East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, March 21, 2020, WEEKEND EDITION, Image 8

Historic Oregon Newspapers

East Oregonian : E.O., March 21, 2020, WEEKEND EDITION, Page 8, Image 8

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Newspaper Page TextA8 OFF PAGE ONE East Oregonian Saturday, March 21, 2020 Approaches: ‘We have a simple message for all countries — test, test, test’ Continued from Page A1 COVID-19 CHRONOLOGY off-reservation, a radius that stops before cities like The Dalles, Baker City and Rich- land, Washington, if people were traveling from Mission. If residents traveled more than 75 miles, especially by air, the tribes told them to self-quar- antine for one to two weeks. Jiselle Halfmoon, a spokeswoman for the tribes’ COVID-19 Incident Com- mand, said tribal medical executives had been moni- toring the virus since late last year and the Board of Trust- ees were prepared to act once the disease reached Eastern Oregon. “We almost expected this to come,” she said. “I believe that’s why we were ready for it, and we took preventive and proactive measures to be able to put things in place once it started impacting our com- munity directly.” Despite the different approaches, Halfmoon said the tribes weren’t inﬂ uenced by what other local govern- ments were or weren’t doing. “It was general prevention on our part, not a response to anybody else’s lack of action,” she said. Regardless of the local response, all Oregonians have experienced an upheaval of their lives. On Monday, Gov. Kate Brown banned gatherings of more than 25 people and ordered all bars and restau- rants to close statewide. On Tuesday, she extended the statewide school closure until April 28. And then on Friday, the state announced 26 new cases of coronavirus, which was Oregon’s largest single-day increase so far and brings the state’s total number of cases to more than 100. But for Umatilla County, there have been no additional cases of COVID-19 identiﬁ ed since March 11 and both peo- ple who tested positive have recovered. “It’s hard to wrap your mind around this because the steps the governor is tak- ing is not because of the situ- ation we’re in, they’re because of the situation we could be STATE OF OREGON FEB. 28 MARCH 2 MARCH 8 MARCH 11 MARCH 12 MARCH 13 MARCH 14 MARCH 16 MARCH 18 The Oregon Health Authority announces first case of COVID-19 in Oregon. OHA announces first case of COVID-19 in Umatilla County. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown declares state of emergency. The World Health Organization declares COVID-19 a global pandemic, Gov. Brown announces statewide ban on gatherings over 250 people. Gov. Brown orders all schools to close beginning March 16 as Oregon reports 24 total cases of COVID-19. President Donald Trump declares national emergency. First Oregonian dies from COVID-19. Gov. Brown announces ban on gatherings over 25 people, restricts restaurants to takeout and delivery. Two more people die from COVID-19 as case total rises to 75. UMATILLA COUNTY MARCH 2 MARCH 5 MARCH 5-7 MARCH 11 Umatilla County Commissioner George Murdock takes emergency flight home from conference in Washington D.C. Murdock says three samples from Umatilla County residents tested negative for COVID-19. OSAA 2A State Basketball Championships played at Pendleton Convention Center. Second “presumptive positive” COVID-19 case announced in Umatilla County. MARCH 12 MARCH 13 MARCH 18 Umatilla County declares a “state of alert.” President Donald Trump declares national emergency. Umatilla County, Morrow County and Pendleton declare a state of emergency, close or restrict access to public buildings. CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF THE UMATILLA INDIAN RESERVATION MARCH 2 MARCH 6 MARCH 12 MARCH 13 MARCH 14 MARCH 16 MARCH 17 MARCH 18 CTUIR declares state of emergency, closes Wildhorse, Nixyaawii Community School, Head Start, Daycare and Senior Center for cleaning until March 4 and cancels all community events for the week. Board of Trustees Chairwoman Kat Brigham reports cases of anti-tribal discrimination following first COVID-19 case at a coronavirus roundtable hosted by Rep. Greg Walden. CTUIR establishes COVID-19 Incident Command, names tribal spokesman Chuck Sams incident commander. CTUIR cancels all community events except Wildhorse fireworks show, recommends residents don’t travel more than 75 miles off reservation. CTUIR announces it will temporarily stop disconnecting water services for nonpayment. Tribes limit access to Nixyaawii Governance Center. CTUIR announces partial closure of Wildhorse Casino & Resort, including casino floor, from March 18 to April 8. CTUIR temporarily halts evictions in tribal housing, agrees to pay nonworking Wildhorse employees for two weeks. East Oregonian Graphic/Andy Nicolais in,” Fiumara said. “While this seems like a quick escalation over nothing, or very little, it’s actually an escalation based on the data that’s coming out that says if we do nothing, it could be very bad.” Fiumara acknowledged the lack of new diagnoses doesn’t mean there aren’t other cases out there. And while he conﬁ rmed “some testing” has been done in Umatilla County, he wouldn’t say exactly how many have been conducted at this point. “When you’ve got small numbers, they become very easy to identify when people start grabbing bits of informa- tion from different sources,” he said. “As these numbers get larger, we will start kick- ing them out.” According to Fiumara, the county knows when a test result is