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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 20, 2020)
Morrow County breaks ground on new government building | REGION, A3 E O AST 145th Year, No. 2 REGONIAN TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2020 WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD $1.50 Temperatures expected to drop By BEN LONERGAN East Oregonian PENDLETON — The National Weather Service in Pendleton said a pair of weather systems moving through the region this week will bring a drop in temperatures and could include snow and freezing temperatures. Marc Austin, a meteorologist with the weather service, said the fi rst system, a dry front moving into the region on Wednesday, Oct. 21, is expected to bring high temperatures in the low 50s and upper 40s, with low temperatures trending into the upper 30s and low 40s. The weather service expects LA NINA TO EASE NORTHWEST DROUGHT, FORECASTERS SAY CD2 a rare GOP bastion in Oregon A La Nina is expected to make winter in the Pacifi c North- west wet and cold, relieving drought conditions in Oregon and Washington, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad- ministration said. Page A2 the cold temperatures to usher in the possibility of light snow accu- mulations for the Blue Mountains Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File See Temps, Page A8 Chip Stoica removes the tire chains from his truck after spending the night at the Deadman Pass Rest Area on I-84 on Oct. 9, 2019. ‘You are going to help someone today’ Contact tracers combine delivery of scary news with promise of help By SHEILA HAGAR Walla Walla Union-Bulletin P ENDLETON — They arrive at work, make their way to a desk, look at a list of names and pick up the phone. For much of their shift, these employees are the voice of authority on the COVID-19 virus in Umatilla County. They are contact tracers for the county’s public health department, deployed in the mis- sion of preventing the spread of COVID-19, reaching out to peo- ple who have either tested posi- tive for the coronavirus or have been exposed to someone who has the disease. It’s a job that combines the delivery of scary news with the promise of help. Breuner According to a report released last week by NPR and The Asso- ciated Press, more than 53,000 contact tracers across the nation are key fi gures in the battle to slow this pandemic, one phone call at a time. That number has quadrupled since April, but is just over half of what public health experts say is needed, NPR reported. According to the analysis, just a few states report having enough contact tracers, includ- Greg Lehman/Walla Walla Union-Bulletin Tania Sanchez records the information she needs from the person at the other end of the phone. Sanchez is one of about seven public health employees who talk to Umatilla County residents about ex- posure to COVID-19. ing Oregon, Vermont and Wash- ington, D.C. In much of the United States, public health agencies work with hospitals, government and nonprofi t organizations to do this work. Contact tracing is not a recent concept in public health, noted Nicole Breuner. As Umatilla County’s dis- ease prevention specialist, Bre- uner has helped beef up public health’s pandemic tracing team, but such work has always been necessary for all kinds of com- munity outbreaks, she said. Take cases of E. coli discov- ered at a restaurant — say that the lettuce was found tainted with animal manure, and every- one who had the salad needs to be interviewed. Or a sexually transmitted infection is being shared from partner to partner. A phone call from the health department might be what stops it. There is long-held recogni- tion of the value of contact trac- ing in breaking the chain of dis- ease transmission, according to a July report by Ohio State University’s College of Public Health. In “Contact tracing’s long, turbulent history holds lessons for COVID-19,” the authors explained that fi nding every- one an infected person has been in contact with allows for test- ing for exposure and isolating infected people before they, too, spread the virus. “Unlike social distancing, which had not been used on such a wide scope and scale since the infl uenza pandemic of 1918, contact tracing has been a sta- ple of infectious disease control since the 1920s,” they wrote. Yet, much of the population was unfamiliar with this com- ponent of public health until the 2020 pandemic put contact trac- ing front and center. Thus getting people to open up during a call about possi- ble links to COVID-19 can be tricky, and that’s if they pick up their phone in the fi rst place. Breuner said she doesn’t know just what percentage of people don’t answer the calls that come from the public health By GARY A. WARNER Oregon Capital Bureau BEND — Congressional District 2 is a big splash of Republican red in the otherwise solid blue Democratic map of Oregon’s House districts. CD2 covers the eastern two- thirds of the state and sloshes west at its southern end to take in Klamath Falls, Medford and Grants Pass. All or Bentz part of 20 of Ore- gon’s 36 counties are in the district. It’s an alterna- tive political uni- verse to the rest of Oregon — a place where Donald Trump received Spenser 57% of the pres- idential vote in 2016 when he won 39% statewide. Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 50,000 registered voters. The math makes the Republi- can member of Congress virtually impossible to dislodge. Republicans have won the seat in every election since 1980, when 12-term Dem- ocratic Rep. Al Ullman narrowly lost the seat to Republican Denny Smith. Ullman’s loss was seen as collateral damage from the land- slide that swept Ronald Reagan to the presidency. While long on topography, CD2 is short on population. House dis- tricts are based on population and the other four seats — all west of the Cascades — are held by Dem- ocrats. Both U.S. senators are Dem- ocrats, too. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Hood River, has represented the 2nd Con- gressional District for two decades, racking up large percentages of the See Election, Page A8 ABSENTEE BALLOT RULES BLOCK SOME VOTERS FROM STATE AND LOCAL RACES When Bonnie Ducic got her ballot in the mail, she thought there must be some mistake; all races except the federal ones had been crossed out with a black marker. Page A3 See Tracing, Page A7 National forests receive $2.7 million Funding aimed at reducing long-term costs of fi re management, improving watershed conditions By ANN BLOOM For the East Oregonian ENTERPRISE — The Wallowa Whitman and Umatilla national for- ests will receive $2.7 million to improve forest resiliency, reduce long-term costs of fi re management and improve watershed conditions across Northeast Oregon and South- east Washington. Alyssa Cudmore, Forestland Pro- gram manager and coordinator for Wallowa Resource’s My Blue Moun- tains Woodland Partnership, said the total investment could exceed $40 million over the next 10 years, if Con- gress continues to fund this program. “We are deeply excited that the Northern Blue Mountains Collabora- tive will be receiving funding from the Collaborative Landscape Forest Restoration Project this year after being ranked the top proposal from across the country,” she said. Congress created the Forest Res- toration Project funding in 2009, intended to support large-scale for- est restoration projects and benefi t local communities using collabora- tive approaches to solve forest health problems. See Forests, Page A8 East Oregonian, File The Wallowa Whitman and Umatilla national forests will receive $2.7 million to improve forest resiliency, reduce long-term costs of fi re man- agement and improve watershed conditions across Northeast Oregon and Southeast Washington.
