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THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, MAy 29, 2021
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
DERRICK DePLEDGE
Editor
Founded in 1873
SHANNON ARLINT
Circulation Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
BEHIND THE NEWS
‘When asked to do so, we step up’
O
ver the winter, as coronavirus
cases surged, Clatsop County
turned to the private sector for
help with the vaccine rollout.
Chris Laman, the director of pharmacy
and cancer center services at Columbia
Memorial Hospital, was assigned to lead
a vaccine task force in collaboration with
the county, the Astoria hospital and Provi-
dence Seaside Hospital.
The target? Vaccinate
27,533 people — 70%
of the county’s popula-
tion — to try to achieve
herd immunity against the
virus.
“I think what we heard
DERRICK
from Mike (McNickle)
DePLEDGE
and Don (Bohn) was that
our Public Health Depart-
ment had been incredibly taxed since the
beginning of the pandemic, and didn’t
necessarily have the capacity at that time
to really put on huge mass vaccination
events,” Laman said of the county public
health director and county manager. “And
they could use some help — not taking
over, certainly — just help, to really have
a combined effort.”
Laman will step back from his role as
the mass vaccination events wind down.
Margo Lalich, the county’s interim pub-
lic health director, will take the lead on the
vaccine task force in June and try to inch
closer to the goal. As of Friday, 16,411
people had been fully vaccinated.
In an interview, Laman discussed the
importance of getting vaccinated, the
resistance to the vaccines and what the
federal and state governments could have
done differently to improve the vaccine
rollout.
Q: We’re at the point now where
everyone who wants a vaccine against
the coronavirus can get one. What’s
your message to people who don’t want
a vaccine?
A: The science out there really sup-
ports getting vaccinated.
I think consistent research that’s being
published shows that people who are vac-
cinated are much, much less likely to get
the coronavirus. The few breakthrough
cases that there have been, those patients
aren’t being hospitalized, those patients
are not dying from the coronavirus.
So I would say that even though there
are — or can be — side effects from the
vaccine, the side effects from COVID are
much worse than the side effects from the
vaccine.
In order to get us back to sort of the
America that we all know and love, that
we had before this pandemic happened,
we’ve got to get at least — at least — 70%
of our population vaccinated.
So I would highly encourage them to
get the vaccine.
Q: There has long been a vocal
anti-vaccine community in the United
States. But the resistance to the coro-
navirus vaccines appears woven into
political identity. Many of the same
people who downplayed the risk from
the virus and objected to masks and
other precautions are against vaccina-
Hailey Hoffman/The Astorian
Chris Laman, the director of pharmacy and cancer center services at Columbia Memorial
Hospital in Astoria, leads Clatsop County’s vaccine task force.
CLATSOP COuNTy IS AN AMAZING PLACE. I MEAN,
350 NOW VOLuNTEERS HAVE STEPPEd uP TO MAKE
THESE EVENTS POSSIBLE. WE’VE AdMINISTEREd
MORE THAN 30,000 dOSES OF VACCINE.
tion. Are you concerned this could do
longer-term damage to trust in public
health?
A: I’m not a political figure. I feel like
I’m a public health figure. But I think the
polarization that we have in the United
States has definitely played a role in our
ability to get people vaccinated.
I do have some concerns over things
like the governor giving a million-dollar
— a lottery (for vaccination) — and the
way that is going to be perceived, and the
sort of long-term effects that that’s going
to have on public health just in general. So
I do have some concerns about that.
I guess I hadn’t thought about this par-
ticular question. But, certainly, it’s a big
worry. And I think it’s playing a role in
many different parts of our lives, sort of
the polarization that is in the country right
now.
Q: Looking back, what could the
federal and state governments have
done differently to improve the vaccine
rollout?
A: I think just consistent messaging —
is something that I think has really lacked
since the beginning.
It seems at times like different groups
are saying different things. I understand
that things are changing really, really
quickly all the time, and have been for
the last year. But I think sort of taking a
moment or two to make sure that the states
are all aware of information before the
federal government puts it out and can get
on the same page.
So that, in this day of technology and
information getting shared so quickly, it
felt at times like the state didn’t know what
the federal government was doing. And
then us, at the county level — especially
at the task force level — we hadn’t heard
from the state or the federal government.
We were kind of learning about these
things at the same time that the rest of the
country was learning about them. So we
would get questions — commonly — like,
‘What do you guys think about this?’ And
I was hearing about it for the first time
from the person in the general public who
was asking me the question.
So just not having a sort of consis-
tent message that was sort of shared with
the key players — or key stakeholders —
before it became public knowledge. I get
that we want transparency and we want
it to be open communication. But I think
having a bit more — even if it’s just a day
or a few hours — notice before the gov-
ernor was saying something would have
been really nice.
Q: Our sense was the county
wanted the hospital to take the lead on
the vaccine task force. A more tradi-
tional model would have had the Pub-
lic Health Department or Emergency
Management take the lead, at least for
accountability reasons. How did you
navigate the public and private aspects
of the outreach?
A: While the hospitals have played a
major role — and I think a very import-
ant role in this vaccination program — it
was very collaborative from the early, ear-
liest stages.
In December, when we were first
starting to have these discussions, Mike
McNickle, who was the public health
director then, and Don Bohn, who is the
county manager, and Erik Thorsen (the
CEO of Columbia Memorial Hospital)
and Don Lemmon at Providence (Sea-
side Hospital) and myself were having sort
of regular calls just to check in and talk
about the way the vaccination program
was going.
