A2
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
IN BRIEF
Firefi ghters contain fi re near Jewell
KID OF THE CASTLE
Firefi ghters worked to put out a human-caused fi re
that erupted on private land near Jewell on Monday, the
Oregon Department of Forestry said.
The Department of Forestry and the Elsie-Vinema-
ple Fire Department kept the fi re in check and, after an
all-night stretch, doused actively burning sites and cut a
line around the impacted area so the blaze did not spread.
Many forestlands are closed to the public. Recent dry
weather conditions have made North Coast forests vul-
nerable to fi re, the department said.
The Department of Forestry asks that anyone in the
forest take extreme care. Campfi res are restricted to des-
ignated campgrounds. Vehicles must carry a shovel, a gal-
lon of water and a fi re extinguisher, the department said.
Youngs River Road to close for paving
Youngs River Road will be closed between Youngs
River Falls Bridge and Saddle Mountain Road for pav-
ing the week of Sept. 20 through Sept. 24.
Only people who live in the area will be able to pass.
— The Astorian
Dollar General store
planned in Ocean Park
OCEAN PARK, Wash. — Less than a year after a
proposed store was scrapped in downtown Long Beach,
it appears a Dollar General store will be coming to the
Long Beach Peninsula after all.
Once open for business, the store will be located in
Ocean Park at the former Oman & Son location, which
temporarily closed at the beginning of the pandemic
before permanently closing in early 2021.
Dollar General is advertising a job opening for a man-
ager for the new store.
Earlier this year, the company opened a store in
South Bend in a newly constructed building on the Wil-
lapa River estuary waterfront. The chain has been on an
aggressive expansion drive nationwide, providing con-
sumers with lower price points on groceries and other
products, often by packaging them in smaller quantities.
— Chinook Observer
Bradford Island could
get Superfund status
The Columbia River’s Bradford Island moved a step
closer on Wednesday to getting on the nation’s list of
top-priority toxic cleanup sites, following the Biden admin-
istration’s proposal to designate it as a Superfund site.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
announced the move on Wednesday for the island at
the Bonneville Dam site, where the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers dumped toxics for decades.
The proposal was seen as a belated move to bring
environmental justice to the Columbia River’s Native
American tribes, which have traditionally fi shed these
waters about 40 miles east of Portland.
— Oregon Public Broadcasting
DEATHS
Sept. 7, 2021
In BALDWIN,
Brief Donna
Joanne, 81, of Warrenton,
died in Warrenton. Cald-
Deaths
well’s Luce-Layton Mor-
tuary of Astoria is in charge
of the arrangements.
Sept. 1, 2021
RODGERS, Lorene, 92,
of Seaside, died in Seaside.
Hughes-Ransom Mortuary
& Crematory is in charge
of the arrangements
Aug. 26, 2021
ABRAHAMS, Eve-
lyn R., 86, of Astoria, died
in Astoria. Ocean View
Funeral & Cremation Ser-
vices of Astoria is in charge
of the arrangements.
CORRECTION
Goal-scorer misidentifi ed — Walker Steele scored
Correction
the lone goal in Astoria’s 8-1 loss to Estacada in soc-
cer. A story on A5 on Saturday incorrectly said Kyler
Woodrich scored the goal.
ON THE RECORD
Assault
Sunday evening at Grand
On
the
Record
• Patrick
R. McInerney,
Avenue and Eighth Street
46, of Post Falls, Idaho,
was arrested Saturday eve-
ning on 39th Street in Asto-
ria for assault in the fourth
degree constituting domes-
tic violence.
DUII
• April A. Breslaw, 60,
of Astoria, was arrested
in Astoria for driving
under the infl uence of
intoxicants.
• Dillan C. Billingsley,
33, of Benton, Arkansas,
was arrested Friday eve-
ning at Marine Drive and
12th Street in Astoria for
DUII.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
THURSDAY
Seaside Civic and Convention Center Commission,
5 p.m., 415 First Ave.
