OREGON
A6 — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2021
Another pandemic new year for Oregon
of the pandemic as of late
has been, at most, people
wearing masks. In some
parts of Oregon where
going maskless is a sign of
skepticism of the science or
political belligerence, even
that symbol is absent.
By GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — A rapidly
spreading deadly virus.
Record-breaking fi res.
Acrid smoke from the
Pacifi c to Pendleton. A riot
in the capitol.
As 2020 came to a wel-
come close a year ago, an
exhausted Oregon public
had hope for the New Year.
The worst of the
COVID-19 pandemic
seemed over with the
arrival of vaccines. The
Labor Day fi res were gone
and the smoke that gave the
state the worst air in the
world some days was gone.
Protestors who fought with
police in the Capitol in
Salem were gone with the
end of the special session.
Soon, 2020 would be in
the rear view mirror. An
optimistic joke that the
worst had passed was that
“Hindsight is 2020.”
But as 2021 in Oregon
winds down, it feels like a
sequel of the highly unpop-
ular horror classic, 2020 in
Oregon.
Dark humor dominates
— the wordplay now is
turned into rueful wordplay
that 2021 is actually spelled
as “2020 Won.”
Now the question is
if we are going to have a
trilogy.
In announcing that a
sixth wave in two years of
COVID-19 would arrive
around Jan. 1, Gov. Kate
Brown noted that another
year of COVID-19 wasn’t
on anyone’s wish list.
“I know that bracing for
a new variant as we head
into our second pandemic
holiday season is not what
we all hoped for,” Brown
said.
Catastrophes return
Many of the catastro-
phes that marked 2020 as
no one’s favorite year were
back in 2021.
The vaccines set off a
mass scramble for appoint-
ments, with most people
told they might have to wait
until mid-summer for inoc-
ulation. Then demand fell
off a cliff . Bottles of Pfi zer
and Moderna vaccine with
fewer and fewer arms to
put them in. From a high
of 50,000 shots in April,
demand in Oregon shrank
to less than a tenth of that
on days in June. Vaccina-
tion became another polit-
ical wedge issue. A riot at
the U.S. Capitol showed
the fragility of peaceful
democracy.
The fi res were back —
earlier and more remote
this year — but burning
miles of scars in the land
and costing millions of dol-
lars to contain. The smoke
choked not just Oregon but
jetstreams shared it with
places as far as Boston.
This year added a grim
stretch of record-frying
heat on June 28. It hit 116
degrees in Portland. Salem
was 117. Temperatures
more familiar to Death
Valley than the Willamette
Valley.
As 2022 is about
to dawn, there is little
swagger that the worst is
over. The cornerstone of
crisis — the COVID-19
pandemic — began on
the last day of 2019 with
a trickle of infections in
China. It was worldwide —
a pandemic — by the end
of 2020 with over 300,000
dead in the United States.
Through 2021, the
virus threw off variants —
most little more than sci-
entifi c curiosities. But a
few — “Variants of Con-
cern” — would start a roll
call of names taken from
the Greek alphabet. Delta
brought contagion to a new
Health workers
prepare for more
But health workers
across the state say inside
hospitals, exhausted doc-
tors, nurses and other med-
ical and health staff deal
with an undulating but
never absent stream of
sickness and death. Now
they must prepare for
more.
Cloaked by privacy
laws, the state daily issues
a ticker of deaths — people
reduced to which county
they lived in, when they
became sick, when and
where they died, their
gender and age and if they
had the catch-all “under-
lying conditions” that
made fatality more likely.
With a few exceptions
that attract a public obit-
uary or a level of fame that
makes it impossible to con-
ceal their identity, the daily
list of names, faces, stories
and suff ering of the dead
remain unknown to all but
family and hospital staff
who watch as they pass.
Dr. Dean Sidelinger, the
state’s chief epidemiologist
gave a mournful soliloquy
on Sept. 16 when Oregon
passed 3,500 deaths from
COVID-19.
COVID-19
Alex Wittwer/The Observer, File
Demonstrators outside of La Grande City Hall protest against vaccine
mandates on Saturday, Sept. 18, 2021.
level. Omicron capped
the year as the biggest
and fastest, though hope-
fully less lethal, of them
all. The cases in one city
in one country that could
be counted on two hands
at the end of 2019 would
march into 2022 with a
tally of 273 million infec-
tions worldwide and 5.4
million deaths — led by
over 800,000 in the United
States.
In January, some fore-
casts predicted the virus
would be under control
by June. It felt that way in
July 2021, when Oregon
reported 92 deaths — the
fi rst monthly total to fall
below 100 since June 2020,
at the beginning of the
crisis. A two-week respite
around the Fourth of July
gave a glimpse of what
could pass for normal life.
Delta quickly crushed
the hope. By Labor Day,
delta peaked. The spike
would bottom out in
October. No, Thanks-
giving. Christmas. March
2022. The steep line plotted
on a graph that took two
months to peak became a
stretched out slope with
bumps back up on the way
down.
