate by
telephone.
File Number CP-21-01.
Agenda Item #1:
Comprehensive Plan amendment to adopt the
2021 Water Master Plan as a support document
to the Silverton Comprehensive Plan.
The
application will be reviewed following the
criteria found in Silverton Development Code
section 4.12.400.
Discuss
Agenda Item #2: Discussion/Action.
providing input to City Council on future City
Council Goals
Failure of an issue to be raised in a hearing, in
person or by letter, or failure to provide enough
detail to afford the decision maker an
opportunity to respond precludes appeal to
LUBA based on that issue.
Additional
information and/or review of this application,
including
all
documents
and
evidence
submitted, may be obtained at Silverton City
Hall, 306 South Water Street by telephoning
Jason Gottgetreu at (503) 874-2212. Copies of
the staff report will be available seven (7) days
prior to the public hearing and are available
for review at no cost at City Hall by
appointment, a copy can be provided on
request at a reasonable cost.
Silverton Appeal January 27, 2021
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Posnick said. “We really
want to make sure that
they understand what
they can do personally to
prevent spread.”
That can mean the
county
provides
re-
sources, like places to go
for help with rent or buy-
ing groceries, since quar-
antining may require
people to miss work.
But the process also
can help the scientific
community learn about
the disease: how it mani-
fests and progresses in
individuals, and then
how it spreads in the
community.
“What puts people at
higher risk?” Posnick
said. “Who are the people
that we really need to fo-
cus on that are going to
have poor outcomes?”
Investigators also ask
where people have been
to understand in what
settings they might have
been exposed. Posnick
said that information can
help public health offi-
cials provide better guid-
ance to protect the com-
munity.
How case
investigation works
Counties get batches
of test results from pro-
viders, and case investi-
gators aim to call every
person who has tested
positive.
They ask about any
symptoms you might be
having, risk factors such
as your age, and where
you might have been ex-
posed to the virus, Pos-
nick said.
These
investigators
also ask about places you
went while you were in-
fectious. And they ask for
demographic
informa-
tion including race, eth-
nicity and what language
you speak.
The person who has
tested positive provides a
list of close contacts that
local public health au-
thorities also try to notify.
A close contact is de-
fined as anyone you have
been in contact with for 15
cumulative minutes in a
24-hour period, within 6
feet, during the window
of time in which you were
infectious, said Posnick.
Posnick gave an exam-
ple: let’s say you’re a reg-
ular at a coffee shop who
goes to pick up a coffee to
go, a process that takes
five minutes. Even if you
go every day for five min-
utes, that wouldn’t meet
the criteria of 15 minutes
in one 24-hour period.
Sonia Castañeda Felix,
a student at Western Ore-
gon University, works
part-time as a contact
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with COVID-19, even if
you don’t exhibit any
symptoms, making the
disease especially diffi-
cult to contain.
Asymptomatic people
might go about normal
activities rather than
staying put because they
feel OK – and then run the
risk of infecting someone
else, who might have a
much worse experience.
But if a case investiga-
tor can contact people
who test positive, then
encourage them to quar-
antine, that can help limit
the spread of the virus.
The same goes for con-
tact tracing, by stopping
potentially-infectious
contacts from going out
into the community.
“Our contact tracers
are checking in on people
who have been exposed
and making sure that
they have access to the
resources that they need
to stay home and that
they have not developed
symptoms,” said Rachel
Posnick, an epidemiolo-
gist who works in case in-
vestigation at Marion
County Health and Hu-
man Services.
The goal is to educate
people and to try to help
them take measures to
limit the spread of CO-
VID-19, Posnick said.
“So that might be with-
in their home, handwash-
ing, staying away from
people, being in their own
room, things like that,”
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tracer for Polk County. A
contact tracer can com-
plete the necessary train-
ing in a week if necessary,
Castañeda Felix said.
Castañeda Felix said
she attended three train-
ing sessions: one provid-
ed by a national associa-
tion representing public
health agencies and
workers, one by the
state’s health agency, and
training on how to use the
platform the state and
counties use to record da-
ta from contact tracing
calls.
She says she contacts
about 30 to 35 people ev-
ery day.
With each person she
reaches, Castañeda Felix
has a longer initial con-
versation notifying them
that they were exposed,
explaining how long they
need to quarantine, and
seeing if they need finan-
cial help or other support
to stay home.
She also does shorter
daily check-ins after that
initial conversation for
the duration of their
quarantine.
Given the recent surge
in cases, the Oregon
Health Authority has rec-
ommended that if coun-
ties need to streamline
the contact tracing proc-
ess, they should prioritize
people
in
high-risk
groups, limit interactions
to one interview, and for-
go the two weeks of daily
monitoring.
