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THE ASTORIAN • TuESdAy, July 28, 2020
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
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Editor
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GUEST COLUMN
Getting answers to my virus questions
S
ince the guest column I wrote for
The Astorian about my time in
quarantine for the coronavirus, I
have been peppered with questions by
the people I meet.
I decided to reach out to Ellen
Heinitz, a naturopathic physician and
Clatsop County’s community health
project manager, for
answers to the most fre-
quently asked questions.
Q: Am I going to be
retested? Why or why
not?
A: Retesting is not
generally recommended
PETER
after a person has recov-
ROSCOE
ered from coronavirus.
The polymerase chain
reaction (PCR) nucleic acid amplifi-
cation test that is considered the “gold
standard” tests for the presence of viral
DNA.
Unfortunately, live virus and dead
virus both have DNA. What studies
have shown thus far is that once a per-
son acquires COVID-19 the vast major-
ity are not infectious after 10 days.
Unfortunately, people can test posi-
tive weeks after the onset of the infec-
tion, however, this is dead virus being
shed from the body, not virus that can
make others sick. If our standard is to
have two PCR tests, 24 hours apart that
are both negative, some people wouldn’t
be back to work for weeks, even though
they were not infectious.
The test cost is $100 per test, so this
could be very expensive if people had
to have multiple tests before they tested
negative.
Q: Did your wife get tested? Why
or why not?
A: People who are contacts to posi-
tive cases are not required to be tested.
The reason is the timing of when to test
Associated Press
Retesting is not generally recommended after recovery from the coronavirus.
can be tricky.
Generally, people who are asymp-
tomatic test negative for the virus. There
is a much higher percentage of posi-
tive tests in people who have developed
symptoms. If we test too early the test
can be negative, but then the person can
develop symptoms in a couple of days
and be positive. Meanwhile, they would
have a false sense of security that they
were negative.
People can develop an infection from
being in contact with someone who is
positive for COVID-19 up to two weeks
after the contact. Hence the two-week
quarantine requirement.
This is why the Public Health Depart-
ment calls contacts every day to see if
they developed symptoms. If they do,
we get them tested. If not, they are safe
to leave quarantine after two weeks and
there is almost no chance of them being
infectious even if they had an asymp-
tomatic case.
Q: Since you are past your quaran-
tine are you immune?
A: Not necessarily. This is an area we
definitely need more research in.
Right now, it looks like neutralizing
antibody levels fall within a matter of
weeks after an infection. There are some
T memory cells which remain and can
help increase antibodies in the event of
another infection, however, other stud-
ies show that a COVID-19 infection can
suppress T cells.
All that to say, no one knows yet
if someone who had the infection is
immune.
It also appears from research that
people who experience mild or asymp-
tomatic infections have lower antibody
levels that fall very quickly. So, the
milder the infection, the less immunity
it confers.
Unfortunately, Peter, we don’t know
if you are immune. That means that peo-
ple must take precautions to avoid catch-
ing the infection in the future.
Q: Will you have an antibody test
and what will that show?
A: Currently, the antibody tests are
qualitative. That means that they show
if you have antibodies present, but they
don’t show how high your antibody
level is.
This kind of test is one that the
answer is a “yes” or “no” — yes, you
have some antibodies, or no, you do not.
It isn’t a quantitative test that shows how
high your level of antibody is.
Studies have not proven how high
an antibody level needs to be to con-
fer immunity. A good analogy is a preg-
nancy test. The home pregnancy test
shows if you are pregnant or not. The
blood test you can receive at a doctor’s
office shows how high your level of
human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG)
is and therefore if the pregnancy is pro-
gressing normally.
The current antibody tests are also
not very specific. They only have to
be 90% specific to be approved by the
Food and Drug Administration, which is
really low for a medical test. That means
that 90% of the time when they are pos-
itive it is because you have antibodies
to COVID-19, but 10% of the time they
are positive because of antibodies to
something else.
For instance, some of the viral infec-
tions that we think of as the common
cold are caused by mild coronaviruses
which could cause a false positive test.
Then people might think they have
immunity to COVID-19 when they
don’t.
Hopefully, antibody testing will
improve in the future, and enough
research can be done to determine what
level of antibodies is necessary for a
people to have immunity.
Peter Roscoe is the former owner of
Fulio’s and served on the Astoria City
Council.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Authoritarianism
ear Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff
Merkley, Congresswoman Suzanne
Bonamici, Gov. Kate Brown and Attorney
General Ellen Rosenblum:
The events of the last several days in
Portland further demonstrate the Trump
administration’s embrace of authoritari-
anism. This aggressive federal campaign
to detain protesters and suppress protests
violates the U.S. Constitution. These fed-
eral policing actions in Portland are politi-
cal theater designed to serve the reelection
campaign, not the rule of law.
Indivisible North Coast Oregon
(INCO), a grassroots group based in Clat-
sop County, applauds your work to stop
this abuse of power, and to hold President
Donald Trump, Attorney General Wil-
liam Barr and other federal employees
accountable.
Our mission is to defend democracy
by opposing authoritarianism, bigotry and
corruption. We condemn Trump’s use of
federal law, policy and power to further his
own personal and ideological agenda.
We believe the Wyden-Merkley amend-
ment to the National Defense Authoriza-
tion Act, and Oregon’s lawsuit against the
Department of Homeland Security and
other federal agencies, are important and
essential first steps. We hope you and your
colleagues throughout the U.S. will work
to stop these obscene and illegal actions.
America must reject government storm
troopers.