This time, there
would be no hiatus. Delta
dropped, then at the begin-
ning of December surged
in parts of the nation —
driven by crisis fatigue
of people who now gath-
ered more often indoors, in
larger groups, with varying
levels of the offi cial guide-
lines for masks and social
distancing. Delta took two
months to jump from where
it was fi rst seen in India to
all 36 counties in Oregon.
Omicron was reported in
southern Africa on Nov.
22 and was offi cially in
Oregon by Dec. 13.
Attempts to calculate
when the pandemic was
slowing or receding have
led to futility.
After 612 people died in
December 2020, the tally
slowly dropped with the
arrival of vaccines late that
month. The worst seemed
over.
When delta broke the
record with over 900
reported deaths in Sep-
tember, then slid to 640
in October and 249 in
November, the path for-
ward looked much brighter.
the 50 states.
But forecasts come
with more caveats this
December. The omicron
variant may be less lethal.
May be milder in most
cases.
But new information
can make current informa-
tion grow old and out-of-
date very quickly.
In June, the Centers for
Disease Control and Pre-
vention said it was fi ne
for people with two vac-
cine shots to meet in small
groups with others whose
status was the same.
Delta was tagged as “the
pandemic of the unvacci-
nated” — and was in the
most severe cases.
Omicron could be held
at bay in the United States
by the dominance of the
delta variant. Instead, it is
pushing it aside.
“Fully vaccinated”
meant two shots of Pfi zer
or Moderna vaccine or one
of Johnson & Johnson.
Now a booster of the fi rst
pair is the marker for max-
imum protection, while the
Johnson & Johnson vac-
cine has been shelved amid
caution over its eff ective-
ness and side eff ects.
“Exactly one year
ago this week, we came
together to celebrate the
fi rst COVID vaccinations
in Oregon,” Brown said
Friday. “We watched with
excitement, and frankly
a huge sigh of relief, as
health care workers from
across our state received
their fi rst dose.”
One year later, the New
Year opens with omicron.
“A gut punch,” said
Dr. Renee Edwards, chief
medical offi cer of the
Oregon Health & Science
University.
On the streets and
stores of Oregon, the sign
Vaccine
Other vaccine events offered in December:
Location: Center for Human Development
Time: 10:00 am to 2:00 pm every Friday with the exception of New Year’s Eve
in addition to Christmas Eve.
Additional options: Scheduled appointments available throughout the week.
Vaccines offered: 1st dose, 2nd dose, 3rd doses and booster vaccines. All
Covid vaccine configurations will be available including pediatric vaccination.
Other pediatric and adult immunizations also available at CHD.
CDC General Vaccine Info:
COVID-19 vaccines are effective
COVID 19-vaccines are effective and can reduce the risk of getting and
spreading the virus that causes COVID-19. Learn more about the different
COVID-19 vaccines.
COVID-19 vaccines also help children and adults from getting seriously ill
even if they do get COVID-19.
While COVID-19 tends to be milder in children than adults, it can make
children very sick, require hospitalization, and some children have even died.
Children with underlying medical conditions are more at risk for severe illness
compared to children without underlying medical conditions.
Getting children ages 5 years and older vaccinated can help protect them
from serious short- and long-term complications.
Getting everyone ages 5 years and older vaccinated can protect families and
communities, including friends and family who are not eligible for vaccination
and people at increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19.
Booster Information from CDC:
Fast Facts Everyone age 18 and older is eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine booster beginning Nov. 20,
2021. Some people are strongly advised get a booster dose to protect themselves and others. You
can choose which vaccine to get. The COVID-19 vaccines are extraordinarily effective at preventing
serious illness, hospitalization and death. That said, we are seeing immunity drop over time, espe-
cially in people over age 50 and those with compromised immune systems who are more likely to
experience severe disease, hospitalization and death. For these people, another dose boosts their
immunity, sometimes greater than what was achieved after the primary, two-dose series. Health
experts strongly recommend people over age 50, people over 18 who live in long-term care facil-
ities, and anyone who received one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine get a booster dose.
Younger, healthy people may also get a booster dose to protect themselves and others. A booster
will re-build neutralizing antibodies that strengthen the body’s ability to fight getting a breakthrough
case. Even if you’re not at high risk, you could be infected and then pass it on to others, such as
children too young to be vaccinated, the elderly, or people who are immunocompromised. Booster
doses help people maintain strong immunity to disease longer. The first vaccine series built up
the immune system to make the antibodies needed to fight the disease. Over time, the immune
response weakens. A booster dose stimulates the initial response and tends to result in higher
antibody levels that help people maintain their immunity longer. Boosters take about two weeks to
bring up the immune response. This continues to be studied, but we can reliably say it takes two
weeks to bring the immune response up to or better than that after the primary series.
www.chdinc.org
541-962-8800
Warm Wishes of the Season
from
Grande Ronde Hospital and Clinics
‘A gut punch’
But the virus is a living,
morphing, shape-shifter.
What it is today, it isn’t
tomorrow, much less a
month or a year from now.
Today, nearly three out
of four people in Oregon
are vaccinated — the 12th
highest rank among 50
states.
A New York Times
survey on Saturday of fed-
eral, state and local data
showed that since the pan-
demic began, Oregon has
had the third lowest rate
of infections and sixth
lowest rate of deaths of
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