I think what we heard from Mike and
Don was that our Public Health Depart-
ment had been incredibly taxed since the
beginning of the pandemic, and didn’t
necessarily have the capacity at that time
to really put on huge mass vaccination
events. And they could use some help —
not taking over, certainly — just help, to
really have a combined effort.
So that was when we started the task
force calls. And, at that point, there wasn’t
an incident commander or anything like
that. It was more of us all getting together
on a regular basis to be ready for when the
vaccines did start to become more widely
available.
How we were going to get — the goal
at that point was 27,000 people in the
county that we wanted to get vaccinated to
get us to that 70% number. How we would
be able to do that.
And then it kind of progressed and
became what is the vaccine task force
today.
But it has been very collaborative the
whole time and, I think, a great testament
to what a community can do when you
come together with a shared purpose.
Q: What lessons have you learned
from the experience?
A: That piece that I said about taking
a beat as all of this information is coming
in, and really trying to be as thoughtful as
possible before you’re putting things out,
especially around guidelines or standards
and things like that.
That has been, I think, something that
we have learned, because there have been
so many changes and so many things that
we’ve struggled with. That I think is really
important.
Another thing, I don’t know if it’s a les-
son, but it’s something that I’ve learned, is
that Clatsop County is an amazing place.
I mean, 350 now volunteers have stepped
up to make these events possible. We’ve
administered more than 30,000 doses of
vaccine.
That would not be possible without
the incredible retired nurses, retired phy-
sicians, retired pharmacists and current
nurses and physicians and veterinarians
and dentists — there’s so many different
people.
And not only health care profession-
als, we’ve got data analysts and other peo-
ple who have stepped up and volunteered
to help us in so many different ways. It’s
been incredible — all of the community
support that we’ve got.
... That’s a lesson for all of us as a com-
munity, really. That even in these polar-
ized, crazy times where you don’t know
what people are thinking, we’re all still
Americans, and when asked to do so, we
step up, man, and do amazing things.
It gives me goosebumps just thinking
about the fact that we came together as a
community to accomplish that.
derrick dePledge is editor of The
Astorian.
GUEST COLUMN
Stop the Pebble Mine forever
very summer, thousands of com-
and commercial fishermen, Alaska Native
mercial and sport fishermen, sea-
tribes, conservation groups, grocers,
food processors and sport fishing
restaurateurs and jewelers rallied to the
guides — many of them Oregonians —
defense of Bristol Bay’s salmon and have
migrate to western Alaska for the remark-
long stood united against the Pebble Mine.
able annual return of tens of millions of
In 2014, after years of scientific review,
wild sockeye salmon to Bristol Bay.
the Obama administration began
Bristol Bay’s salmon have sus-
establishing protections for Bris-
tained the Indigenous people of
tol Bay under the Clean Water Act
Bristol Bay for millennia, and today
to ensure a sustainable future for
salmon and the people who make
they remain the backbone of the
their livings from them. However,
bay’s local communities. These
those protections were subsequently
salmon also support a thriving,
rolled back during the Trump
renewable industry that feeds Alas-
JON
ka’s economy and provides income
administration, creating a path for-
BRODERICK
ward for the Pebble Mine.
for families like ours in the Pacific
Until recently, ultimate approval
Northwest.
In recent years, Bristol Bay’s
for the mine has sometimes seemed
salmon generated 15,000 Ameri-
inevitable, its opponents’ objections
can jobs and created $2.2 billion
ignored. Yet, thanks, in part, to con-
gressional oversight from cham-
in renewable annual revenue. Half
pions such as Oregon’s U.S. Rep.
of all the sockeye salmon sold in
Peter DeFazio, the Trump admin-
global markets comes from Bris-
istration agreed last November to
tol Bay.
KATE
And yet, since the late 1980s,
deny the Pebble Mine permit. How-
CRUMP
ever, it also left the door open for a
Bristol Bay’s rare and sustainable
fishery has been threatened by plans for a
future proposal to be submitted.
colossal open-pit gold and copper mine —
The forces behind the Pebble Mine are
the Pebble Mine — that a Canadian min-
wealthy and influential. The Pebble Mine’s
ing company would blast out of the bay’s
current permit denial is not a durable fix.
pristine headwaters, irreparably disrupt-
By resuming the pursuit of protections
ing the watershed and leaving behind sig-
authorized by Section 404(c) of the Clean
nificant toxic mining waste that must be
Water Act and completing the work the
stored in perpetuity.
Obama administration started in 2014, the
Biden administration can secure the long-
In response, a diverse coalition of sport
E
Corey Arnold
Fishermen have fought to protect Bristol Bay from the proposed Pebble Mine.
term health of the Bristol Bay watershed,
its salmon runs and its remarkable sustain-
able fishery.
Many thousands would benefit for
decades to come, among them Oregon
fishing and salmon-dependent families like
our own.
This summer, as we migrate north to
Bristol Bay, we urge our Oregon congres-
sional delegation and the Biden adminis-
tration to stop the Pebble Mine, forever.
Jon Broderick, of Cannon Beach, is
a founder of the FisherPoets Gathering
in Astoria. He and his family have fished
salmon commercially in Bristol Bay for
more than 30 years. Kate Crump and her
husband own Frigate Adventure Travel in
Rockaway Beach. They spend half the year
in Bristol Bay and the other half in Oregon
guiding guests.