Gearhart Planning Commission, 6 p.m., (electronic meeting).
Seaside Parks Advisory Committee, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989
Broadway.
Warrenton Planning Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 225 S.
Main Ave.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
Luke Whittaker/Chinook Observer
Ida Curry, 3, jumps in a Bouncy Castle at the Pacifi c County Fair in Menlo in late August.
Virus hospitalizations could
be reaching peak in Oregon
By ERIN ROSS
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Oregon’s
COVID-19
hospitalizations could peak
over the course of next week
— and possibly, begin to
decline, according to a new
model out of Oregon Health
& Sciences University. But
that will only happen if Ore-
gonians continue to wear
masks and take precautions.
But while hospitaliza-
tions might be peaking, that
means they’re higher than
ever before.
Oregonians fought previ-
ous surges by wearing masks
and abiding by strict social
distancing measures. This
time around, the masking is
helping to fl atten the curve
— but another big reason
is that there aren’t as many
people left for the virus to
infect.
“This is the exact place
that we were trying to avoid,
with 1,200 hospitalizations,
and nearly all hospital sys-
tems feeling overwhelmed
or having to postpone or can-
cel other types of care. This
is what we were trying to
avoid. We are in that crisis,”
said Dr. Peter Graven, the
lead data scientist at OHSU.
Oregon’s hospitals are
full and have been for sev-
eral weeks. That isn’t going
to change any time soon.
“Right now, we’re at a
fl attening point where, you
know, frankly, it’s proba-
bly going to bounce around
a little bit. We’ll probably
see some up and down yet
before it really starts going
down,” Graven said. “Is it
slowing down? Yes, but it’s
far from better. I think we
have two months of pain
to go through before this is
manageable again.”
‘It’s not like
we’re past anything’
Any progress the state has
made combatting the delta
variant of the coronavirus is
fragile. There are still a lot of
people in Oregon who don’t
have immunity. Graven said
that Oregonians have been
wearing masks, and have
been avoiding large crowds
and indoor dining at bars and
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restaurants, and that’s really
helped fl atten new infec-
tions. But he expects to see
an increase in transmission
tied to people’s socializing
over the Labor Day week-
end. And as fall comes peo-
ple will be spending more
time inside, which could
change transmission rates,
too.
“It’s not like we’re past
anything. Vigilance is obvi-
ously key, every bit of trans-
mission we prevent now
clears out the hospital a little
quicker. And it doesn’t mat-
ter if ( cases are) going up or
going down, it still prevents
the transmission,” Graven
said.
And then, of course, there
are kids: thousands of chil-
dren under 12, who have
not yet received a COVID-
19 vaccine, are returning to
school.
In the spring, few out-
breaks were linked to in-per-
son learning. But now
cases are much higher, and
that means there’s a big-
ger chance of outbreaks in
school. And the delta variant
wasn’t a factor in the spring :
now it’s a game changer.
“I think ( schools) that are
taking all of the precautions
can feel pretty good about
that. But it’s something we
need to monitor and maybe
make changes as we go,”
Graven said.
As schools have opened
around the country, some
states have seen a spike in
cases in children. Others
haven’t. It’s still not clear if
the delta variant of the coro-
navirus is more dangerous to
children.
‘It really takes
a toll on them’
Although the Portland metro
area has been less hard-hit than
other parts of the state, due in
part to high vaccination rates,
the metro area hospital sys-
tem is also overwhelmed. Both
Providence Portland Medical
Center and Providence St. Vin-
cent Medical Center ordered
“fatality management trucks”:
temporary morgues.
“We still see our COVID-
19 numbers increasing. And
we want to be ready for that,”
Rosa Cone, the director of
nursing at Providence St.
Vincent, said.
Hospital morgues usually
have room for fewer than 10
deceased people at a time.
But the delta variant is killing
people so fast, the morgues
can’t keep up.
