A8 — THE OBSERVER
STATE BRIEFS
Person dead after
police chase and
shooting
MILWAUKIE — Author-
ities say a person is dead fol-
lowing a police pursuit and
shooting in Milwaukie early
Saturday, June 18.
The Clackamas County
Sheriff’s Office reported on
Twitter that the shooting
happened shortly before
1 a.m. Deputies and Oregon
State Police troopers were
involved.
The sheriff’s office said
the shooting followed an
attempted traffic stop and a
police chase, but few other
details were released. It was
not immediately known if
the person shot was armed.
There were no reports of
injuries to officers.
The Clackamas Inter-
agency Major Crimes team
is investigating in conjunc-
tion with the Clackamas
County District Attorney’s
Office. The sheriff’s office
said further information
would be released next week
following the completion of
an autopsy and additional
investigation.
Man pleads guilty
to killing woman,
3-year-old boy
PORTLAND — An
Oregon man has pleaded
guilty in the kidnapping and
murder of his 3-year-old
child and the child’s mother.
Michael Wolfe pleaded
guilty Friday, June 17,
in Yamhill County Dis-
trict Court to aggravated
murder and second-degree
murder in the 2019 deaths of
Karissa and Billy Fretwell,
KOIN-TV reported.
Wolfe has been in jail
since his May 2019 arrest
in the Fretwells’ deaths and
initially pleaded not guilty
to numerous charges.
Karissa and Billy
Fretwell’s bodies were
founded in a remote wooded
area about 10 miles outside
of Yamhill in June 2019.
They were reported missing
to Salem authorities in
mid-May.
Court documents showed
Fretwell, 25, and Wolfe
had been in a child support
battle.
Wolfe’s plea on Friday
took the death penalty off
the table. His sentencing is
scheduled for June 20.
OREGON
‘Everybody you know is getting infected’
Why Oregon state is
awash in unreported
COVID-19 infections
BY FEDOR ZARKHIN
The Oregonian
PORTLAND — Todd Ouzts let
his guard down this week for per-
haps the first time in two years and
quickly regretted it.
After spending most of the
pandemic isolated at home with
his wife, Ouzts went to a Home
Depot Monday, June 13, maskless,
to buy a garage door opener. The
60-year-old semi-retired stop-mo-
tion animator had already received
four doses of the COVID-19 vac-
cine and figured he was as pre-
pared as he could be to transition
back to a more normal life.
But in a variation of what is
now a familiar story, Ouzts had a
sore throat and was coughing and
sneezing the next day. He origi-
nally thought the cause was dust
he breathed in his garage while
installing the opener. But by the fol-
lowing day, his body hurt and he
had a headache. He took an at-home
COVID-19 test and found out he
was positive for the coronavirus.
While he made the choice to
go to the store maskless, Ouzts is
now frustrated about what he sees
as mixed messages coming from
the government about what precau-
tions to take.
“I’m angry that we haven’t
solved this yet as a society,” he
said. “No one wants to be inconve-
nienced with rules anymore.”
The Washington County man’s
experience is becoming increas-
ingly common, as thousands
of Oregonians continue to get
infected with the virus daily, even
as the state and nation appear to be
Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian
Kelly Beckley, R.N., preps vials of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to be administered to
teachers and educators at The Oregon Convention Center on Jan. 27, 2021, in Portland.
moving on.
COVID-19 infections have
increasingly become part of the
new normal. Few businesses still
require masks or proof of vacci-
nation, and the state’s messaging
around precautions has been muted
when compared to the frequency
and volume of warnings during
past surges.
Infections appear to be so wide-
spread, even Dr. Anthony Fauci,
the country’s top infectious disease
expert, recently tested positive for
COVID-19.
“I think it’s a confusing time for
people,” said Dr. Marcel Curlin,
an infectious disease expert
with Oregon Health & Science
University.
On the one hand, he said, there
are clearly a lot of infections. On
the other, the state long ago lifted
most restrictions meant to curb
spread of disease.
“What the heck is going
on? Which is it?” Curlin said
many people are likely asking
themselves.
– The Associated Press
‘We’re not there yet’
The country is in the transi-
tion phase before the coronavirus
becomes endemic, or a regular
and constant presence in society,
Curlin said. That evolution is to
be expected, given that evolution
favors viruses that spread easily
and keep hosts alive so they can
pass the virus to others.
But because “we’re not there
yet,” Curlin said, the virus can still
cause severe illness, meaning it is
worthwhile to take precautions to
prevent infection.
As if to underscore the con-
fusion, official reported infec-
tion numbers are widely consid-
ered to be a profound undercount
of the true number of infections.
COVID-19 cases are undercounted
primarily because of the wide
availability of at-home tests that
don’t have to be reported to the
state and because some people
with no or mild symptoms might
not get tested at all.
Indeed, according to a Univer-
sity of Washington model, the cur-
rent infection surge in Oregon has
driven the second-most cases of
any wave during the pandemic,
behind only the first omicron
surge this winter. One wouldn’t
know that looking at state data,
which shows the delta wave peak
exceeding the peak of the current
surge.
Figuring out the true scope of
infections would require surveys
that could show approximately
what percentage of cases aren’t
reported, and to then use those
results to extrapolate how many
cases aren’t being reported state-
wide, experts say.
In the absence of such data,
state officials estimate that the true
number of infections could be 20
to 30 times higher than the roughly
1,450 cases a day being publicly
reported in Oregon.
Hospitalizations hit peak
State officials have cautioned
the public to remember the pan-
demic “is not over,” and have
urged people to consider wearing
masks in indoor public places.
But they have also repeatedly
pointed to a critical difference
between the current wave and
past waves: severity of disease.
Despite the volume of
COVID-19 cases during the cur-
rent wave, hospitalizations appear
to have peaked June 5 at 327
occupied beds — several times
less than the hospitalization peaks
during the delta wave and the first
omicron wave. Reported monthly
deaths have also returned to
lower levels not seen since
July 2021.
But for Oregonians who
recently got sick after taking
precautions and getting vacci-
nated and boosted, the low hos-
pitalization numbers offer little
consolation.
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Man accused of
threatening to
‘shoot up’ school
SHERWOOD — A man
is facing a federal charge
stemming from what FBI
agents said were his emailed
messages to federal law
enforcement about his desire
to kill children at an elemen-
tary school in Sherwood.
The Oregonian/Oregon-
Live reports a federal grand
jury has indicted Braeden
Richard Riess, 26, of Tigard,
on one count of interstate
communication of threats.
He appeared in federal
court Friday, June 17, about a
month after he was charged
in Washington County Cir-
cuit Court with multiple
counts of disorderly con-
duct in the same case. His
court-appointed federal
public defender entered a not
guilty plea to the single fed-
eral charge on his behalf.
Riess is accused of
sending multiple emails
May 15 to the FBI’s web-
site threatening to “shoot
up” Middleton Elementary
School because of the agen-
cy’s failure to stop “hackers,”
according to a federal affi-
davit and Sherwood police.
The FBI had received ear-
lier emails from Riess, but
those didn’t name a specific
target or school, the affi-
davit said, though they did
threaten that Riess would
walk into a school and kill
innocent children. He sent
those emails between May
5 and May 13, according the
affidavit.
FBI agents arrested Riess
at his Tigard apartment on
May 16.
He has pleaded not guilty
to six counts of first-degree
disorderly conduct, a mis-
demeanor, in Washington
County Circuit Court.
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