in, but doesn’t know of every test that’s pending from Umatilla County. Dr. James Winde, Yel- lowhawk Tribal Health Cen- ter medical director, said the Umatilla Indian Reservation health clinic doesn’t have test- ing capabilities. Should a tribal member report coronavirus symp- toms to Yellowhawk, and doctors suspect COVID-19 after an examination, Winde said the clinic would send the patient to a hospital for further testing. If a tribal member tests positive, Winde said the pro- cess would follow Oregon Health Authority reporting guidelines and begin coordi- nating with Umatilla County Public Health. He said he didn’t know if the tribes would acquire test- ing capabilities in the future given the rapidly changing landscape, but demand from individual tribal members wasn’t high. “Not that many,” he said. “Less than I would have anticipated.” Other Oregon counties, such as Lane County, have released speciﬁ c testing data about its residents. But after being cautious to not stir panic with a pre- mature emergency declara- tion, Fiumara said the health department is now consid- ering releasing the number of people tested for the same reason. “We’re hoping it can tamp down some of the fear in the area that there are some tests happening and they’re com- ing back negative,” he said. Yet, as of Friday, it remained unclear when test- ing will be widely available in Eastern Oregon. “It’s hard to give a time- line, but there are activities happening on multiple fronts to ﬁ nd ways to expand that,” Fiumara said. “Yes, there’s been limited testing happen- ing, but our sense really is there’s much more inﬂ uenza, more common cold and other respiratory illnesses circulat- ing. Just because someone has a cough and a fever in Uma- tilla County, chances are it’s not COVID. I can’t say that it’s not, but chances are that it’s not.” The only way for that to be known would be for more people to be tested, which is precisely what the World Health Organization is saying should be done. “We have a simple mes- sage for all countries — test, test, test,” Director-General of the World Health Organi- zation Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday. National COVID-19 test- ing was ramping up Friday as the total U.S. cases surpassed 13,000, and Brown said Thursday that 20,000 testing kits were headed to Oregon soon. But as it stands, Hitzman said labs around the country are overwhelmed and esti- mated it’d take up to 10 days for a test result to come back on a sample collected Friday that goes through a commer- cial lab. Hitzman also offered some optimism, pointing out that Wuhan, China, where the virus was ﬁ rst identi- ﬁ ed in December 2019, has reopened some factories just four months later. “It is conceivable that what we see happen is that four months from now this may be a nightmare we wished we hadn’t lived through,” he said. For now, Umatilla County residents will have to live through a nightmare they don’t know the full extent of. Parents: Although libraries are closed they still offer a plethora of resources Continued from Page A1 more formal lessons with stu- dents, the “school day” can be much shorter. “When you’re home, a les- son that might take an hour at public school might take 20 minutes with your kid because they have that really good one-on-one time,” she said. “You don’t need to explain things multiple times for the kids not paying atten- tion in the back.” Street said if parents are just looking for ways to tem- porarily provide educational opportunities for their chil- dren, and not committing to a homeschooling lifestyle per- manently, there are plenty of free resources online they can use instead of investing in expensive textbooks and other materials. One of those resources, locally, is the Hermiston Public Library. While the library building is currently closed to visitors, people can still call to order books for pickup outside, and the library offers a long list of digital resources, found at https://hermistonlibrary.us/os. Library director Mark Rose said it’s not too late for Hermiston residents to get a library card to access such services — just call 541-567- 2882 to provide the necessary information and be issued a library card number. For people who don’t live in the city, some of the resources listed on the library’s website don’t require a library card to access. “Because of the state library and other things of that nature, we have huge amounts of resources,” Rose said. Those resources go beyond just audiobooks and e-books and include services, such as Bookﬂ ix, which help young children read a digi- tal picture book along with a narrator, and offer ques- tions afterward to gauge their understanding. “We’ve had pretty good use of it, and I think it will be a good resource for people now,” Rose said. TumbleBook, an online library that also includes vid- eos and comic books, is mak- EO ﬁ le photo Oregon Connections Academy students work on projects in 2014. Online schools are one option parents are turning to in order to keep their children busy during the six-week school closure. ing its services free to all Americans during the current outbreak, along with a col- lection of math activities on TumbleMath. Another resource for fam- ilies is Beanstack, a reading challenge service that allows people to track their reading hours. Rose said now is the time for parents to get creative about keeping their children informed and entertained. He said if people are looking for a speciﬁ c resource on the internet to help them do so, but