Wallowa.com
OPINION
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
A5
Preparing for flu season in a time of COVID
MOUNTAIN
MEDICINE
Annika Maly
s we continue to live with the
COVID-19 pandemic, we are mov-
ing into our annual season of influ-
enza epidemic. Influenza epidemics occur
every year in Wallowa County, usually
between December and March. Influenza
and pneumonia rank among the most deadly
illnesses in the United States. Influenza —
the flu — is caused by a virus, with symp-
toms including coughing, fatigue and fever.
While the flu is not typically fatal, it is
highly contagious and can be deadly to chil-
dren, seniors and other vulnerable popula-
tions in Wallowa County. Pneumonia, a seri-
ous condition in which the lungs fill with
fluid, commonly results from a flu infection.
Every year, several Wallowa County resi-
dents die from influenza or complications
from influenza. Older individuals are espe-
cially at risk.
The term “influenza-like illness” (ILI)
A
considers the flu along with other illnesses,
such as pneumonia, that cause similar symp-
toms, notably fever, dry cough, nausea,
body aches, and nausea. These are the same
symptoms as COVID infections.
We don’t know what this year’s flu sea-
son will look like with the addition of
COVID-19. Increased numbers of both
infections will put significant stress on our
health care system. For example, if someone
tests positive with the flu that has been in
our clinic building, it takes at least an hour
to clean before another person can enter.
More concerning, influenza and COVID-
19 viruses are different, and it is possible to
get both infections. Fighting both the flu and
COVID at the same time is very hard for our
bodies.
The most effective way for Wallowa
County residents to avoid the flu is to get
vaccinated before flu season every year. The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
is recommending vaccination by the end of
October. It takes about two weeks for the flu
shot to become effective, which would pre-
pare us for an early outbreak in November.
The flu shot should provide immunity for
the entire season and there is no recommen-
dation to get a booster flu shot later in the
season at this time.
In addition to getting a flu shot, there are
many habits that can help prevent the flu and
similar illnesses. Some of these health hab-
its include: avoid close contact with some-
one who is sick, cover your mouth and nose
and clean your hands. Please wear face cov-
erings, maintain physical distance and stay
home from work if you are sick.
Creating an effective seasonal flu vaccine
has many challenges. The flu virus changes
every year, and the CDC and Food and Drug
Administration do their best to pick the four
most likely strains, two for flu A and two for
flu B. Getting the flu shot isn’t a 100% guar-
antee that you won’t get the flu. It only tar-
gets the most common varieties, and if a
less-common strain starts circulating, you’re
not protected against it. But even if you do
get the flu after getting the vaccine, research
shows that it reduces the likelihood of
severe symptoms by 40% to 60%, making it
a good investment for your health.
It is frustrating when we hear that the flu
shot is “only” 40% to 60% effective, or hear
stories of people getting the flu even when
they have gotten the flu vaccine. People
often say, “I never get the flu, so why would
I get the shot?” With a flu shot, people who
are young, fit and healthy can help protect
people in these high-risk groups from the flu
through something called “herd immunity.”
The more people are vaccinated, the less
likely it is for the contagious disease to be
transmitted to others. Even if you are some-
one that doesn’t get the flu, you can keep
someone else from getting the flu if you are
immunized. This means fewer days out of
work and school, fewer healthcare visits,
and fewer hospitalizations. In COVID times
it may also mean less chance of our schools
and businesses closing.
Everyone older than 6 months of age is
eligible for the flu vaccine with rare excep-
tions.There are many myths that circulate
about the flu vaccine. There is no thimero-
sal in the single-dose vials for the flu vac-
cine that most clinics administer. People
with egg allergies can receive any licensed,
recommended, age-appropriate flu vaccine
that is otherwise appropriate. People who
have a history of severe egg allergy (those
who have had any symptom other than hives
after exposure to egg) should be vaccinated
in a medical setting, supervised by a health
care provider who is able to recognize and
manage severe allergic reactions. Our hos-
pital and clinics have a completely egg-free
vaccine available.
Please ask your primary care provider
about the flu vaccine today.
———
Annika Maly is a family physician at
Winding Waters Clinic in Enterprise.
Local recycling effort indeed makes a big difference
REDUCE,
REUSE,
RECYCLE
Peter Ferré
hank you, Wallowa County, for your
belief and focus on reducing, reus-
ing and recycling. The volume of
materials being collected at the recycling
center, (tin & aluminum cans, white &
mixed paper, glass, cardboard and No. 1 &
No. 2 plastics, (excluding things like clam
shells, salad containers, cookie contain-
ers, etc.) is rising, and the quality of the
materials being dropped off is improving,
(thank you for taking the caps off all your
glass and plastic containers). A few of the
differences your recycling efforts are mak-
ing are:
• Reducing the amount of waste sent to
landfills.
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• Conserving natural resources such as
timber, water and minerals.
• Increasing economic security by tap-
ping a domestic source of materials.
• Preventing pollution by reducing the
need to collect new raw materials.
• Saving energy.
• Supporting American manufacturing
and conserving valuable resources.
• Helping create jobs in the recycling
and manufacturing industries in the U.S.
The Recycling Task Force created by
the Wallowa County commissioners has
evolved into an advocacy group called
Friends of Wallowa County Recycling,
and is committed to a long-term plan to
improve and expand our recycling while
helping us all reduce the amount of solid
waste we generate.
During the winter months we are hav-
ing volunteers at the Recycle Center on
Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays to sort
materials, help recyclers, keep the cen-
ter organized and help with processing
all that we receive. We need your help
with this and ask that you email us at wal-
lowacountyrecycling@gmail.com to let us
know you if would be interested in help-
ing. Everyone is welcome, and everyone
can help make a difference even if it is just
for a few hours.
