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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 2021
Vaccine: County plans for
virtual listening sessions
Continued from Page A1
Pfi zer has requested emer-
gency approval of its vaccine
to be administered to chil-
dren 12 to 15. T he U.S. Food
and Drug Administration is
expected to give authoriza-
tion in mid to late May. The
county task force is preparing
to vaccinate children 12 to 15
at that time.
“As we get into where
we’re using the Pfi zer vac-
cine, and making it available
to 16- and 17-year-olds, and
then probably younger peo-
ple, we do anticipate that a lot
of parents are going to want to
come at the same time and get
vaccinated with their kids,”
said Chris Laman, the direc-
tor of pharmacy and cancer
center services at Columbia
Memorial Hospital in Asto-
ria, who is leading the coun-
ty’s vaccine task force.
“The Moderna vaccine,
the fi rst dose is given and
then the second dose is given
28 days later. With the Pfi zer
vaccine, the fi rst dose is given
and then the second dose
is given 21 days later. So it
would be really inconvenient
for a parent to get a diff er-
ent shot than a child if you’re
going to try to keep both of
them on the same schedule.
So we do anticipate that we’ll
have Pfi zer clinics where chil-
dren and parents can come
together and get the shot.”
Laman said the goal is to
have evening and weekend
clinics to accommodate fam-
ily schedules.
Virtual listening sessions
Laman joined Margo
Lalich, the county’s interim
public health director, along
with local doctors and Clat-
sop Community Action to
discuss vaccine plans and
answer questions from the
public on Wednesday and
Thursday evenings via Face-
book and Instagram .
The county plans on host-
ing the virtual listening ses-
sions in English and Spanish
over the next few weeks.
Laman said the listen-
ing sessions are to answer
questions and hear feedback
on how the task force can
improve outreach to younger
people.
The county had about 300
spots at vaccination clinics
that went unfi lled over the
past week. Laman said the
task force is careful in the
way it draws up doses, and
will use the 300 unused doses
at clinics in the coming week.
The task force anticipates
the Food and Drug Admin-
istration will allow use of
the Johnson & Johnson vac-
cines to resume. The county
still has doses of the one-dose
vaccine and plans on admin-
istering the vaccine to people
who have diffi culty getting to
regularly scheduled vaccina-
tion clinics.
About 40% of people in
the county have had at least
one dose of a vaccine, accord-
ing to the task force, and 87%
of residents 70 and older are
fully vaccinated.
As of Friday, 25,675 vac-
cine doses were administered
in the county, and 9,440 peo-
ple were fully vaccinated. The
county’s goal to reach herd
immunity against the virus is
vaccinating 27,533 people.
Brown’s warning
Meanwhile, Gov. Kate
Brown on Friday warned
counties of tighter restric-
tions to come in light of a
fourth surge of the virus across
Oregon.
“In the race between vac-
cines and variants, the vari-
ants are gaining ground and
have the upper hand,” Brown
said during a press confer-
ence. “Today’s cases topped
a thousand, with Oregon now
ranking second in the nation
for having the most rapid
growth of infection spread.
Our doctors and nurses are
once again overwhelmed. Our
hospitals are about to surpass
300 patients who are posi-
tive for COVID-19, crossing
the threshold to place several
of our counties into extreme
risk.”
The governor said the state
will analyze the data again
early next week to see which
counties may need to move
into extreme risk. If neces-
sary, she said she will cancel
the warning week, moving
the counties into extreme risk
on Friday.
“Please know this is not
a step I take lightly,” Brown
said. “However, it could be the
last time we need to impose
this level of restrictions, given
our vaccination trends and the
virus’s behavior.
“Vaccines are the abso-
lute key to moving Oregon
forward. The overwhelming
majority of our new COVID-
19 cases and hospitalizations
are people who have not yet
been vaccinated. We are see-
ing younger Oregonians in
the hospital now, as well as
people who had no underly-
ing health conditions.
“I do think with all of us
working together that we can
get to a place where we lift
most restrictions and fully
reopen our economy no later
than the end of June. Com-
mon-sense safety measures
like mask wearing and main-
taining 6 feet of distance will
need to stay in place. We all
need to make smart choices
over the next several weeks
so that we can move forward
and into post-pandemic life.”
