A6
OREGON
East Oregonian
Tuesday, December 15, 2020
First COVID-19 vaccines have landed
By AIMEE GREEN AND
ANDREW THEEN
The Oregonian
The Oregonian Photo, File
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown will not be among the first to receive
the COVID-19 vaccine. Brown will continue to stay mostly at
home, wear a mask and keep her distance from other people.
Brown won’t be
among first to
get vaccinated
By HILLARY BORRUD
The Oregonian
SALEM — Gov. Kate
Brown will not be among the
first Oregonians to receive the
COVID-19 vaccine.
Rather than jump the line
due to her role as the state’s
top elected leader, the gov-
ernor will likely be vacci-
nated sometime after health
care workers and vulnerable
residents in long-term care
facilities, a spokesperson
for Brown told The Orego-
nian/OregonLive on Thurs-
day, Dec. 10. She’ll continue
to stay mostly at home, wear
a mask and keep her distance
from other people until then,
he said.
“The first vaccines will
be distributed for frontline
health care workers and long-
term care facility residents,
followed by others who are
most vulnerable and at high-
est risk for COVID-19 infec-
tion,” Deputy Communica-
tions Director Charles Boyle
wrote in an email. “Vaccines
will be distributed using a
phased approach while avail-
able doses are limited. Gov.
Brown is likely not to be vac-
cinated until later in the dis-
tribution process when the
vaccine is more widely avail-
able to most Oregonians.”
Brown has been taking
precautions to minimize her
potential exposure to COVID-
19 since the spring, including
wearing a mask and limiting
the number of staff and other
people with whom she meets.
Boyle said the governor will
continue those measures until
it’s her turn to be vaccinated.
“In the meantime, she will
continue to practice physical
distancing, wear a mask, and
avoid large gatherings — as
we are asking all Oregonians
to continue doing — to stay
safe and help stop the spread
of COVID-19 until vaccines
become more widely avail-
able,” Boyle wrote.
The governor was tested
for coronavirus early in the
pandemic when the state was
still tightly controlling who
could get the test, although
she got the test only after a
reporter asked if Brown had
been checked because she
exhibited symptoms of ill-
ness, such as coughing during
a press conference. Brown
tested negative for coronavi-
rus, which at the time was far
less prevalent than it is now.
Contributed Photo
Highly popular Midwest polka band Mollie B & Squeezebox
will entertain at Oregon’s Alpenfest in 2021. From right are
Joe Poper, guitar and mandolin player; Mollie Busta, instru-
mentalist and vocalist; Ted Lange, accordion and vocalist;
and drummer Dana Linblad.
SALEM — The first
shipments of the long-
awaited coronavirus vac-
cine have arrived in Ore-
gon, although officials don’t
expect to begin inoculating
any residents on Monday,
Dec. 14.
The shipments of the
Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine
were expected to arrive
at 10:30 a.m. Dec. 14, but
instead arrived by about
7 a.m., according to the
Oregon Health Author-
ity. A Legacy Health facil-
ity in Northeast Portland
and Legacy Meridian Park
Medical Center in Tualatin
received the first two, 975-
dose shipments.
It’s not immediately clear
when the first vaccinations
will begin, although an
agency spokesperson sug-
gested it may be Wednes-
day, Dec. 16.
Frontline health care
workers will be the first to
start receiving the vaccine,
followed by residents of
nursing homes beginning
next week. They will need
a second dose three weeks
later in order for the vaccine
to offer its full protection.
The vaccine is estimated to
be about 95% effective.
“In
recent
weeks,
as COVID-19 vaccines
reached the final stages of
approval, I have said time
and again that hope is on
the way. Today, I can tell
you that help is here,” said
Gov. Kate Brown, in a news
release. “The first ship-
ments of the Pfizer-BioN-
Tech COVID-19 vaccine
have arrived in Oregon, the
first of many that will be
distributed across the state.”
“We are in the middle of
some of the hardest days of
this pandemic,” Brown con-
tinued. “Our hospitals are
stretched to capacity, and
too many families are los-
ing loved ones just as we
enter the holiday season. So
many Oregonians have suf-
fered and sacrificed in the
last 10 months. But start-
ing this week, and each
week following — as vac-
cines become more widely
available — we will begin
gaining ground again in our
fight against this disease.”
Legacy, the first health
care group to receive the
Jessica Hill/Associated Press
A vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for COVID-19 sits on a table at Hartford Hospital on
Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, in Hartford, Conn. The first shipments of the long-awaited corona-
virus vaccine have arrived in Oregon, although officials don’t expect to begin inoculating
any residents until at least Wednesday, Dec. 16.
vaccine, said it had not yet
determined when it would
start vaccinating people
against COVID-19. Legacy
has two freezers on hand
and expects two additional
storage units to arrive Tues-
day, Dec. 15.
Among other hospi-
tals that will soon receive
shipments: Kaiser Perma-
nente, which has two hos-
pitals in the Portland area,
will receive 975 doses Dec.
15 and plans to begin vac-
cinations Friday, Dec. 18,
at its Sunnyside and West-
side Medical Center. The
health care organization
has a freezer in Washing-
ton and Oregon to store the
vaccines.
