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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2021
Astoria Aquatic Center
temporarily closes after virus case
The Astorian
The Astoria Aquatic Center will
be closed through the weekend
after a staff er tested positive for the
coronavirus.
The city said Friday it is in the
process of reaching out to staff
who may have been in close con-
tact with the person who tested
positive.
“All health and safety proto-
cols are being followed at the
aquatic center and out of an abun-
dance of caution, the facility will
be closed through the weekend to
sanitize surfaces and clean com-
mon areas,” the city said in a
statement. “We plan to reopen the
facility with its regular hours on
Monday.”
Back to school: Focus is on the students
Continued from Page A1
North Coast school dis-
tricts are beginning the
school year amid some now
familiar uncertainties. It is a
“back to normal” that is still
anything but normal.
Masks, social distanc-
ing and other pandemic-re-
lated requirements remain
in place. These are not ideal,
but over the last school year,
school districts have had
time to hone these protocols
and students and staff have
had time to adjust, superin-
tendents told The Astorian.
At districts where school
was in person for much of
the last school year, many
students
have
already
become used to wearing
masks in class.
Superintendents say they
are confi dent about their dis-
trict’s response plans when
there are, inevitably, virus
cases among staff and stu-
dents. Last school year,
when some districts began
the school year online and
others began in person with
limited hours, schools saw
a smattering of virus cases.
No major reported out-
breaks were tied to schools.
On Friday, Bill Fritz,
superintendent with Knappa
School District, announced
the district’s new preschool
program would shut down
until Sept. 20 because of a
virus case and a report of a
separate close contact case.
It is a disappointment, but
safety comes fi rst, he told
The Astorian.
Fritz said one of the
biggest challenges over
the course of the school
year will be responding to
unforeseen mandates from
the state and the unpredict-
ability of the course of the
virus in communities.
Katie Frankowicz/The Astorian
Students returned to school this week.
“We are also concerned
about continuity of instruc-
tion for those who may need
to quarantine,” he said.
Many school districts
had hoped to begin the
school year with masks rec-
ommended but not required.
Superintendents said they
knew that any decision
either way about masks
would be off -putting to
some families.
But then in August,
Gov. Kate Brown took the
issue out of their hands.
She announced that stu-
dents and school staff would
be required to wear masks
inside school buildings. She
also announced a vaccine
mandate for school employ-
ees, including teachers, a
controversial decision .
At the same time, she
urged school districts to
return to in-person classes.
Both the vaccine mandate
and the mask requirement
were intended to provide a
safe learning environment
for children, the governor
said at the time.
Astoria Superintendent
Craig Hoppes said his pri-
ority is to have students in
school buildings. The school
district had opted to begin
the prior school year online
and only began to slowly
bring the bulk of students
back to in-person classes
later in the school year.
Hoppes hopes parents
who may have decided
to keep students enrolled
online again this year will
be encouraged as the school
year progresses and decide
to send their children back
for in-person learning.
For North Coast school
districts, Brown’s vac-
cine mandate has so far not
resulted in walkouts , pro-
tests or staff shortages, but
school leaders say they are
still waiting to see the full
eff ect of the mandate on
employees. Unless they
have an approved medi-
cal or religious exemption,
school staff will need to be
fully vaccinated by Oct. 18.
Warrenton
Superin-
tendent Tom Rogozinski
expects to know more about
how the mandate will impact
his staff in the next couple of
weeks.
For now, the focus is on
the students, he said. There
have been national concerns
about learning loss among
students because of the pan-
demic’s disruption to their
education — and Rogoz-
inski shares those concerns.
“But fi rst and foremost,”
he said, “we need to make
sure our kids are socially
and emotionally supported
... It’s been a tough couple
years for kids and we need
to, I think, honor that they’re
going to come in with some
of those other areas needing
to be addressed fi rst.”
Deaths: County recorded 14 virus deaths since July
Continued from Page A1
County leaders said in
August that the Public Health
Department was focusing
resources on the most vul-
nerable, including residents
of nursing homes and other
congregate care facilities, as
virus case counts and hos-
pitalizations surged because
of the delta variant. But the
county declined to provide
details about the factors driv-
ing local outbreaks or why
care homes were at particular
risk at the time.