haven’t been able to ﬁ nd it, librarians at the Hermiston library are happy to take their call and help them out. “Finding things online is supposed to be easy, but it’s not always, and our staff have experience in that,” he said. As families wait to hear whether Oregon students will actually return to the class- room on April 29 as planned, some parents have written in community forums on Face- book that they plan to with- draw their child’s enrollment from their local school com- pletely and switch to a vir- tual charter school, such as Connections Academy. It is unclear yet how the Oregon Department of Education will handle that phenomenon, as schools usually get funding from the state on a per-stu- dent basis, meaning drops in enrollment hurt districts ﬁ nancially. Hermiston School Dis- trict has put together a list of some educational resources parents can use on their web- site, at bit.ly/2UaOaXn. Dis- trict communications ofﬁ - cer Maria Duron stated in an email that the list was not the answer to questions about what learning will look like for students throughout the outbreak, but is meant to be a resource for caregivers look- ing for ideas. For parents who are just looking for ways to keep their child entertained in an edu- cational way over the break from school, many compa- nies and nonproﬁ ts are step- ping up. Scholastic, for example, has launched a free Learn at Home program that offers “20 days’ worth of active learning journeys designed to reinforce and sustain educa- tional opportunities for those students who are unable to attend school,” according to their website. Students can take a virtual tour of now-closed museums and zoos around the world by visiting artsandculture.goo- gle.com, which uses the same technology as Google Street View to allow users to “walk” the halls of everything from the New York Metropoli- tan Museum of Art to the Australian National Surﬁ ng Museum. Or they can use street level mapping technol- ogy through www.geoguessr. com to race to guess where in the world they have been “dropped.” The American Dairy Association North East is offering virtual tours of farms, catered to different age levels. Testing: ‘The national media must take culpability for whipping up the public’ Continued from Page A1 care personnel with symp- toms who had close contact with a laboratory-conﬁ rmed COVID-19 patient. Even with the strict cri- teria, “the state lab received 167 specimens on Wednes- day,” Hitzman said. “There is clearly a backlog. They just don’t have the capacity.” Most other samples go to one of three large commer- cial labs: LabCorp, Univer- sity of Washington Virology and Quest Diagnostics. As the World Health Orga- nization urges nations to test every suspected case, the U.S. is nowhere close to that point. Things are changing almost hourly though, the physicians said. Testing will soon become more available. In a press conference on Tues- day, Gov. Kate Brown said she expects federal authori- ties to release a million new tests next week and millions more in the weeks to come. “You should see our test- ing capacity ramp up,” Brown said. “I won’t say exponen- tially, but substantially this week as we expand testing capacity through a private provider.” Another issue is a short- age of RNA extraction kits needed by labs to diagnose the novel coronavirus. Qia- gen, the Netherlands com- pany that produces the bulk of the kits, is ramping up pro- duction in the face of over- whelming global demand. Interpath Laboratory, headquartered in Pendleton, knows the complexities of COVID-19 testing. Market- ing Director Judy Kennedy explained how headache-in- ducing it can be. Interpath does about 97 percent of its own testing, but is not yet set up to test for COVID-19. So Interpath has been sending nasal samples to ARUP Lab- oratory in Utah. When ARUP met capacity, Kennedy said, ARUP made arrangements with LabCorp, which also met capacity. “What we have here is a ﬂ ow from lab to lab,” she said. “There’s such a demand that no one can keep up.” About 30 one-to-two-day- old specimens (collected from around the United States) are sitting in Interpath frozen storage ready to go some- where. Kennedy said they just worked out an agreement with a lab in Tennessee. The pandemic, she said, has tested the ingenuity of laboratories. “It was a brand-new virus, so nobody had the testing,” Kennedy said. As testing becomes more prevalent, the pandemic will continue to come into focus. “With more and faster testing,” Townsley said, “we’re going to ﬁ nd out how pervasive it is. This commu- nity likely has COVID-19 in it.” Hitzman agreed with that but also chided the media for overreacting. “The national media must take culpability for whipping up the public,” he said. “It’s probably important to con- sider that over 30,000 people in the U.S. die every year from inﬂ uenza and we don’t see the same level of hysteria.” Despite that sentiment, Hitzman urges people to wash their hands, use hand sanitizer and socially isolate. “Kate Brown has done a remarkable job in closing schools and closing restau- rants,” he said. “We’re not going to know the answer for two weeks.” The doctors urged people who start experiencing symp- toms to stay at home. Instead, they should call their health care provider and arrange for a consultation by phone, email or video. “A lot of providers, includ- ing myself and other clinics, can do telemedicine visits so people don’t have to leave their houses,” Harrison said. “That way, they aren’t spread- ing the risk.”