OFF PAGE ONE
Saturday, April 3, 2021
East Oregonian
A9
Oregon health officials decry uneven COVID-19 vaccine supply
By AIMEE GREEN
The Oregonian
SALEM — Oregon’s top
public health official urged
the governor’s office this
week to press the federal
government to remedy an
apparent widening disparity
in the COVID-19 vaccine
doses sent to Oregon
compared to many other
states.
If federal officials gave
Oregon the same amount
of vaccine doses per capita
as California, Oregon could
have likely vaccinated an
additional 150,000 residents,
Oregon Health Authority
Director Patrick Allen wrote
in a March 28 email to Gov.
Kate Brown’s office.
At Kansas’ level, it could
mean nearly 227,000 more
Oregonians vaccinated with
a first dose, according to
Allen’s calculations. And
at Wyoming’s rate, 370,000
additional Oregonians, Allen
said.
Allen wrote about his
struggles to get an expla-
nation for what seems like
an “extremely inequitable”
process.
He didn’t know if the
issue should be directed to
the White House, the head
of the federal COVID-
19 vaccine response or to
Oregon’s congressional dele-
gation.
But, he advised, it seems
“we at least need to start rais-
ing a ruckus.”
Oregon’s vaccine alloca-
tion from the federal govern-
ment is coming into sharper
focus following reporting by
The Oregonian/OregonLive,
which last month showed
the state falling back-
ward in shots administered
compared to other states.
Oregon ranked 39th in
doses administered per
capita from Feb. 14 to March
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
Pendleton High School student Scott Train, right, watches
as Specialist Stephanie Gonzalez, of the Oregon National
Guard, administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19
vaccine during a vaccination clinic for high school students
at Wildhorse Resort & Casino on March 17, 2021.
14 despite receiving middle-
of-the pack allocations at the
time.
State officials had already
been monitoring the allo-
cation issue, but the news-
room’s reporting in part
prompted additional inqui-
ries, said David Baden,
the health authority’s chief
financial officer who over-
sees vaccine allocations.
“We had a couple of
discussions about it, yes, but
TRCI:
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Antonio Sierra/East Oregonian
Bob Beltran checks into the Promise Inn on its first night of operation on Thursday, April 1, 2021.
CAPECO: ‘We are not a silver bullet’
Continued from Page A1
“I’ve been in a tent and I
don’t mind, but to stay in a
room, it makes a difference,”
he said.
CAPECO has a wider
vision for what its motel can
do, but in the short term,
it’s just trying to offer the
unhoused a place to sleep
from night to night.
In March, the Oregon
Community Foundation
granted CAPECO $1.3
million to buy the Whis-
key Inn and turn it into a
facility that would serve the
unhoused.
Once the facility is fully
renovated, CAPECO plans
to split the inn’s 35 rooms
between a nightly shelter and
transitional housing where
the formerly unhoused can
stay for longer periods of
time while they search for
permanent housing.
But CAPECO still needs
more time to make the neces-
sary renovations to make
rooms permanently habit-
able. In the meantime, Hall
said CAPECO felt like it
could open a dozen rooms
for shelter services.
While the building isn’t
ready for full use, CAPECO
is already staffing up in
preparation for a fully func-
COVID-19:
Continued from Page A1
announced this week that a
subcontractor in Baltimore
had improperly mixed ingre-
dients, ruining as many as 15
million doses set to go out
to states over the next few
weeks.
Joh nson & Joh nson
vaccines that are currently
being given are not from this
batch and are safe and effec-
tive, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention
reported earlier this week.
Oregon has over 35,000
doses of Johnson & Johnson
vaccine available now, but it
will receive between 200,000
and 300,000 fewer doses than
expected in coming weeks.
The inoculation campaign
comes amid concern of the
growth of new, more conta-
gious and likely more lethal
versions of COVID-19.
Researchers have found
that those who are inocu-
tioning Promise Inn.
Hall said they’ve hired a
homeless service manager in
addition to two case work-
ers that will serve the inn’s
guests full time. These staff
members are complemented
by a street outreach coordi-
nator who will go out into the
field to work with the home-
less directly and connect
them with services. Hall also
hopes to eventually hire an
on-site manager who will live
at the inn full time.
Facilities that ser ve
the unhoused can become
community f lashpoints,
a prospect CAPECO is
trying to mitigate by putting
together a task force that
will address neighborhood
concerns. Hall said the inn
will have a second task
force that will look at guest
misconduct and determine
whether they will be allowed
to stay at the Promise Inn
again.
