Opinion
A4
Saturday, December 18, 2021
OUR VIEW
Freeway
frustration in
Eastern Oregon
he sequence of events is as predictable as it is
frustrating.
T
Snow begins to fall along Interstate 84
in the Blue Mountains between La Grande and
Pendleton.
The freeway gets slick.
Vehicles — most often commercial trucks, and
often trucks that don’t have traction chains installed
— lose control or momentum.
The lanes in one direction, and sometimes both,
are blocked.
And once again the main travel route through
Northeastern Oregon is closed.
When the freeway is blocked for more than a
few hours — and this is often the case when trucks
are involved, as they’re more cumbersome to move
than passenger cars are — the closure can extend
for more than 150 miles. As safe parking areas for
commercial trucks are claimed in, say, La Grande,
the Oregon Department of Transportation fre-
quently has to close the freeway at Baker City and,
as the domino eff ect continues, in Ontario.
The eff ect works in the opposite direction, too. A
couple crashes in the eastbound lanes in the Burnt
River Canyon between Durkee and Huntington can
trigger a cascade of closures starting in Baker City
and later spreading to La Grande and Pendleton.
Weather-related closures on I-84 aren’t a new
phenomenon, to be sure.
Blizzards, particularly through passes such as
Ladd Canyon and the Blue Mountains near Mea-
cham, can create whiteouts so severe that closing
the freeway is necessary.
But although ODOT doesn’t have detailed his-
torical data about the frequency of I-84 closures in
our region, even a cursory review of media reports
shows that the freeway has closed more often in the
past several years than in past decades — and in
conditions that aren’t particularly treacherous.
As mentioned above, it hardly rates as a surprise
when the freeway closes, even during a relatively
modest storm such as the one that descended on the
Blue Mountains Monday evening, Dec. 13.
A cold front brought a few hours of heavy snow,
but this was no extended blizzard that cut visibility
to the length of a truck trailer and made it dan-
gerous for all vehicles.
ODOT’s press release announcing the clo-
sure noted that the culprit was “multiple spun out
trucks” in a 3-mile section of the westbound lanes
between La Grande and Meacham.
The closure, fortunately, was relatively brief,
lasting about four hours.
Yet it was also the latest example of how fragile
this vital transportation pike seems to have become.
It’s not an exaggeration to wonder whether it’s pos-
sible to get through even a modest storm — of
which we can expect several in a typical winter —
without a closure.
The culprit in Monday’s closure — unchained
trucks — is a common one in freeway closures,
said Tom Strandberg, a spokesperson for ODOT
in La Grande. In hopes of encouraging drivers
to put on chains, in late September the state dou-
bled the fi ne for failing to comply with the chain
requirement, from $440 to $880. That’s a reason-
able change. Unchained trucks not only are respon-
sible for many freeway closures, which is at best
annoying, but worse, they also pose a threat to other
drivers.
The problem isn’t limited to commercial trucks,
certainly. All drivers on the freeway during winter
need to be prepared for snow and ice, either by
installing traction tires or by bringing chains. And
all motorists should drive with caution, according
to the conditions.
Over the past couple decades, ODOT has done
many things to try to make I-84 safer, including
building a third lane on steep grades such as Ladd
Canyon and Spring Creek, installing electronic
signs to warn drivers of bad weather, and improving
chain-up zones.
Those are worthwhile improvements. But none
can replace plain old common sense.
We have to learn to live with the virus
TOM
HERRMANN
OTHER VIEWS
n the nearly two years since we
agreed to take “two weeks to
fl atten the curve,” much has been
learned about COVID-19. I would
like to make some observations,
partly personal, partly recent sci-
ence. My thoughts do not come from
a lack of empathy — few of us do not
know someone locally who has sick-
ened or has died.
By now it’s clear that we have to
learn to live with the virus: It is not
going to be “defeated” by injections,
which are turning into a subscrip-
tion service. Non-vaccine treatments
that have been so far ignored must be
taken seriously, and I am optimistic.
We need a better strategy than
the one captained by Drs. Fauci and
Walensky. The U.S. has the 18th
highest death rate — 2,395 per mil-
lion — among 155 nations tabu-
lated by Statista.com. Bangladesh
has lost only 172 per million. The
Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has
nearly eliminated COVID altogether,
in spite of low vaccination rates.
Shouldn’t we study how they did it?
Have we heard Dr. Fauci recommend
early outpatient treatments? Does he
ever promote monoclonal antibodies?
Checking one’s vitamin D levels?
No, just (highly profi table) vaccines.
Thankfully, the incompetence of
the NIAID (headed by Dr. Fauci)
and the CDC (chaired by Dr. Wal-
ensky) has been partly balanced by
non-governmental professionals who
have developed eff ective treatment
I
protocols. As just one example, the
FLCCC Alliance (fl ccc.net) is com-
posed of world-class critical care
physicians who have developed pro-
tocols for both outpatient and hos-
pital care, refi ned by treating thou-
sands of COVID patients. However,
these doctors are routinely slurred
in the legacy press and censored on
social media sites. Some hospitals
have actually banned some of the
therapies they recommend.
There is no mystery here. Eff ec-
tive treatments by existing (and
cheap) drugs would have made it dif-
fi cult for vaccine makers to obtain
the Experimental Use Authorizations
they needed. With tens of billions of
dollars at stake, Big Pharma has been
aggressive, using connections in the
press, social media and the captive
NIH/CDC/FDA.
The pharmaceutical industry
seems to be dictating much of our
COVID strategy. If not, why is nat-
urally acquired immunity ignored in
vaccine policies? At least 81 studies
show that it is broader and lon-
ger-lasting than mRNA vaccines.
Why the push to vaccinate children,
who are clearly not at risk? From
COVID’s beginning, Sweden kept all
children 16 and younger in school,
with no masking. Of the more than
1.9 million Swedes in that age group,
there have been 16 hospitaliza-
tions and no deaths. Yet our medical
viziers want to jab children in spite
of reports of myocarditis and in the
absence of long-term safety studies.
Remember the “safety” studies on
cigarettes, funded by tobacco com-
panies? I don’t see much diff er-
ence now, except that Pfi zer and the
rest are shielded by law from any
liability.
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Perhaps the harder problem is to
heal the divisions among us which
have arisen from fear, stoked by
opportunistic politicians and the
media. For example, it has been
known for some time that COVID
vaccinations do not prevent infec-
tion. It is now established that an
infected, vaccinated person trans-
mits COVID as well as an unvacci-
nated individual. (The CDC’s Wal-
ensky admitted this in August 2021.
The latest experimental confi rmation
was published in Lancet Infectious
Diseases in October.) Vaccinations
lessen symptom severity, but do not
produce the “sterilizing immunity”
needed for attaining herd immunity.
Blaming (and fearing) the unvacci-
nated is therefore not warranted, but
those who refuse the jab are often vil-
ifi ed. A relative of mine is a nurse in
the Legacy chain of hospitals in Port-
land. She related that 800 employees
there were fi red for refusing the jab.
One cannot dismiss all these people as
tinfoil-hat rubes.
Many of us view the blatant
increase in authoritarianism due to
this pandemic as a bigger threat than
the disease itself. For example, the
Oregon Health Authority is seeking
to make mask mandates permanent.
Australia is implementing internment
camps! We are in danger of leaving
our descendants a world sorely dimin-
ished in liberty, prosperity and com-
munal joy. Healing divisions in our
communities — and improving treat-
ment of COVID-19 to the point we are
no longer fearful — will require dia-
logue and open minds on all sides.
———
Tom Herrmann is a retired
physics professor. He lives in La
Grande with his wife, Swannee.
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