Patient privacy a
priority
Contact tracers across
the country have faced
difficulties reaching peo-
ple.
Just about half of
Americans surveyed by
the Pew Research Center
this year said they would
be “comfortable or likely
to engage with all three
key steps” in contact trac-
ing: Talking to a tracer,
sharing information with
them, and quarantining if
they tested positive.
The contact tracers
and case investigators in-
terviewed by the States-
man Journal said most
people they reach are re-
ceptive and helpful.
According to data
maintained by the Ore-
gon Health Authority,
Marion County public
health officials “initiated
follow up” with 74% of
people who tested posi-
tive for COVID-19 in the
week of Jan. 3 for an ini-
tial interview within 24
hours of identifying the
case. In Polk County, that
share was 97%, and in
Washington
County,
36%.
The county doesn’t
share information on the
person who tested posi-
tive with their contacts,
said Jacqui Umstead,
Polk County public health
administrator.
“I know some people …
they’re concerned that if
they list their close con-
tacts, that they’re going
to get blamed,” Umstead
said, “And it is confiden-
tial.”
If it’s a member of your
household, you’ll find out
pretty quickly who it is
because you live with
them, but “if it’s a work
contact or a friend or a
different close contact,
that information is never
revealed in the contact
tracing interview,” Um-
stead said.
“We want people to
feel as safe as possible
talking to us,” said Nancy
Griffith, senior program
coordinator who helps
oversee
Washington
County’s contact tracing
and case investigation
programs.
The process is volun-
tary, but public health of-
ficials urge participation.
A contact tracer will
never ask for your finan-
cial information or Social
Security
information,
said Castañeda Felix. She
said she just asks for date
of birth and address to
confirm she is speaking
with the correct person.
Surge in cases poses
challenges
As of early December,
Washington County was
dealing with a significant
surge in cases.
While they were still
trying to reach every per-
son who tested positive,
they were asking those
Chick-fil-A
Continued from Page 1A
Tribes of the Siletz.
Company representa-
tives filed the Area D
master plan amendment
on Dec. 17, just a few
weeks after a Chick-fil-A
Food Truck PDX began
making near-weekly vis-
its to the Salem area.
Along with its fans, the
chain also has its detrac-
tors.
For years the chicken The Delafield Chick-fil-A will open Feb. 27. SUBMITTED
sandwich chain has faced
backlash for its donations
to anti-LGBTQ groups. invite God's judgment on itable initiatives, but still
receives criticism on so-
CEO Dan Cathy once said the country.
In 2019, the company cial media.
supporting marriages of
The plans filed are only
same-sex couples would made changes to its char-
people to notify their
close contacts, “as they
can likely do this before
we can,” said county
spokeswoman
Mary
Sawyers.
She said that the coun-
ty focuses on “high-risk
exposures in long term
care facilities, adult and
group homes, shelters
and sober living facilities,
jails, schools and daycare
exposures.”
The county prioritizes
contacts in those types of
facilities, and she said
that “as capacity allows
we continue to do some
contact tracing in the
general population.”
Posnick, the epidemi-
ologist in Marion County,
said in December the dis-
ease investigation team
had between 50 and 60
staffers – up dramatically
from six people before the
pandemic.
Still, the leap in cases
in the two weeks after
Thanksgiving had creat-
ed even more demand for
the county’s disease in-
vestigation team, Pos-
nick said.
“We were doing pretty
well up until the surge,”
Posnick said. “I don’t
know that it’s that we
don’t have enough peo-
ple. I think we’re just still
trying to figure out how to
reposition so that we can
meet growing case num-
ber demands.”
Washington County
has increased its disease
investigation staff dra-
matically as well, going
from a team of about
eight to 10 people to about
175 people, said Sawyers.
As of early January,
Polk County was in the
process of hiring two case
investigators and poten-
tially one more, Umstead
said.
That’s on top of the
three people the county
hired earlier and others
who have been pulled
from non-COVID duties
to help with disease in-
vestigation.
“We are looking for
more help there,” Um-
stead said. “We’re staying
on top of our cases, but
it’s definitely been chal-
lenging.”
the first exploratory step
into a multi-step process
toward opening a new
restaurant.
If the project does
move forward, a Keizer
Chick-fil-A
location
would be the first in the
Salem area and seventh
in Oregon. There are cur-
rently two in Beaverton
and one each in Hillsboro,
Bend,
Medford
and
Clackamas.
Emily Teel is the Food
& Drink Editor at the
Statesman Journal. Con-
tact her at eteel@states-
manjournal.com,
Facebook, or Twitter. See
what she's cooking and
where she's eating this
week
on
Instagram:
@emily_teel.