The Promise Inn
represents a first-of-its-kind
facility for a region that is
starting to reckon with its
homelessness issues, but
Hall warned that more was
needed.
“We are not a silver
bullet,” she said.
The inn started check-
ing in guests with the help
of Neighbor 2 Neighbor
Pendleton, the nonprofit
that usually runs the city’s
warming station. In light of
the pandemic, Neighbor 2
Neighbor had been offering
motel room vouchers to give
the unhoused a safe place to
sleep during the cold weather
months.
With the Promise Inn now
duplicating some of Neigh-
bor 2 Neighbor’s services,
Executive Director Dwight
Johnson said the nonprofit
will take the next year or two
to figure out what it should
offer. He added that they did
not want to rush into elimi-
nating services or dissolving
completely while the Promise
Inn establishes itself.
In the meantime, Neighbor
2 Neighbor plans to continue
offering its day center
program, a weekly service
that gives the unhoused a
place to shower and acquire
essential supplies.
As Beltran waited to be
checked in to the Promise
Inn for the night, he said he
was interested in eventually
joining its transitional hous-
ing program.
For Beltran and others
sitting on the sidewalk of
Southeast Second Street, it
might be a chance at getting
on their feet again.
lated will most likely be
spared severe illness or death
compared to the unvacci-
nated.
“This is a race between
the vaccines and the vari-
ants,” Brown said.
Washington will become
the latest state to offer
vaccines to everyone age 16
and above earlier than the
federal May 1 deadline. Gov.
Jay Inslee has announced all
eligibility restrictions will be
lifted April 15.
Brown said Oregon would
stay with its current plans
that would not lift restric-
tions until May 1, though
some counties could petition
to open vaccination to more
people in the last week of
April.
Oregon was fighting to
make vaccination equitable
across economic and ethnic
groups, Brown said.
“The goal of Oregon’s
vaccination strategy is to
make sure we are doing this
fast and doing this fairly,” she
said.
Brown announced that
effective im mediately,
people with several addi-
tional underlying medical
conditions would be added to
the advanced eligibility list,
including smokers. A full list
will be released by OHA.
The state will also allow
workers who are currently
eligible for the vaccine, such
as farmworkers, to bring all
adults in their household to
be vaccinated at the same
time.
OHA is also working
with the Federal Emergency
Management Agency to
create pop-up and mobile
vaccination centers in rural
parts of the state, including
Morrow County.
Not on OHA’s agenda is
any loosening of business
restrictions.
OHA officials said they
would be sticking with
the four-tiered county risk
level system, with the next
changes to be announced
Tuesday, April 6, to go into
effect Friday, April 9.
testified at the trial, including
Flores, Dr. Mark Baskerville
for Flores’ case and Nurse
Practitioner Patrick Maney
for TRCI.
Maney admitted to the
court that prison staff should
have monitored, assessed
and treated Flores’ condition
better but hadn’t, according
to court documents.
Maney testified that
Flores had informed prison
staff that he was running
out of Albuterol — a rescue
inhaler the state prescribed
to Flores for his documented
high blood pressure and
hypertension.
But prison staff failed to
reevaluate Flores’ condition
despite its own orders and
the standard of care, Maney
testified.
“That’s something,”
Herivel said. “When your
own witness gets up on the
stand and says honestly,
candidly, no we don’t meet
the standard of care.”
Maney also admitted
during his testimony that
Flores should have received
an X-ray a year ago, but had
only received one shortly
before the trial.
Herivel works with a
group of attorneys that
represents prisoners state-
wide in habeas corpus claims
against the state correc-
tions department. Since the
pandemic began, she has
filed 34 cases against TRCI,
although Flores’ was the first
to come to trial.
She added that the major-
ity of cases she has won in
the past have been against
the prison.
“They don’t change their
practices to improve medi-
cal care,” Herivel said of
TRCI. “They don’t change
their practices to preclude
having cases filed against
them for unconstitutional
medical care. They do not
take a lesson from the court
and turn it into knowledge.
They do exactly the same
thing they ever do, and that’s
to provide terrible medical
care until occasionally they
admittedly had not raised big
alarm bells or had not pushed
(federal officials) hard at that
point,” Baden said of the
apparent disparities in allo-
cations. He said the news
organization’s reporting
reaffirmed “that is wasn’t
just us seeing it ourselves,
that you were seeing it as
well in your reporting.”
