The lost season, part 3
Inside
Chief takes on deputy role, 2A
The Thrill of the Hunt, 1B
in Sports
Weekend
Edition
SATURDAY-MONDAY • May 23, 2020
COVID-19
by the
numbers*
Worldwide cases: 4,995,996
Worldwide deaths: 327,821
U.S. cases: 1,571,617
U.S. deaths: 94,150
Total U.S. tests: 12,917,827
Oregon cases: 3,864
Good day to our valued subscriber Robert Rea of La Grande
• $1.50
Oregon active cases: 1,922
Oregon deaths: 147
Total Oregon tests: 107,745
Union County cases: 6
Union County active cases: 3
Union County deaths: 0
Total Union County tests: 325
Wallowa County cases: 1
Wallowa County active cases: 0
Wallowa County deaths: 0
Total Wallowa County tests: 98
*As of 2 p.m. Friday, May 22.
Sources: World Health
Organization, Centers for
Disease Control and
Prevention, Oregon Health
Authority and Oregon
Military Department.
Virtual
health care
fl ourishes
during
pandemic
Cycling
challenge
may help
fi ll void
Studies show 1 in
4 people in rural
areas unable to
access health care
La Grande cyclers
set up mountain
bike race course
By Ronald Bond
The Observer
By Sierra Dawn McClain
EO Media Group
SALEM — COVID-19
has forced health care into
cyberspace, and some rural
providers say the shift could
be a post-pandemic “silver
lining.”
When Gov. Kate Brown
ordered health care pro-
viders to stop non-emer-
gency services March 30, it
created what some medical
providers call a “telemed-
icine revolution,” in which
providers have “seen” their
patients through calls or
videos using computers,
tablets or smartphones. Pro-
viders say they expect tele-
medicine will become a
permanent feature of rural
health care.
“I do believe telemed-
icine is here to stay,” said
Gail Nelson, CEO of Rine-
hart Clinic, a community
health center in Wheeler.
In Enterprise, seat of
Wallowa County, family
doctor Elisabeth Powers at
Winding Waters Clinic has
been examining patients the
past few months via com-
puter screen.
Powers is a long-time
advocate of telemedicine
that can result in faster
diagnoses and treatments,
reduce patient stress and
reach rural people who oth-
erwise may not have health
care access — for example,
those limited by mountain
passes and transportation
options. Even as a telehealth
pioneer, her use of virtual
medicine catapulted during
COVID-19.
In early March,
according to Winding
Waters’ CEO Nic Powers
— Dr. Powers’ husband
— about 2% of the clin-
ic’s patients had telehealth
appointments. Now, he said,
it’s 45%.
See, Virtual/Page 5A
Staff photo by Dick Mason
Thomas Houck, a food distribution and warehouse assistant with the Community Connection of Northeast Ore-
gon Regional Food Bank, moves pallets of food Thursday in the dining hall of the Union County Senior Center. The
food bank serving Northeast Oregon is receiving an additional 60,000 pounds of food each month and running
out of space to store it all.
Food boost pushes bank’s limits
Regional Food Bank distributing 60,000 more pounds of food per month
By Dick Mason
The Observer
LA GRANDE —
The Northeast Oregon
Regional Food Bank in
La Grande is not running
short of peanut butter,
rice and canned vegeta-
bles, but it is experiencing
a space shortage.
The bank, based at
the Union County Senior
Center, is now receiving
an additional 60,000
pounds of food a month to
address a growing need in
Northeast Oregon due to
the COVID-19 pandemic.
The extra food is more
than the bank’s ware-
house can handle, and the
staff has been forced to
move much of it into the
dining hall of the senior
center, where activities
Staff photo by Dick Mason
Steve Konopacky of the Community Connection of Northeast Oregon Regional
Food Bank marks food items Thursday in the dinning hall of the Union County Se-
nior Center, La Grande.
See, Food/Page 5A
LA GRANDE — When
the coronavirus pandemic
led to the cancellation of
race after race that cyclists
Elijah Romer and Sean
Lerner had planned to enter,
the La Grande duo decided
to improvise.
What resulted is a moun-
tain biking challenge in the
Mount Emily Recreation
Area near La Grande that
is gaining popularity and
allowing anyone interested
to participate in socially
distanced racing.
“We and a couple other
people in the (Blue Moun-
tain Singletrack Club) had
been planning to go to some
of Oregon’s mountain bike
races,” Lerner said, noting
the plan was to do about a
race a month. “We had been
training all winter. We were
bummed when that got can-
celed. This is the time of
year when we would nor-
mally start doing social
group rides. We can’t do
that either.”
The two devised a
course out of three con-
joined trails at the recre-
ation area people could ride
on and — using the phone
app Strava, which uses GPS
to track outdoor activity —
time the results.
“We could do a virtual
race,” Romer said. “Get
people excited about riding
and riding fast. We came up
with the route — we set it
up and I set up a club link
on Strava.”
Romer said the Strava
group — which had three
people in it at the beginning
of the month when they set
See, Cycling/Page 5A
COVID-19: Oregon not hit as hard as the rest of the nation
12 states with populations akin to
Oregon have higher incidence, test rates
By Ronald Bond
The Observer
LA GRANDE —
Oregon has seen a much
lower breakout of corona-
virus cases when compared
to most of the nation.
As of Thursday, the
state had recorded 3,817
cases of COVID-19
according to the Oregon
Health Authority.
Less than one-tenth
of 1% of Oregon’s more
than 4 million residents
have tested positive. The
number itself is lower than
some less populous states
— South Dakota, New
Mexico and Mississippi are
just three examples with a
lower population that have
more confi rmed cases of
the coronavirus. Montana,
Idaho, Wyoming, Hawaii
and Alaska are all states
with fewer overall cases.
Some of those states,
however, have a higher
incidence rate than the
Beaver State, according
to data on the Johns Hop-
kins University website.
In fact, Oregon is in the
bottom fi ve of states with
the lowest incidence rates
in the nation. Just 90.50
per 100,000 Oregonians
have tested positive for the
virus.
Only Montana, Alaska,
Hawaii and West Virginia
have lower percentages of
the population to contract
the virus.
The state, though, also
ranks near the bottom
of the nation in terms of
testing at 46th. Just four
states — Arizona, Colo-
rado, Kansas and Idaho —
have a testing rate lower
than Oregon’s 2,494.80 per
100,000 residents. Oregon
as of Thursday had con-
ducted 105,132 tests for the
coronavirus, and more than
96% of them have come
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back negative.
So why does Oregon
have a lower number of
cases than most of the
nation?
The low number of
tests would seem to be the
obvious answer, until you
compare the state to others
with similar testing rates.
Virginia, for example, has
a similar testing rate at
2,561.05 per 100,000, but
an incidence rate of 399.94
per 100,000.
Virginia does have more
than double the popula-
tion of Oregon at about 8.5
million, which can partly
account for the higher
number, but the num-
bers still show the virus
infecting four times as
high, and still double if you
fi gure in population.
The 12 states with pop-
ulation most similar to
Oregon (six above and six
below) all have a higher
incidence rate than Oregon,
but all of them also (with
the exception of Colorado)
have a higher test rate.
But each state in the
list has a worse testing
rate-to-incidence rate ratio
than Oregon, many several
times worse. This means
even if Oregon conducted
the same number of tests
as every state immediately
around it — by population
See, Oregon/Page 5A
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Issue 62
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