The virus deaths at care
homes were disclosed Thurs-
day night by the Oregon
Health Authority in a weekly
outbreak report.
Hannah Olson, the admin-
istrator at Clatsop Care Mem-
ory Community, which is
part of the Clatsop Care
Health District, said four of
the fi ve deaths involved resi-
dents who were unvaccinated
against the virus.
Of the virus cases, she
said, 26 involved residents
and 11 were staff . She said
the majority of residents and
staff were vaccinated.
It is unclear how people
were exposed, Olson said, but
the facility’s awareness of the
outbreak began when a resi-
dent and staff member tested
positive at the same time.
At the moment, she said,
“everyone is doing very well,
and we’ll continue to do our
best to keep these people safe
in their home.”
At Neawanna By The Sea,
the resident who died from
the virus was vaccinated.
The assisted living facil-
ity said the three other virus
cases involved staff — two
were vaccinated, one was
unvaccinated.
‘IT’S JUST THIS REALLY AWFUL
SENSE OF DÉJÀ VU.’
Clarissa Johnson | an administrator at Clatsop Care Health &
Rehabilitation
Gov. Kate Brown has
required health care workers,
including nursing home staff ,
to get vaccinated by Oct. 18.
“Many long-term care
and nursing facilities still
have a proportion of staff
who are not vaccinated —
an issue seen nationwide,”
Margo Lalich, the county’s
interim public health director,
and Tom Bennett, a county
spokesman, said in an email.
“Residents of these facilities,
even if vaccinated, are more
vulnerable to serious illness
from COVID-19 ‘break-
through’ cases because of the
underlying conditions that
often come with advanced
age.
“Also, these individuals
would likely have been vac-
cinated early on, and their
immunity may have waned.
Unvaccinated visitors also
put residents at risk. Visitors
may or may not be family.”
Clatsop County has
recorded 24 virus deaths
during the pandemic — 14
since July.
Vulnerable
Since the start of the pan-
demic, care homes were
identifi ed as vulnerable to
COVID-19. The federal Cen-
ters for Disease Control and
Prevention said the commu-
nal nature of nursing homes
and long-term care facilities
and the fact that they serve
older adults who often have
underlying medical condi-
tions put people at increased
risk of infection and severe
illness from the virus.
In Oregon, the state
restricted visitor access to
care homes for much of the
pandemic as a precaution.
In January, the health
authority disclosed an out-
break involving six virus
cases at Clatsop Retirement
Village, an assisted living
facility which operates under
the umbrella of Clatsop Care
Health District. But local
care homes did not otherwise
emerge in outbreak reports
until this summer.
The state discloses out-
breaks at care homes after
three virus cases or one
death. In the outbreak report
released Thursday night, the
health authority said there had
been 17,432 virus cases and
1,468 deaths tied to congre-
gate care settings statewide.
The weekly outbreak
report also disclosed three
virus cases at the Suzanne
Elise Assisted Living Facil-
ity in Seaside since August.
Administrators at the care
home could not be reached
for comment.
The state also listed an
outbreak this summer at
Columbia Memorial Hospital
in Astoria at 10 virus cases,
down from 12 cases, as the
state initially reported.
‘A diffi cult situation’
Clatsop Care Health &
Rehabilitation, which is also
part of the Clatsop Care
Health District, continues to
dispute the health authority’s
fi gure of 10 virus cases since
August.
“That number’s not cor-
rect,” said Clarissa Johnson,
an administrator at the Asto-
ria facility, adding that the
outbreak should be six — one
resident and fi ve staff — as
previously reported.
The facility has been try-
ing to resolve the discrep-
ancy with the health author-
ity, Johnson said.
The state conducted a sur-
vey at the facility and identi-
fi ed no issues with infection
control measures, she said.
The resident who tested
positive for the virus was
vaccinated, she said. Of the
fi ve infected staff , two were
vaccinated, one was partially
vaccinated and two were
unvaccinated.
There is a high vaccina-
tion rate among residents and
staff , she said. But the coun-
ty’s virus case count is such
that her facility can’t allow
visitors into the building. “It’s
just this really awful sense of
déjà vu,” Johnson said.