As historian Timothy Snyder writes in
“On Tyranny”: “Institutions do not pro-
tect themselves. They fall one after the
other unless each is defended from the
beginning.” We cannot allow Trump and
his administration to endanger political
opponents and make political opposition
impossible.
Thank you for your work to protect all
of us and to defend the U.S. Constitution.
LAURIE CAPLAN
TRACY ABEL
BEEB ASHCROFT
LAURA ALLEN
MARY BETH COTTLE
ERIC HALPERIN
CARMEN HAMMERSMITH
KATHLEEN MACDONALD
BEBE MICHEL
MONICA PEARSON
KEN POTTER
DEB VANASSE
Indivisible North Coast Oregon
D
Mob rule
egarding the editorial “We should
demand that they stop,” (The Asto-
rian, July 21) and the claim that we, as
citizens, should demand that the federal
agents be withdrawn from Portland:
This opinion seems to fall in line with
R
the popular belief that the anarchists’
actions are simply being overblown by
those on the right and Fox News. As a per-
son who splits his time between our homes
in Warrenton and Portland, I have wit-
nessed a once-beautiful city on the verge
of looking like San Francisco or Los
Angeles.
Over 50 nights of violence, graffiti
sprayed everywhere and the overall gen-
eral fear that the antifa uses to keep the
taxpaying citizens out of their own down-
town area — and I haven’t even touched
on the hundreds of businesses that have
simply boarded up their businesses and
quit. Will these “hardworking” antifa thugs
make up the large tax base now lost? Well,
I kind of doubt it.
Finally, you may have noticed I
refrained from using the word “protesters”
… well, for good reason. That ship sailed
weeks ago. Yes, there still are peaceful
protests happening, but I am not referring
to those. The terror and destruction that is
happening in Portland, Seattle and other
major cities are not protests; this is a con-
certed effort to destroy our way of life, and
to do away with capitalist democracy, all
by mob rule.
If local leaders are not going to make
any attempt to stop it, it falls on the federal
government to protect citizens and their
property.
JEFF BRYANT
Portland/Warrenton
Stigmatism
or years, as a clinician, I’ve been frus-
trated by how society addresses mental
illness and substance abuse, and the lack
of progress made. Advances in psychother-
apy and medication have had little impact.
Two reasons, of many, are the issues of
stigma and the poor understanding of the
dynamics involved. Stigma is so pervasive
in society. We’re blind to it, and it makes
mental illness and substance abuse so rep-
rehensible no one wants to be associated
with either, let alone admit to being one.
This goes for family, friends and many
treatment professionals.
The stigma of substance abuse is so
negative most would prefer a diagnosis of
mental illness instead. Certain attitudes,
theories and treatment regimens make it
difficult — if not impossible — to effec-
tively treat either disorder, especially since
they most often co-occur. Some profes-
sionals give inconsistent and conflicting
advice, which confuse and unknowingly
enable substance use.
Unless we learn to destigmatize both,
we’ll struggle and fail in reducing their
presence. Stigma motivates people to work
hard on finding less offensive causes (usu-
ally wrong), for mental illness and sub-
stance abuse. What we resist will persist.
Before we can achieve a better under-
F
standing and create more effective strat-
egies in treating mental illness and sub-
stance abuse, we must learn to feel more
comfortable in how we view them. The
above may offend some, but I ask: Why is
it that 95% of addicts don’t believe they
have a problem, or only 1% to 3% of them
ever get help? Do cancer patients typically
behave this way?
BRENTON KAHLE
Astoria
Stand up
he Oregon Department of Forestry has
been working on a Habitat Conserva-
tion Plan for several years now. This plan,
if approved, sets forth a new pathway for
state forest management. Elected officials
of Clatsop County should be monitoring
the plan carefully, as all management of
state forestlands in our county is critical.
A Habitat Conservation Plan is a feder-
ally approved plan that places agreed upon
conservation areas in places where wild-
life is either known to exist, or could likely
exist. All other acres are available for har-
vest — but still have a strict set of protec-
tions such as stream buffers, wildlife trees,
etc.
It has been said that 50% of our state
forest will be in a conservation zone,
which would result in less harvest on our
forest. Clatsop County schools, fire depart-
ments and at least 10 other taxing districts
all receive money from harvests on state
forests.
During a time where jobs have been
lost, and communities are looking to keep
people employed the best they can, it is
imperative that county leaders make sure
they stand up for a state forest manage-
ment plan that does not place environmen-
T
tal protections over protections of people
and jobs.
JENNY JOHNSON
Astoria
All lives matter
f course all lives matter. That much
should be self-evident. So what is the
problem? Consider this proposition in a
setting that is not an emotional one for us:
The question of equality for women in a
country like Saudi Arabia.
Liberals in this hypothetical coun-
try came up with a slogan, “equality for
women,” which was an embarrassment for
the government. The government, in turn,
came up with a counterslogan “equality
for all.”
It was hard to argue against the obvi-
ous sense of this new slogan, which neatly
sidestepped the fact that it was women,
and not men, who were not treated as
equals. With this new slogan, the govern-
ment took the moral high ground, but it
also allowed it to continue treating women
as second-class citizens.
In the same way, “all lives matter”
avoids confronting the reality that in many
instances in the past and present, Black
lives do not not seem to matter as much
as white lives. That justice is not the same
for Blacks as it is for whites. It echoes
the declaration that, “all men are created
equal,” which, at the time, specifically
excluded Black men.
We need to keep insisting that “Black
lives” be made part of “all lives matter.”
If we continue to do so, hopefully a time
might be reached when we can proudly
proclaim, “all lives actually do matter.”
JOHN ROGAN
Tillamook
O