INSIDE: Stanfi eld football coach steps down in face of vaccine mandate | PAGE A10
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2021
146th Year, No. 2
$1.50
WINNER OF 16 ONPA AWARDS IN 2021
Vaccine
mandate
goes into
eff ect
Almost 90% of staff
at CHI St. Anthony
have received the jab;
Good Shepherd says it’s
complying with rules
By BRYCE DOLE
and ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Erick Peterson/East Oregonian
The shelter dog Throwback plays with Rowan Winterton at the Loves Pets adoption event Saturday, Oct. 16, 2021, at the Pet Rescue Humane
Society of Eastern Oregon, Hermiston. The event resulted in the adoption of 17 dogs and 10 cats.
HOT DOGS!
Locals line up to adopt
new pets in Hermsiton
By ERICK PETERSON
East Oregonian
HERMISTON — Shannon White and her
11-year-old step-daughter, Ennelly Escobedo, were
the fi rst people in line Saturday morning, Oct. 15,
to adopt a pet at Hermiston’s Pet Rescue Humane
Society of Eastern Oregon.
Pet Rescue and Harley Swain Subaru teamed up
for the Loves Pets adoption event, which began at
11 a.m., but the mother-daughter duo said they were
waiting since before 10 for the doors to open.
Within minutes of entering the shelter at 1844
N.W. Geer Road, Hermiston, they walked out with a
new family member — a dog named Brownie. This
new pet, a pit bull, would join a family that already
included a bird and a chihuahua.
Ennelly said she was excited about Brownie, and
she knew the most important things to do to take
care of a dog.
“You have to give them food, water, a bed, and
shelter,” she said. “You have to potty-train.”
More than 30 people in all stood in line before
the start time, all hoping to add a new dog or cat to
their families.
Pet Rescue on its Facebook page on Oct. 16
announced there were 17 dog and 10 cat adoptions
by the time the event ended at 3 p.m.
Four dogs, however, were left “looking for their
forever families,” but the “shelter was emptied on
cats,” according to the post.
Harley Swain Subaru paid all adoption fees, the
UMATILLA COUNTY — More than
2 out of every 5 workers in Umatilla and
Morrow counties are subject to the state’s
vaccine mandate.
For many of them, the clock struck
midnight on Monday, Oct. 18.
Large regional employers such as CHI
St. Anthony Hospital, the Pendleton School
District and the Hermiston School District
reported high vaccination rates among their
staff , with most unvaccinated staff granted
a medical or religious exemption to stay on
or with their employer.
For state workers at one of the region’s
largest employers, the Oregon Department
of Corrections, the hard deadline to get the
shot was pushed out to the end of Novem-
ber.
Both prisons in the county reported more
than 89% of their security offi cers, ranked
from correctional offi cers through captains,
are vaccinated against COVID-19. That
means 60 of the 615 offi cers between the
two prisons are facing joblessness, accord-
ing to a spokesperson with the Oregon
Department of Corrections.
County-wide data
Hermiston pet supply store Petsense distributed
coupon books. Pet Rescue on its Facebook page
stated the adoption day “went great.”
Angela Bradshaw of Hermiston came to the shel-
ter with her two daughters and four grandchildren.
Roughly 13,000 of the 30,300 jobs that
comprise Umatilla County’s workforce are
under the vaccine mandate, according to
Dallas Fridley, a regional economist for the
Oregon Employment Department.
And in Morrow County, roughly 2,700
out of the 5,900 workers there are mandated,
or nearly 46%, Fridley said.
Many of those jobs are in large fi rms,
including the Amazon data center in Board-
man or the many Walmart facilities around
Umatilla County, Fridley said.
Statewide, roughly 57% of all jobs fall
under the mandate, Fridley said, or less than
3 out of every 5 employees.
In an effort to curb the spread of
COVID-19, Gov. Kate Brown announced
the mandate in August as the delta variant
rocked the state’s health care system and
inundated hospitals across Eastern Oregon
with unvaccinated patients.
Since May, more than 90% of patients
hospitalized with COVID-19 in Umatilla
County have been unvaccinated, accord-
ing to data from Umatilla County Public
Health. In that same time frame, 52 county
residents who contracted the virus have
died.
See Pets, Page A9
See Mandate, Page A9
Erick Peterson/East Oregonian
Katherine Lopez holds Shatner, a dog she intended
to adopt Saturday, Oct. 16, 2021, at the Loves Pets
adoption event in Hermiston.
State forecast suggests COVID-19 spike should end by Christmas
Hospitalizations
for COVID-19
continue a steady
decline in Oregon,
but local ICU beds
almost full
By GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — A deadly
spike in COVID-19 infec-
tions that began just before
Independence Day should
near its end around Christ-
mas, a new state forecast said
Thursday, Oct. 14.
But with more than two
months to go to reach the
projected end point, about
177,000 more infections are
expected in the state, accord-
ing to the Oregon Health &
Science University weekly
forecast.
The Oregon Health
Authority reported hospi-
talizations for COVID-19
continue a steady decline in
Oregon, with 563 infected
patients hospitalized on Oct.
15, less than half the 1,178
recorded Sept. 1.
But hos pit al i z at ion
remains high in OHA Region
9, which encompasses
the counties of Morrow,
Umatilla, Union, Baker,
Wallowa and Malheur.
According to the Oregon
Health Authority, 22 of the
region’s 26 staff ed beds in
intensive care units had
patients as of Oct. 15.
The statewide spike in
infections, which began in
the first week of July and
peaked just after Labor Day,
has steadily tracked down-
ward since, the report said.
The spike was driven by the
highly contagious delta vari-
ant.
However, the forecast
projects the state still has
two-and-half months until it
might reach “herd immunity”
for the delta variant. OHSU
reported that is when 85% of
the population is either vacci-
nated or has been exposed to
the virus.
The university’s virus
modeling projects that
Oregon will arrive at that
point around Dec. 26.
Over that time, the fore-
cast estimates there will be
another 177,000 infections
in Oregon — enough to
fi ll Autzen Stadium at the
University of Oregon three
times.
The number of break-
through cases of infec-
tions in people who have
been vaccinated has risen,
accounting for 27.2% of
new infections in OHA’s
weekly report released Oct.
13. It’s one of the reasons
federal and state health
officials have moved to
approve booster shots of
vaccine for those already
inoculated.
But throughout the spike,
severe cases requiring hospi-
talization and deaths have
remained low among vacci-
nated people compared to
those who are unvaccinated.
Vacci nated pat ients
account for less than 5% of
hospitalizations and less than
1% of deaths.
“There’s still time for
people to take action to
prevent transmissions and
to get vaccinated, but we’re
projecting that a whole bunch
more people are going to get
infected in the next month,”
said Peter Graven, direc-
tor of the OHSU Offi ce of
Advanced Analytics.
Oregon recorded 610
deaths in September, the
highest monthly total since
the pandemic arrived in the
state in late February 2020.
See Spike, Page A9