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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 2021
IN BRIEF
Boy drowns in pool in Gearhart
GEARHART — A 3-year-old boy drowned in a
neighbor’s pool Tuesday evening.
Authorities said Grayson Bishop was playing out-
side with his 5-year-old brother under the eyes of
adults, who suddenly realized the younger boy was
missing.
The adults started looking for Bishop. A short time
later, his grandmother found him in the neighbor’s
above-ground pool. A fence that separates the prop-
erties had a small opening that the boy had slipped
through.
Bishop was taken to Columbia Memorial Hospital
in Astoria but did not survive.
“It’s one of those tragedies that absolutely breaks
everyone’s heart, you know?” Sheriff Matt Phillips
said. “It just really doesn’t get a lot worse, if at all.”
The family has set up a GoFundMe account to help
pay for funeral and medical expenses.
KEEPING WATCH
Chinook salmon fi shing
closes on Buoy 10
Retention of Chinook salmon in the popular Buoy
10 fi shery on the Columbia River closed Friday after
higher-than-expected catch rates and mortality of an
important Chinook stock.
Impacts on lower river natural tule Chinook is man-
aged under strict guidelines and can defi ne how the
fi shery progresses. Buoy 10 fi shermen are allowed
only a certain portion of impacts on this stock for the
summertime fi shery.
Chinook retention opened on Aug. 1 and was
scheduled to run through Sept. 6, but catch rates and
angler eff ort has been relatively high since Aug. 11,
according to fi shery managers. Environmental condi-
tions may have also been a factor, however. Higher
temperatures upstream may have caused Chinook to
stay in the estuary.
Fishery managers in Oregon and Washington state
continue to allow anglers to retain hatchery coho
salmon from the Buoy 10 line to the Tongue Point-
Rocky Point line.
ABOVE: U.S. Coast Guard Petty Offi cer 3rd
Class Colin Ryan and Petty Offi cer 3rd Class
Lane Martin conduct a safety inspection
during Buoy 10 fi shing season.
BELOW: U.S. Coast Guard Petty
Offi cer 3rd Class Colin Ryan from the
Coast Guard Sector Columbia River
boarding team calls out to a vessel.
Photos by Petty Offi cer
3rd Class Diolanda Caballero
County adopts moratorium
on vacation rentals
The Clatsop County Board of Commissioners unan-
imously passed a moratorium Wednesday night on
new vacation rental licenses, giving the county time to
reconsider the rules in which these businesses operate.
The moratorium, which aff ects enterprises in the
county’s unincorporated areas and Gearhart’s urban
growth boundary, goes into eff ect in September.
Unless the county extends it, the ban will end Dec. 29.
The suspension allows the county to revise the
ordinances around short-term rentals, a profi table ven-
ture that has proved divisive in some neighborhoods.
While vacation rentals bring tourism dollars to the
coast, some residents argue that these dwellings some-
times harm the well-being of residential areas with
excessive noise, unruly or unsanitary behavior, park-
ing problems and other issues.
The review process is expected to wrap up by
February.
During the 120-day freeze, the county won’t accept,
process or issue new permits for short-term rentals.
However, the county will continue to transfer permits
already approved, and applications pending before the
moratorium’s approval would still be considered.
The county’s unincorporated areas have more than
200 permits for vacation rentals.
Astoria public works staff er
tests positive for coronavirus
A staff er in the Astoria Public Works Department
has tested positive for the coronavirus.
The city said the staff er does not appear to have had
close contact with other city employees.
“All health and safety protocols are being followed
at the employee’s duty station and regular business
hours and access at city facilities are not impacted,”
the city said in a statement Thursday.
— The Astorian
DEATHS
Aug. 25, 2021
In ANDRUS,
Brief
Gayle Reams, 76, of Cannon Beach,
died in Cannon Beach. Caldwell’s Funeral & Crema-
tion Arrangement Center of Seaside is in charge of the
Death
arrangements.
MEMORIALS
Saturday, Sept. 25
Memorial
SHEKER, Cliff ord James and Carrie Marie — Cel-
ebration of life at 2 p.m., 35380 Schwab Lane, Asto-
ria. Casual barbecue and potluck. For information, call
503-440-6457.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
TUESDAY
Gearhart City Council and Planning Commission,
6:30 p.m., work session, (electronic meeting).
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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Virus hospitalizations could peak on Labor Day
By GARY WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
The steep rise in
COVID-19 cases that began
in July could peak on Labor
Day and begin a two-month
decline, according to a new
state report.