River cruises: ‘We will have a good season’
Continued from Page A1
American
Cruise
Lines
and
Ameri-
can Queen Steamboat
launched the 2021 sea-
son in mid-March with
coastal voyages between
South Carolina and Flor-
ida and along the Mis-
sissippi River between
Memphis and New
Orleans. The compa-
nies instituted enhanced
safety measures, such as
decreased capacity, mask
requirements, testing of
passengers and additional
medical personnel.
Charles B. Robertson,
the CEO of American
Cruise Lines, told Travel
Weekly that “the popular-
ity of small-ship domes-
tic cruising was stronger
than ever before the pan-
demic, and 2021 demand
is already at new record
levels.”
American
Cruise
Lines homeported its
regional vessels at the
North Tongue Point ship-
yards on the eastern
edge of Astoria, where
local shipwrights from
WCT Marine & Con-
struction have provided
maintenance.
Oregon has allowed
river cruises to oper-
ate, provided they fol-
low CDC guidelines on
the water and county-by-
county virus guidelines
when docked.
Clatsop County on
Friday entered the state’s
high-risk designation for
the coronavirus lasting at
least two weeks, decreas-
ing the capacity and
operating hours at bars,
restaurants and other ven-
ues. But Bohn and Asto-
ria Mayor Bruce Jones
said they worry more
about the masses of tour-
ists coming by car than
smaller, partially empty
cruise ships carrying
older passengers more
likely to be vaccinated
and following enhanced
health protocols.
“If they do follow
all the state guidelines,
there’s not really a basis
on which to prohibit other
operations, especially in
the context of the level
of tourism that’s already
taking place in Astoria,”
Jones said. “Most of the
hotels on the coast are
full or nearly full.”
Health offi cials expect
the cruise companies to
follow whatever neces-
sary guidelines based on
the county’s risk level,
Bohn said. “If we go into
an extreme-risk level,
we’ll be talking to the
governor’s offi ce about
what that means, ” he said.
Merkley: ‘We want to solve problems’
Continued from Page A1
districts for partisan advan-
tage. It would make all politi-
cal contributions over $10,000
subject to public disclosure,
institute automatic voter reg-
istration, expand mail-in vot-
ing and ban states from what
Democrats have called purg-
ing tactics against eligible
voters.
Republicans have criti-
cized the bill as a power grab
by Democrats that would
increase the potential for voter
fraud. The bill passed the
House but is not expected to
gather the 60 votes necessary
in the Senate to avoid a fi li-
buster led by Senate Minority
Leader Mitch McConnell, a
Kentucky Republican.
“The Senate is rigged right
now, so that the priorities for
the powerful require a sim-
ple majority, and the priori-
ties for ordinary families —
including the protection of
democracy, health care, hous-
ing, education, jobs, environ-
mental policy, labor policy,
equality of opportunity pol-
icy — all of those require a
supermajority,” Merkley said.
“That should just be outra-
geous. Why should there be a
fast lane for the privileged and
powerful, and there’s a slow
lane where McConnell has a
veto over everything?”
Katrina Gasser, a busi-
ness and community liaison
at Tongue Point Job Corps
Center, thanked Merkley for
his eff orts with other Oregon
leaders to rescind the elimi-
nation of staff houses on cam-
pus. Backers of Tongue Point
had warned that families at the
center could be thrust into a
tight housing market .
“There’s 15 families here
who are just breathing signif-
icant sighs of relief,” Gasser
said.
Gasser said she is hopeful
the Biden administration will
end a previous Department of
Labor shift away from provid-
ing staff housing at job corps
centers around the U.S. She
pushed Merkley to keep trying
to overturn the proposed elim-
ination of and cuts to several
trades at Tongue Point.
“The administration knows
I’m going to be pushing them
very hard not to cut these pro-
grams,” Merkley said. “I feel
like there are plenty of folks
out there who would really
benefi t from being able to par-
ticipate in these programs.
They probably need to be
enlarged, not shrunk.”
Merkley detailed his eff orts
to get the U.S. Department of
Agriculture to include West
Coast seafood as part of fed-
eral commodity purchases. He
and other West Coast senators
and representatives sent a let-
ter earlier this month to Tom
Vilsack, the agriculture secre-
tary , outlining the dire situa-
tion for seafood demand with
so many restaurants closed
because of the coronavirus.
