Saturday, december 12, 2020
tHe ObSerVer — 5A
DARK DAYS
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“While individuals at
our community have tested
positive for COVID-19, we
continue working together
to care for our residents,
protect the safety of our
team members and protect
the people in our commu-
nity,” Wildflower stated.
According to the Oregon
Health Authority’s weekly
outbreak report from
Wednesday, there were 69
positive cases of COVID-19
at Wildflower Lodge, up
from 63 the previous week.
The outbreak at Northwood
Manufacturing grew from
15 to 16 cases.
As of Friday, 95 pos-
itive cases of COVID-19
had been reported in Union
County in December, and
the state continues to cat-
egorize the county as
“extreme risk.” The county
must average no more than
four cases per day for 14
days to escape that category
and the severe restrictions
that accompany it.
Oregon recorded 8,402
new cases of COVID-19
between Sunday and Friday
and 10,355 the week before,
making that week the sev-
enth consecutive of record
high positive cases. The
total number of people
infected in the Beaver State
during the pandemic now
stands at 91,449.
Oregonians once again
watched the state break
another record-high death
toll when the OHA reported
the passing of 36 people on
Tuesday, breaking the pre-
vious record of 30 deaths
Kaleb Lay/The Observer
Workers with the Center for Human Development stand in
full protective gear in near-freezing temperatures Monday,
Dec. 7, 2020, during a free testing clinic in La Grande.
set just four days ear-
lier. With 108 deaths since
Sunday, Dec. 6, the state
death toll is a disheartening
1,138.
Nationally, deaths
attributed to COVID-19
continue to number in the
thousands each day. As of
Friday, according to the
Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention, the
U.S. had recorded 16,308
deaths in the previous week
— roughly equivalent to
accruing the death toll of
the Sept. 11, 2001, terror
attacks every 31 hours.
Hospitals
The most recent mod-
eling from the Oregon
Health Authority, released
Dec. 4, projected 75-110
Oregonians could be hos-
pitalized every day by
Christmas Eve. If that were
to come to fruition, the
number of patients likely
would overwhelm Oregon’s
hospitals.
Data from the OHA
show weekly hospital-
izations statewide have
trended upward since late
October, with 494 hospi-
talizations — about 70 per
day — between Nov. 30 and
Dec. 6, a 24% increase over
the previous week.
Oregon’s hospitals have
been pushed to their limits
under the heavy caseload.
On Monday, according to
OHA data, only 18.45% of
the staffed adult hospital
beds in the state were avail-
able. On Thursday, that
number shrunk to 14.5%.
The Health Authori-
ty’s modeling predicted 75
hospitalizations per day
would be the average if
Oregon continued its trend
in rates of spread. As of
Dec. 2, that trend indicated
every person infected with
COVID-19 spread it to an
average of 1.25 additional
people.
Rates of spread were
higher in October, with
each positive case resulting
in 1.5 additional posi-
tive cases. If spread were
to return to that level, the
modeling predicted 110
hospitalizations per day
by Dec. 24. Average daily
cases also would nearly
double to 2,700 per day in
that worst-case scenario.
“Over the past week,
Oregon has had one of the
lowest case rates in the
country, according to the
CDC,” said OHA director
Pat Allen on Friday. “If
our rise in cases begins to
abate, we may be able to
stave off the worst-case
scenario our recent model
forecasted.”
While their modeling
paints a potentially dire pic-
ture for the coming weeks
in Oregon, OHA noted
“predicting future trends
in COVID-19 is extremely
challenging.” The spread of
COVID-19 outpaced pre-
vious modeling, quickly
making it outdated.
With hospitals straining
to supply enough staff,
space and supplies to treat
their patients under existing
loads, public health offi-
cials have warned that such
an increase could lead to
an inability for hospitals to
provide basic services, from
treating car crash victims to
delivering babies.
Vaccine incoming
In a media briefing on
BENEFITS
DISTANCE
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the bigger priority, he said.
Fiumara said, not only
does the delay in counting
the test results impact the
severity of county lock-
down measures, which are
based in part on the pos-
itivity rate, it also gives
county health officials no
way to track, isolate and
respond to positive cases.
“If (rapid tests are) the
only testing happening in a
county, you can have posi-
tive cases with a zero per-
cent positive rate,” he said.
According to OHA’s
data, Grant County had a
total of 31 positive cases
last month when the county
saw roughly 95% of its 142
infections.
Sarah Poe, Malheur
County’s public health
administrator and public
health information officer,
said most health care pro-
viders in rural counties do
not have access to in-house
labs and send out for them
when someone is sick.
Poe said rural Orego-
nians lacked accessible
testing options, and the pur-
pose of bringing rapid tests
to the county was to make it
easier for people to test.
“Early on, we’re given
a rapid test machine,” she
said. “Most of our clinics
around here, including the
hospital, all have rapid test
machines, and none of those
tests are being counted.”
Poe said, previously, she
and her staff had manually
converted the formatting
so antigen and rapid test
results could be submitted
to the state’s database with
the other results. However,
she said the state is now
online instruction. He
noted there have been few
cases COVID-19 cases in
schools despite high levels
of positive cases in the
county.
For example, the North
Powder School District
has had just one case in
three and a half months,
and that involved a student
who was exposed to the
virus outside the school
district. Fortunately, no
other students contracted
COVID-19.
Dixon said students
receiving instruction
onsite are actually in a
good situation with regard
to COVID-19.
“They are wearing
masks and are social dis-
tancing. They are in a
very secure environment,”
Dixon said.