When the pandemic
started, outbreaks among vul-
nerable populations at nurs-
ing homes were a focus of
news coverage around the
world. Now, she said, Clatsop
Care Health & Rehabilitation
is “very quietly dealing with
a diffi cult situation here that I
think has largely been forgot-
ten about in the last year.”
Over the past month, the
staff have had to ask resi-
dents to stay in their rooms
for a stretch, and tell them,
“‘We’re really sorry, but I
know a month ago you were
able to visit with your family
member and hug them, but
we have to tell you now that
you can’t.’”
Preschool: The
school district
off ers virus
testing if needed
Continued from Page A1
“We’re
disappointed
that it had to happen, but
we want to keep kids safe,”
Fritz said. “We felt it to be
in everybody’s best interest
to take a pause.”
The school district has
cautioned families to mon-
itor their children for any
symptoms. At this point,
Fritz said he is not wor-
ried about impacts to
other grade levels. The
preschool program is not
located on campus and the
two students impacted by
the virus do not have sib-
lings in the school dis-
trict’s system.
The school district
off ers virus testing if
needed.
School
leadership
opened Knappa Early
Learning to provide an
option for families looking
for public education-based
child care, but primarily to
provide these youngest stu-
dents with an early boost to
their education.
The Oregon Health
Authority, in a weekly out-
break report, disclosed a
virus case for a student at
Seaside High School and a
virus case for a student at
Pacifi c Ridge Elementary
School in late August.
The health authority
also reported seven new
virus cases for Clatsop
County on Friday, 37 new
virus cases on Thursday
and six new virus cases on
Wednesday. Since the pan-
demic began, the county
had recorded 1,988 virus
cases and 24 deaths as of
Friday.
Broadband: Project
would cover majority
of Jewell, Elsie families
Continued from Page A1
During
coronavirus
shutdowns, the school dis-
trict has relied on “old-
school packets,” not the
internet, for distance learn-
ing, he said. “And that’s
tough for our kids, it’s
tough for our teachers, to
know that they’re kind
of missing out on a better
way,” Phillips said.
Under the proposed
three-phase plan, a new
dedicated fi ber-optic cable
would connect to Jew-
ell School, which would
receive one-gigabit inter-
net. Towers would serve
areas north and south.
The fi rst phase would
involve a $500,000 con-
tribution from the county
and $250,000 from Jewell
School District.
Phase two would reach
northeast into the Fish-
hawk
Lake
commu-
nity. “To be honest, we
don’t have a ton of stu-
dents there,” Phillips said,
“but it’s a big community,
and they need internet, as
well.”
The third p hase would
push south to U.S. High-
way 26 and west toward
Camp 18 , he said.
The high-end total esti-
mate for all three phases is
$1.8 million, Phillips said.
County Manager Don
Bohn said the public con-
tribution would off set the
infrastructure costs that
would normally be amor-
tized as part of the rate
structure. Such costs are
a reason rural areas often
don’t enjoy internet access,
he noted. Subsidies help
make these projects pencil
out for developers.
Phillips advised that the
county should see how the
fi rst phase goes, and make
sure Oregon Coast Wire-
less can replicate what it
‘THIS MAY
NOT BE THE
20-YEAR
SOLUTION,
BUT WHAT
WE WERE
LOOKING FOR
IS: WHAT IS
THE HERE-
AND-NOW
SOLUTION?’
Don Bohn | Clatsop County
manager
did in Tillamook, before
signing off on phases two
and three .
The project would
cover the majority of Jew-
ell and Elsie families, but
not all of them — an econ-
omy-of-scale
problem,
Phillips said.
Bohn said the county
will also use the towers —
which the school district
will own, with the rest of
the broadband infrastruc-
ture — for public pur-
poses, such as beefi ng up
communications systems
for emergency respond-
ers. The area has 911 dead
spots, he said.
“This may not be the
20-year solution, but what
we were looking for is:
What is the here-and-now
solution?” Bohn said, add-
ing that, hopefully, the proj-
ect will bring at least 10
years of suitable internet.
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