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Saturday, July 31, 2021
E O
AST
145th year, No. 122
East Oregonian
A1
REGONIAN
Saturday, July 31, 2021
WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
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Masking
up again
New mandate
reveals local
concerns for
next school year
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
tion: seasonal allergies and a sore
back from having three kids.
Now, rodriguez is trying to
recover one step at a time. It’s
been more than a year since she’s
returned to her job at the Safe-
way deli. recently she gained the
strength to do her children’s laun-
dry and cook them dinner.
“I want to be able to do things
with my kids in the future,” she
said. “I want to be able to go on
vacation. I want to be able to walk
the beach with them. those are
huge plans for me, and every day
that I get up and do something little
is putting me closer to doing the
bigger things.”
and with COVId-19 cases
and hospitalizations skyrocket-
ing in umatilla County, she said
she hopes her story will serve as a
cautionary tale to skeptics.
“I read the comments on Face-
book, and I know I shouldn’t do
that,” she said. “But it hurts so
much to see people say that COVId
is fake or say that it’s just the flu.
It’s taken my life away from me —
what life I used to have.”
uMatIlla COuNty—
the era of optional face masks
in public schools was short-
lived.
On thursday, July 29, Gov.
Kate Brown ordered state
agencies to reinstate the mask
mandate for K-12 students,
a move meant to align with
recent recommendations from
the u.S. Centers for disease
Control and Prevention.
“the science and data are
clear: the delta variant is in
our communities, and it is
more contagious,” Brown said
in a statement. “My priority
is to ensure our kids are able
to safely return to full-time
in-person learning this fall,
five days per week and with
minimal disruptions. With
many children still ineligible
to be vaccinated, masks are an
effective way to help keep our
kids safe in the classroom, the
learning environment we know
serves them best.”
the news was still fresh on
thursday, but local school lead-
ers said they weren’t surprised
by the change in rules. districts
across Eastern Oregon had
changed their operational plans
to make face masks optional for
the 2021-22 school year.
But the pandemic has taken
a turn for the worse since the
late spring, with umatilla
Count y at the foref ront.
umatilla County has reported
some of the highest daily case
counts in the state while also
sporting one of the state’s
lowest vaccination rates. In
the meantime, there is still no
federally approved vaccine for
children under the age of 12.
InterMountain Education
Service district Superinten-
dent Mark Mulvihill said each
phase of the pandemic has
been difficult for local schools,
but the governor’s announce-
ment means 2021-22 will be
the third school year affected
in some way by COVId-19.
With the issues of masks and
vaccinations heavily polarizing
across political lines, Mulvi-
hill worried about the pressure
teachers, principals and super-
intendents would be under to
enforce the mask mandate.
“We are caught in the cross-
hairs right now,” he said,
adding that residents would
need to get vaccinated to return
schools to normal.
See COVID, Page A10
See Masks, Page A10
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Kari Rodriguez, left, and her daughters Madison Peterson, 17, and Adrianna Rodriguez, 13, take a walk Friday, July 30, 2021, along the Pendleton River
Parkway, Pendleton. The daily walks offer Rodriguez an opportunity to build up her stamina after a COVID-19 infection last year. Before contracting
COVID-19, Rodriguez used to walk the entire length of the 2.5-mile levee without problem; now she struggles to make it half that distance.
‘Part of me didn’t survive’
More than a year after contracting COVID-19, Kari Rodriguez is still feeling the effects
By BRYCE DOLE
East Oregonian
PENdlEtON — For six
months, Kari rodriguez kept a note
thumb-tacked above her bed with
her name, address and allergies to
medication.
the note was for her three chil-
dren. If she didn’t wake up, this was
what they would tell 911.
“I’d like to say I survived
COVId,” said rodriguez, 36, a life-
long Pendleton resident. “But part
of me didn’t survive.”
rodriguez has spent most of her
time during the past year lost in an
endless daze of pain and confusion.
She contracted COVId-19 in July
2020, shortly after her husband
tested positive, but she didn’t have
symptoms and wasn’t hospitalized.
She thought she was one of the
lucky ones. But things became
much worse. More than a year later,
she struggles to walk and breathe.
rodriguez has long COVId-19,
a condition where the body breaks
down well after the virus has run
its course. the syndrome contin-
ues to stump medical experts and
is having a wide-ranging impact.
a June report by FaIr Health,
a health care nonprofit, analyzed
private health care claim records
for nearly 2 million people diag-
nosed with COVId-19 in 2020. It
found almost a quarter of people
develop at least one lingering
symptom long after being infected.
effects are far worse. Victims of
long COVId-19 can face serious
health threats up to six months after
they catch the virus, according to
research in Nature.
In rodriguez’s case, her symp-
toms have included vertigo,
migraines, gastrointestinal symp-
“I want to be able to go on vacation. I
want to be able to walk the beach with
them. Those are huge plans for me, and
every day that I get up and do something
little is putting me closer to doing the
bigger things.”
— Kari Rodriguez, Pendleton resident who is a COVId-19 long-hauler
Women are more likely to report
long COVId-19 symptoms than
men, the study found.
those symptoms include pain,
trouble breathing, high choles-
terol, malaise and/or fatigue and
high blood pressure. For some, the
toms, blurred vision, fatigue, brain
fog and leg pain. She also has been
diagnosed with Meniere’s disease,
hypertension, migraines, small
fiber neuropathy and, in May, stage
3 chronic kidney disease.
Her only previous health condi-
Price transparency not all it’s cracked up to be
Patient variables, markets play
key roles in health care prices
By ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
la GraNdE — the
long-awaited hospital price
transparency laws have
taken effect on the national
level, following a landmark
bill by the trump adminis-
tration requiring hospitals to
post their negotiated rates that
insurers pay for typical proce-
dures.
For Oregon, it’s too little
too late. In 2015, the Oregon
Senate passed a law requir-
ing hospitals to post the prices
they paid for procedures to
the all Payers, all Claims
reporting Program. analysts
at the Oregon Health author-
ity used the data to make
reports about the prices of
common procedures.
the prices were all over
the map.
arthrocentesis — removal
of fluid from a socket or joint
— can range from $370 to
$4,921 at Good Shepherd
Medical Center in Hermis-
ton and costs between $947
to $1,091 at Grande ronde
Hospital, la Grande.
See Prices, Page A10
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
Tonsil removal at CHI St. Anthony Hospital in Pendleton costs $6,740 to $7,295, according
to Oregon Health Authority data, while the procedure costs between $8,018 and $10,281 at
Grande Ronde Hospital, La Grande. Experts say several factors play into the differences.