Oregon Health & Sci-
ence University in Portland
and Saint Alphonsus Medi-
cal Center in Ontario, along
the Oregon-Idaho border,
also will receive 975 dose
shipments on Dec. 15.
In all, Oregon is expected
to receive 35,100 doses this
week. More than 24,375 of
those doses are going to
hospitals and health care
systems. The other 10,725
doses will go to nursing
homes.
The Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Preven-
tion asked Oregon to choose
the first sites to receive the
vaccine, and the system of
distribution is being moni-
tored, according to the Ore-
gon Health Authority.
Across the country on
Dec. 14, health care work-
ers began receiving immu-
nizations. Among them, a
critical care nurse in New
York and workers at a med-
ical center in Ohio.
On Dec. 13, a scientific
review panel for Oregon,
California, Washington and
Nevada reviewed the data
on the Pfizer vaccine and
determined it was “safe and
efficacious.”
Last week, a U.S. panel
of scientists reviewed trial
data and gave the vaccine
its stamp of approval. The
federal Food and Drug
Administration on Dec.
11 granted the vaccine an
emergency use authoriza-
tion for people ages 16 and
older. The director of the
Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention, Rob-
ert Redfield, said Dec. 13 he
recommends the vaccine.
By the end of Decem-
ber, Oregon could receive
between a total of 197,500
and 228,400 doses of both
Pfizer-BioNTech and Mod-
erna vaccines, according to
the Oregon Health Author-
ity and the governor’s office.
Brown said the state will
“work to ensure” groups
disproportionately effected
by COVID-19 — includ-
ing Black, Latino and
tribal communities — will
have “equitable access to
vaccination.”
There are more than
4.2 million residents state-
wide — and estimates of
when everyone who wants
a vaccine gets one range
END OF
YEAR !
LS
SPECIA
from summer to fall. It’s
unknown precisely when
children younger than 16
will get the OK to be inoc-
ulated. Scientists say more
study is needed before giv-
ing the vaccine to younger
children.
After health care work-
ers and residents of long-
term care facility, essential
workers will be next in line
to get inoculated. But the
state has yet to decide who
will be defined as an essen-
tial worker and what order
those workers will be vacci-
nated in within that group.
After that, people with
underlying conditions that
put them at high risk of
severe complications from
COVID-19 and people
older than 65 will be given
vaccinations.
It will likely be some-
time in the spring before the
general population’s turn in
line comes up.
Patrick Allen, director of
the Oregon Health Author-
ity, urged Oregonians to
continue to wear masks,
avoid gatherings and take
other public health safety
precautions because vac-
cinations are still months
away for most Oregonians.
“The vaccine is the light
at the end of the tunnel, but
we will be in this tunnel for
several months,” he said in
a news release. “We need to
keep doing what we’ve been
doing to help our friends,
neighbors and ourselves
stay safe.”
MESSA
TO YOU GE
CUSTO R
MERS
Alpenfest to head
to Joseph in 2021
Wallowa County Chieftain
JOSEPH — After more
than four decades at Wal-
lowa Lake, Oregon’s Alpen-
fest will have a new home in
2021.
Directors of the Alpen-
fest decided in November to
move the annual event from
its prior location to Joseph,
and the festival in September
2021 will be at the Harley
Tucker Memorial Grounds.
According to a press
release, “a cascade of inci-
dents” prevented the contin-
uation of the festival at Wal-
lowa Lake, where it has been
since 1975.
The festival had taken
place at Edelweiss Inn for 43
years, according to the press
release, but the building’s
owners deemed it to be too
dangerous for future public
events after the 2018 festival.
The 2019 festival took
place in two large tents set up
at the Wallowa Lake Marina,
a move made in an effort to
keep the event at the lake.
But weather, timing, elec-
trical issues, heating and
lighting all made the idea of
holding the event in a tent
unattainable, according to
Chuck Anderson, festival
president and alpenmeister.
The 2020 event was can-
celed altogether because of
COVID-19 restrictions.
Anderson called the move
away from the lake a “very
reluctant decision.”
“We know that our loyal
attendees look forward to
the lake environment and
some will be disappointed,”
he said in the release. “But
recent circumstances forced
us to make a hard decision,
and we trust that Alpenfest
will continue to provide a
rousing good time.”
The return of the festi-
val in 2021 will bring with it
internationally popular polka
band Mollie B & Squeeze-
Box, and Alpenfest regulars
Tirolean Dancers, Shelby
Imholt, a Swiss yodeler, and
virtuoso accordionist Alicia
Straka. Additionally, Randy
and Ashley Thull will pro-
vide free polka lessons.
The 2021 event, which
will run from Sept. 23-26,
features a procession down
Enterprise’s Main Street
on Thursday, Sept. 23, and
“Accordions at Alpenfest”
at Terminal Gravity. TG will
also be the location of a tra-
dition tapping of the first keg
of Alpenfest beer, and the
brewery also will provide the
bulk of the festival’s brews,
according to the release.
Performances will take
place Friday, Sept. 24, and
Saturday evening, Sept. 25,
and Saturday afternoon, and
the Alpine Fair will be Fri-
day through Sunday, Sept.
26.
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