Capturing Strength, Vulnerability
Film by black producers gets online
premier
See
Opinionated
Judge, page 7
Relics
Coming Down
Grant murals
seen as
promoting racist
culture
See story, page 2
Established in 1970
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Volume XLVIV • Number 26
‘City
of
Roses’
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • December 9, 2020
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Photo Courtesy of M ultnoMah C ounty
A health care worker tests for COVID-19 at an outdoor site in east
Portland.
COVID-19 Danger
Rises to Extreme
Any activity
outside home now
deemed a risk
Multnomah County is complying
with Gov. Kate Brown’s latest or-
ders on preventing the spread of the
coronovirus.
The Portland area moved into the
governor’s new extreme risk catego-
ry last Thursday. It means even more
restrictions to stop the disease from
multiplying, aligning it with the
risks for the rest of the Portland Met-
ro area and a large number of other
counties in Oregon.
While the new measures are part
of a risk-reduction framework, any
activity outside your home carries
risk of spread of COVID-19, offi-
cials said. And while news of sev-
eral vaccine trials signals hope, it
will take well into 2021 or beyond
until the risk is reduced enough to
return to pre-COVID-19 behaviors,
according to public health experts.
“We are still facing potential
spread that can overwhelm our
health care in the next few weeks, ’
said Dr. Jennifer Vines of the Mult-
nomah County Health Department,
“We can all do our part by limit-
ing how much we mix with people
outside our households, regardless
of formal restrictions.”
Health authorities say every-
one should avoid the “three Cs:”
Crowded spaces where you are
around many people; close contact
settings where people take off their
masks and have close conversa-
tions; and confined space, which
means any enclosed area with poor
ventilation.
Instead, people are urged to
protect one another by wearing a
mask indoors and out whenever
they are with anyone outside their
household; wash hands frequent-
ly; maintain six feet distance and
open windows and doors often to
improve air flow.
Multnomah County has a
unique role in the state as it is
home to most of the state’s hospital
beds, and the only specialized trau-
ma and burn centers in the state.
What happens in the rest of the
state impacts our local communi-
ty as people come from across the
state to seek this specialized care,
officials said.
C ontinued on P age 4
Photo Courtesy M iCro e nterPrise s erviCes of o regon (Meso)
Collaborating artists Latoya Lovely and her son “J” celebrate the near completion of a new mural
celebrating diversity on the side of the Micro Enterprise Services of Oregon building (MESO) at
Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Shaver Street.
Black
Innovators
Celebrated
New mural pays tribute to diverse business community
Portland’s Black community
and support for artists of color are
celebrated with the creation of a
new public mural to replace anoth-
er mural that celebrated diversity small loans and business help born
on the side of the Micro Enter- out of the Black United Fund.
prise Services of Oregon building
C ontinued on P age 4
(MESO), a nonprofit provider of