“It’s so diffi cult for the
staff , it really takes a toll on
them emotionally and phys-
ically, especially because
these patients are much sicker
than our fi rst or second surge
of COVID-19,” said Amanda
Hanley, the nurse manager
of Medical Unit B at Provi-
dence St. Vincent. The num-
ber of people needing sup-
portive respiratory care has
about doubled, and the hospi-
tal fi lled up much faster than
in previous surges.
Medical Unit B has been
turned entirely into a COVID-
19 ward. It’s the fi rst place
many COVID-19 patients go
when they are admitted to the
hospital.
Idaho hospitals begin rationing health care amid virus surge
By REBECCA BOONE
Associated Press
Established July 1, 1873
Kristyna Wentz-Graff /Oregon Public Broadcasting
A coronavirus patient is treated in the intensive care unit at
Oregon Health & Science University Hospital in August.
Abigail McDonald, a
charge nurse in Medical Unit
B, said the last few weeks
have been incredibly diffi cult.
“Our patients aren’t as
sick as they are when they go
to the ICU. You build rela-
tionships and know them
from the beginning, to when
you see them enter intensive
care, and know they might
not come back,” McDonald
said.
Health care workers at
multiple hospitals told Ore-
gon Public Broadcasting that
pre-pandemic when patients
entered the ICU, there was a
good chance they would be
discharged. There was reason
to be optimistic. That’s not
the case now, they say.
“We do normally care for
some patients at the end of
life, but it’s much diff erent
when the patient has lived a
full life, and it’s something
they’ve expected and planned
for,” McDonald said. Now
she’s transferring patients
in their 30s to critical care.
These are people who never
thought they’d be in this posi-
tion, who haven’t made deci-
sions about resuscitation or
end-of-life care.
Now, McDonald and Han-
ley sometimes hear the last
conversations patients will
ever have with their family:
conversations had over the
phone or over Zoom, without
anyone they knew before the
hospital nearby.
This surge has hit health
care workers particularly
hard. Some of it is that many
cases are preventable: people
who would not have needed
to be hospitalized if they
had received the COVID-19
vaccine.
But more than that, they
say, it’s the ebb and fl ow of
hope that’s getting to them.
Even if cases and hospi-
talizations and deaths start
to decline, it’s hard to feel
optimistic.
“ We’ve seen the light at
the end of the tunnel so many
times throughout the pan-
demic. And then to come to a
surge like the one we’re fac-
ing now, it’s a roller coaster
of emotions,” Cone said. “It
makes me hold my breath at
the light.”
BOISE, Idaho — Pub-
lic health leaders announced
Tuesday that they activated
“crisis standards of care”
allowing health care rationing
for the state’s northern hospi-
tals because there are more
coronavirus patients than the
institutions can handle.
The Idaho Department
of Health and Welfare qui-
etly enacted the move Mon-
day and publicly announced
it in a statement Tuesday
morning — warning resi-
dents that they may not get
the care they would nor-
mally expect if they need to
be hospitalized.
The move came as the
state’s confi rmed virus cases
skyrocketed in recent weeks.
Idaho has one of the lowest
vaccination rates in the U.S.
The state health agency
cited “a severe shortage of
staffi ng and available beds in
the northern area of the state
caused by a massive increase
in patients with COVID-19
who require hospitalization.”
The designation includes
10 hospitals and health care
systems in the Idaho pan-
handle and in north-cen-
tral Idaho. The agency said
its goal is to extend care to
as many patients as possible
and to save as many lives as
possible.
The move allows hospi-
tals to allot scarce resources
like intensive care unit rooms
to patients most likely to
survive.
Other patients will still
receive care, but they may
be placed in hospital class-
rooms or conference rooms
rather than traditional hos-
pital rooms or go without
some life-saving medical
equipment.
Idaho Department of
Health and Welfare Direc-
tor Dave Jeppesen made the
decision to enact the crisis
standards about 5 p.m. Mon-
day after the state’s Crisis
Standards of Care Activation
Advisory Committee deter-
mined that all other measures
taken to help relieve staffi ng
and bed shortages had been
exhausted.
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