The superintendent said
state officials, including
Colt Gill, the state’s deputy
superintendent of public
instruction, appear willing
to consider extending the
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
Abbott’s ID NOW rapid testing equipment, second ma-
chine from right, sits on a counter at Pioneer Memorial
Hospital in Heppner on April 16, 2020. While rapid testing
equipment was distributed to many rural hospitals early in
the pandemic, rural county health officials have said many
of the rapid testing results, which are reported differently
from conventional lab testing, are not being counted.
purging the negative rapid
test results from its elec-
tronic system, which was
bogged down with so much
data, so those negative tests
can no longer be tracked.
She said there were
about 600 test results
with a 10% positivity rate
from drive-thru tests in
November that would not
be counted under the cur-
rent setup.
The impact
Poe said the problem is
Malheur County’s positivity
rate is 20%, and the county
is conducting drive-thru
tests en masse using rapid
tests with nowhere to send
the test results — a large
number of negative tests
that would reduce the rate
will not be counted.
Poe said ramping up
testing amid an outbreak of
positive cases is the right
thing to do, but it’s diffi-
cult when many residents
are skeptical of the virus to
begin with.
“I have guaranteed my
constituents because they
are working really closely
with us to expand testing,
and we’ve had to do a lot
of relationship-building in
a very conservative county
even to get people on board
to test,” she said. “I am
losing all of the buy-in and
the trust that went into
increasing testing.”
The positives
The health administra-
tors agreed the change to
count all tests, and not just
tests from new patients,
will eventually benefit rural
counties.
Fiumara said, if someone
tested negative in May, but
then returned for another
test in September and
was negative, that second
test would not have been
counted as part of that Sep-
tember daily number of
tests administered.
Not counting “serial tes-
ters,” such as health care
workers, increases the pos-
itivity rate of counties, he
said.
The positivity rate is
important, he said,
because it is used to
determine when to open
schools or when and how
to limit businesses.
Thursday, officials with the
Oregon Health Authority
said rural counties with
fewer health care workers
— such as Union County —
should not expect to receive
any of the early doses of the
Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19
vaccine, which the federal
Food and Drug Administra-
tion this week fast-tracked
for an emergency use
authorization.
OHA officials Joe Sul-
livan and Rex Larsen said
the extreme cold storage
requirements of the Pfizer
vaccine made use of the
Moderna vaccine, which is
expected to arrive one week
later, more feasible in rural
areas.
The Pfizer vaccine must
be kept below minus-70
degrees Celsius for storage,
which is colder than the
lowest seasonal tempera-
tures in Antarctica and the
average temperature on the
surface of Mars. The Pfizer
vaccine will spoil in five
days if it is allowed to thaw.
The Moderna vaccine, how-
ever, can be kept in refriger-
ation units commonly used
in most hospitals.
Oregon could receive
the first of 71,900 doses of
the Moderna vaccine on
Dec. 22, a week later than
the Pfizer vaccine, pending
FDA approval. Unlike the
Pfizer version, little has
been confirmed about Mod-
erna’s COVID-19 vaccine,
though the company has
claimed a 94% efficacy
rating.
The vaccine is admin-
istered in two doses given
four weeks apart, and OHA
officials said in the briefing
those 71,900 doses should
Safe Harbor expiration
date. Dixon said this is
encouraging.
“Colt Gill wants kids
back in school,” Dixon
said.
Imbler School Dis-
trict Superintendent Angie
Lakey-Campbell is leading
an effort to get students
and parents to conduct a
social media campaign
encouraging state offi-
cials to allow Union Coun-
ty’s Safe Harbor schools
to remain open. Videos
of students making this
request will be sent to
state officials as part of the
campaign.
“It is important for
(state officials) to see
how kids are impacted,”
Lakey-Campbell said.
Dixon said he thinks the
videos will be effective.
“Kids have a powerful
voice. They are the ones
who have lost the most,”
Dixon said.
The educator noted
many students have not
been able to enjoy activi-
ties and interactions that
are synonymous with
attending school.
not be held in reserve for
the second injection. More
doses will be shipped at
later dates to provide for
that.
Full protection from
COVID-19 requires the ini-
tial “prime” injection and
the subsequent “boost”
injection four weeks later.
First doses of any vac-
cine to arrive in Oregon
will be prioritized to health
care workers and long-term
care facilities. Sullivan said
the goal of the first round
of vaccinations would be
to address the state’s over-
whelmed hospitals by stabi-
lizing supply and reducing
demand.
Health care workers
likely to interact with
COVID-19 patients, such as
emergency services workers
and hospital employees,
will be prioritized for the
first round of vaccination to
prevent a reduction in the
state’s health care capacity.
Residents and staff at
long-term care facilities
also will be prioritized
for vaccination to reduce
demand for the limited
capacity of Oregon’s health
care system. Long-term
care facility residents, Sul-
livan said, were “the most
medically fragile people in
Oregon,” and they account
for a majority of the state’s
mortality and morbidity.
Yet even with 124,800
doses of the Pfizer vaccine
and 103,600 doses of the
Moderna vaccine expected
to arrive in Oregon before
the New Year, there will not
be enough vaccine to supply
all of the state’s more than
360,000 health care pro-
viders in the short-term.
“All of the experiences
of adolescence have been
taken away. It tugs at your
heartstrings,” Dixon said.
Elgin School District
Superintendent Dianne
Greif said she is operating
on the assumption her
school district will be able
to continue offering onsite
instruction in January.
“I’m trying to stay posi-
tive,” Greif said.
Still, she said her dis-
trict’s teachers are well
prepared to make the
switch to online instruc-
tion. Greif noted some of
her faculty are practicing
providing online instruc-
tion to their students at
school to get them ready
for the real thing.
Cove School District
Superintendent Earl Pettit
also said his teachers are
ready to make the shift
back to distance learning
if necessary.
“All we need is one day
to get ready,” Pettit said.
“Since day one (when stu-
dents returned to campus
in September for onsite
instruction) we have been
ready to shift.”
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