“We’re pushing for them
to do this,” Merkley said. “It
makes sense. And the sea-
food’s been hit so hard,
because Americans eat a lot
more seafood at restaurants
than at home.”
Asked about eff orts to
increase aff ordable housing,
Merkley said many of the con-
cerns he’s raised are priorities
shared by the Biden admin-
istration and addressed in his
proposed $2.3 trillion infra-
structure plan. The American
Jobs Plan would invest $213
billion to build, preserve and
retrofi t aff ordable housing.
“I’m very optimistic about
this administration,” Merk-
ley said. “But we have to pass
the infrastructure bill to make
this happen, and I am worried
about that.
“What I saw in the fi rst
years of the Obama adminis-
tration was a philosophy by
the minority leader, Mitch
McConnell. His philoso-
phy was, ‘If I can obstruct
and delay things, and things
don’t get better, then people
will vote for my team, and I’ll
be majority leader instead of
minority leader.’
“And I thought that was
very, very cynical, because,
really, a republic only works if
people come together and say,
‘We want to solve problems.’”
Edward Stratton/The Astorian
American Cruise Lines homeported all four of its Columbia River cruise ships at North Tongue
Point while waiting for the season to start.
Washington state on
hold
Cruises on the Colum-
bia and Snake rivers include
stops upriver in Washington
state, where Gov. Jay Inslee
has banned all cruise ship
dockings until at least May
15, after which conditions
will be re evaluated.
“We spoke with local
health jurisdictions, state
public health and found
that that was the minimum
amount of time needed to
work through some of the
health and safety concerns
that are presented by national
and international travelers
coming to dock at Washing-
ton ports,” said Jon Snyder,
a policy adviser with Inslee’s
offi ce.
American Cruise Lines
often docks at the Port of
Skamania in Stevenson,
Washington. Pat Albaugh,
the port’s executive director ,
said 130 dockings have been
canceled over the past year,
costing the agency much of
its dockside revenue and pre-
venting some seasonal hires.
“The bigger impact was
more on the community,
because the passengers and
the crew, particularly, go
and visit our local stores,”
Albaugh said. “So none of
that happened.”
Instead of Stevenson, the
American Song is expected
to dock in early May at the
Port of Cascade Locks. Olga
Kaganova, the general man-
ager of the port, said the com-
munity welcomes the addi-
tional tourism revenue. But
she doesn’t see the logic of
allowing cruise ships on one
side of the narrow Columbia
channel but not less than 2
miles away in Stevenson.
“These cruise lines, we
want them to be able to come
out here and have a more
consistent experience on
both sides of the river,” she
said. “It’s somewhat arbi-
trary between our commu-
nity and Stevenson, to draw
that line in the middle of the
river.”
American Cruise Lines
cruises usually head upriver
to Richland, Washington,
before leaving the Colum-
bia for the Snake and ending
the trip in Clarkston, Wash-
ington. Wanda Keefer, the
port manager in Clarkston,
said American Cruise Lines
is instead negotiating to stop
next door in Lewiston, Idaho.
Keefer said local offi -
cials have tried to relay to the
states how much safer the
river cruises are than tourists
coming in by car.
“I’m personally con-
fi dent that those manag-
ing the cruise lines have
done it thoughtfully with a
great deal of intention to the
safety of their passengers,”
she said. “And they’ve been
consultative with the com-
munities along the way. The
cruising has reopened on the
Mississippi River. We’re not
hearing anything about it,
because it’s successful. So
I expect that we will have a
good season.”
Ocean cruises
in doubt
While river cruises slowly
start up, the Port of Asto-
ria has canceled all oceango-
ing cruise ship dockings until
the MS Regatta scheduled to
come in Sept. 11. The ship
had been in berth in Astoria
since October, but left in late
March for work in Mexico.
The Port has cancel ed 19
of 28 scheduled ocean cruise
ship dockings this year. Will
Isom, the Port’s executive
director, said recently that
he expects other short-term
berthing opportunities in the
next month or so.
“If we do not have regular
cruise ship traffi c in here this
fall, I think it’s a good possi-
bility we could have another
longer-term berthing in Asto-
ria later this year,” Isom said.
“So (it was) a bit disappoint-
ing to see that vessel leave,
because it was good revenue
coming in each month. But
I think there are going to be
opportunities on the horizon.”