After Allen highlighted
the apparent disparities to
the governor’s office, the
governor’s office subse-
quently contacted the White
House COVID-19 Response
Team, Brown’s spokesper-
son Charles Boyle said in an
email.
Boyle said several other
governors also expressed
concern about allocations
falling short, too. That
prompted a meeting on
Thursday, April 1, with the
Biden administration in
which officials from Oregon
and other states asked for
get caught, but then they
don’t stop.”
The case
The judge’s ruling spells
out in detail how prison staff
failed to properly care for
Flores’ condition.
Flores has had docu-
mented high blood pressure
since 2009 that is so seri-
ous “it can cause long-term
damage to various organs
and/or lead to death,” accord-
ing to the records.
Flores’ blood pressure and
hypertension is genetic, the
records show, and he suffers
from eye problems and head-
aches, which may worsen if
he doesn’t receive treatment,
according to the records.
Flores also had asthma
prior to being incarcer-
ated. He was prescribed
an Albuterol inhaler prior
to March 2020, according
to the records. The inhaler
helps open up airways in
the lungs and is used to treat
conditions, such as asthma
attacks and chronic obstruc-
tive pulmonary disease.
In April 2020, Depart-
ment of Corrections medi-
cal staff was aware of the
seriousness of Flores’ blood
pressure levels and ordered
that his condition be checked
twice a week for at least six
months, documents show.
After March 2020, as his
lung conditions worsened,
Flores was required to use his
inhaler more often, accord-
ing to court records. That
was around the time Flores
was experiencing COVID-
19 symptoms, according to
Herivel and the records.
Flores’ prescription
recommended he use his
inhaler four times per day
with two puffs each time. At
that rate, the inhaler would
last up to 25 days.
But state policy is such
that, to prevent an inmate
from overdosing, an inhaler
can only be refilled by prison
staff once every 120 days,
according to Herivel and the
records.
Baskerville, the doctor
who testified on Flores’
behalf, noted that “overdos-
ing on an Albuterol inhaler
could require as many
as 27,000 puffs per day,”
greater transparency and
explanations, Boyle said.
Boyle didn’t provide
details when The Oregonian/
OregonLive asked what was
said during the discussion
with federal officials, includ-
ing whether they agreed with
Oregon that there is a prob-
lem.
“We are continuing to
monitor this situation, to
ensure that Oregonians have
fair access to the federal
gove r n me nt’s va cci ne
supplies,” Boyle said.
The Oregonian/Oregon-
Live earlier this week asked
the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention —
which publishes online data
tracking vaccines delivered
and shots administered state
by state — if it agreed there
was a large gap in doses allo-
cated per capita and, if so,
why that’s happening and
what the agency is doing to
remedy it.
according to the records.
Maney testified that medi-
cal staff should have looked
to other medications to help
with Flores’ condition, as
per the standard of care,
according to the records.
Maney “testified there was
no evidence in the plaintiff’s
medical records that he was
reevaluated as should have
been done.”
“This guy was gasping
when he was just sitting and
watching TV,” Herivel said.
“He was having incidents,
but was not using his inhaler
because he was rationing it.
He was afraid he would have
a real event and would die.
And he was asking over and
over again for a refill, but
they were refusing him.”
Unconstitutional care
Flores’ case was one of
three cases that Herivel and
her colleagues won against
state prisons in Eastern
Oregon last week, each of
which involved inmates
claiming under the Eighth
Amendment that the care
they received was so bad that
it violated their constitutional
rights.
The other two cases were
against Snake River Correc-
tional Institution in Malheur
County, where a state judge
ordered officials at the prison
to make a plan to enforce
mask wearing and deploy
mass testing after finding
the state’s treatment of two
inmates, like the TRCI case,
reflected indifference during
the pandemic.
Herivel said she was
grateful for the court’s deci-
sion in Flores’ case, but
added that, now having won,
she expects she will likely
be in court again to ensure
that TRCI complies with the
orders in the future.
“Because of my expe-
rience in litigating these
(cases),” she said, “I fear that
we’re going to be continuing
to be litigating for some time
every single order, because I
am not confident that ODOC
will comply.”
Chatting with Flores after
the trial, Herivel said she was
glad to see her client “felt
seen, and felt heard, and he
felt believed.”