The COVID-19 forecast
released Thursday by Ore-
gon Health & Science Uni-
versity in Portland included
an updated s cenario of
hospitalizations.
“The forecast shows a
peak census level of 1,197
on 9/6,” wrote Dr. Peter
Graven, the chief COVID-
19 analyst at OHSU.
Hospitalizations would
make a painful retreat with
earlier low levels of virus
hospitalizations
unlikely
until late October — just
before Halloween.
Graven said the toll on
the state has been heavy
and will continue for weeks
ahead with levels of cases
remaining high as the virus
retreats. Oregon is experi-
encing the highest rate of
virus cases of the 18-month
pandemic.
The rapid infl ux of
unvaccinated people arriv-
ing with severe infections
has pushed the state’s net-
work of medical centers to
the breaking point.
“We’re seeing the num-
ber of people hospitalized
going up at rates we’ve
never seen before,” Graven
said.
While there is now hope
that the spike driven by
the highly contagious delta
variant could be slowing its
rocket-like trajectory, there
will be a long, costly fall
back to levels seen before
the spike.
COVID-19 hospitaliza-
tions could fall to about 200
patients around Oct. 23.
The decline would continue
until reaching pre-spike
levels around Nov. 6. The
forecast shows hospitaliza-
tions could continue to near
zero by Christmas .
The Oregon Health
Authority has reported that
95% of hospitalizations and
Andrew Selsky/AP Photo
Two visitors peer into the room of a COVID-19 patient in the
intensive care unit at Salem Hospital in Salem as a nurse dons full
protective gear before going into the room of another patient.
deaths during the last two
months have been among
unvaccinated people.
Among vaccinated peo-
ple with breakthrough
cases, 5.5% have been hos-
pitalized and 0.9% have
died. The median age of the
vaccinated people who died
was 83.
Dr. Renee Edwards,
OHSU’s chief medical offi -
cer, speaking Wednesday
during a media briefi ng
prior to the offi cial release
of the report, said the crisis
remains dire.
Hospitals reported over
92% of all adult staff ed
beds were occupied. Inten-
sive care unit beds often
had even fewer openings.
Reports of patients backing
up into emergency rooms
and ambulances unable to
bring in new patients came
from around the state.
Compounding the prob-
lem: Oregon has the lowest
per-capita supply of hospi-
tal beds in the nation at 1.7
beds per 1,000 residents,
according to the Kaiser
Family Foundation, a health
issues nonprofi t. South
Dakota ranks fi rst, with 4.8
beds per 1,000.
The death of a patient in
Douglas County waiting in
an emergency room because
of not enough intensive care
unit beds being available
made international news.
Edwards said a graphic
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of the spike showed a
roughly symmetrical rise
and fall, with the increase
from early July mirroring
the projected drop over a
similar period.
“The downward angle
looks kind of exactly like
the upward angle, that the
path back down would look
just as steep and long as the
path up,” Edwards said.
OHSU scientists under-
lined that the forecast peak
was not the end, but the
middle of the crisis. An
equal number of unvacci-
nated people are expected
to get sick during the next
two months.
Progress
toward
improvement could stall
if residents get “COVID
fatigue” and become com-
placent about masking, get-
ting vaccinated and other
safeguards. The delta vari-
ant has increased cases
twelve fold since early July.
Unvaccinated
people
are also a potential breed-
ing ground for new vari-
ants, which could be even
more contagious and viru-
lent than the delta variant.
OHSU reported Thurs-
day that just over 63% of
all Oregon residents are
vaccinated. That includes
children under 12, for
whom there is no federally
approved vaccine. Oregon
ranks 19th in the nation for
overall vaccination rate.
Edwards
said
that
until most of the world is
immune, variants could
come from the next city or
from around the world.
“That’s what viruses
do,” Edwards said. “Viruses
are constantly changing and
mutating and looking for
their best opportunity to
spread.”
Oregon could approach
herd immunity — in which
the total number of peo-
ple who are either vacci-
nated or been exposed to
the COVID-19 through
transmission slows or stalls
the ability of the virus to
spread.
Edwards said Wednes-
day that Graven’s fore-
casts have shown reaching
herd immunity is possible
— but at a much greater
human cost than through
vaccination.
“Dr. Graven said we are
getting to herd immunity,
but through mass infec-
tion, which is not the way to
get there because too many
people get sick, too many
people die and it over-
whelms our health care sys-
tem,” she said.
The Oregon Capital
Bureau is a collaboration
between EO Media Group
and Pamplin Media Group.
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