Recycling is critically important. A sin-
gle recycled plastic bottle saves enough
energy to run a 100-watt bulb for four
hours, and it also creates 20% less air pol-
lution and 50% less water pollution than
would be created when making a new
bottle.
What is even more important than recy-
cling the plastics we use is to use far less
plastics. Currently at our recycling center,
and many others around the country, we
can only accept No. 1 and No. 2 plastics,
(excluding clam shells, berry boxes, salad
containers, etc.) All other plastics wind up
in the ocean, or in an osprey’s nest, or in
the digestive system of that beautiful steel-
head, or sitting in our landfills for up to
1,000 years. We want to challenge all of us
to reduce the amount of plastic we use.
Buy drinks in aluminum cans or glass
bottles, not plastic bottles. Skip items that
are not packaged in the materials accepted
at the Recycling Center, buy a big block
of cheese rather than the already sliced
smaller packages, buy a few avocados and
make your own guacamole, skip the plas-
tic produce bags at the store, buy things in
bulk, buy refillable items, shop for items
packaged in tin, aluminum, paper, card-
board or glass, and skip the items pack-
aged in plastic.
Yes, it can be inconvenient, but the dif-
ference we can each make by demanding
how manufacturers package their products,
through what we spend our money on, can
and will make a world of difference.
Thank you again for the difference you
are making and continue to encourage your
friends and family members to become
avid recyclers and plastic avoiders.
Feel free to send us your questions,
ideas, thoughts and/or interest in vol-
unteering to wallowacountyrecycling@
gmail.com.
———
Peter Ferré is a member of the Wallowa
County Recycling Task Force.
Oregon AG must address
unjust convictions
OTHER VIEWS
Earl Bain
D
uring the six years I spent in prison
and the five years I spent on the sex
offender registry, one of the many
things that played on my mind was that if my
case had been heard just a few miles along
the road in Idaho, I wouldn’t have been in
prison at all.
I was wrongfully convicted by a nonunan-
imous jury, despite being innocent of any
crime. Only 10 of the 12 jurors believed
the story the prosecution told, but that was
enough. Unlike every other state in the
Union, aside from Louisiana, at the time of
my conviction in 2009, Oregon allowed me
and others to be convicted of felonies if only
10 or 11 jurors voted “guilty.”
Elsewhere, all 12 jurors had to be con-
vinced to support a guilty verdict. If I had
been tried in Idaho, a few minutes’ drive from
where I lived in Malheur County, the split-
jury verdict in my case would not have been
enough to convict me.
My experience has convinced me that jus-
tice demands that verdicts be unanimous.
I am not alone in thinking that. Earlier this
year, the U.S. Supreme Court settled the
question of whether Oregon and Louisiana’s
nonunanimous jury systems are fair by rul-
ing that verdicts must be unanimous. The jus-
tices ruled that jurors in any new cases that
come to trial in Oregon must reach a com-
plete agreement to convict.
The court found that nonunanimous ver-
dicts violate the Constitution and that they are
a relic of the past that was designed to silence
minority voices on juries. Justice Neil Gor-
such wrote that the practice of allowing split-
jury verdicts is inconsistent with the Consti-
tution’s right to a jury trial and must end. He
traced the right to a unanimous jury all the
way back to medieval Europe, explaining that
it “emerged as a vital common law right in
14th-century England, appeared in the early
American state constitutions, and provided
the backdrop against which the Sixth Amend-
ment was drafted and ratified.”
Oregon and Louisiana have been very
much outliers in allowing nonunanimous ver-
dicts for so long.
This is good decision, but the Supreme
Court left open a question: What happens
to those people who have already been con-
victed nonunanimously and are still in
prison, or otherwise suffering the burden of
an unjust felony conviction in their past?
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling,
the Oregon Department of Justice, which
is responsible for handling the prosecution
side of appeals of criminal cases, announced
it would concede all cases that were decided
nonunanimously and were still on direct
appeal. That means a group of convictions
is being overturned, but there are still many
more cases that had already reached later
stages of the appeals process when the DOJ
announced its concessions. An arbitrary cut-
off point does not change reality: People who
have been wronged by nonunanimous ver-
dicts still need help.
If it were not for the pardon I received
from Gov. Kate Brown, with the help of the
Oregon Innocence Project, I would be one
of the people still waiting for relief, since my
direct appeal was dismissed in 2009.
Even for people no longer in prison, the
effects of a nonunanimous conviction can last
for a lifetime. There’s no asterisk on a fel-
ony conviction to tell potential employers that
your conviction would not stand under cur-
rent law. Landlords can’t tell that your crim-
inal history is based on a law the Supreme
Court now calls “gravely mistaken.” Before
my pardon, I still had to submit to the humil-
iation of being under supervision as a sex
offender, including having to regularly take
lie detector tests about my sexual thoughts
and activity, even though I was convicted
nonunanimously.
Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum and
the Department of Justice must do more.
Rosenblum should consent to new trials for
all Oregonians convicted by nonunanimous
juries, regardless of when their appeals were
heard. I know from bitter experience that the
system can get it wrong. Why would we risk
other people enduring wrongful conviction as
I have?
A wrong is a wrong, and it should be
righted, whether it occurred a short time ago
or decades past, especially when it impacts
the lives of so many people convicted unfairly
by a process rejected by 48 other states.
———
Earl Bain was wrongfully convicted in
Malheur County in 2009. He spent six years
in prison. After the complaining witness in his
case recanted her story, with the help of the
Oregon Innocence Project he was pardoned
on the grounds of innocence by Gov. Kate
Brown in August this year.
Recapping the 2020 season at Alpine Meadows
TEE TIME
Rochelle Danielson
lpine Meadows Golf Course offi-
cially ended its season Oct. 15,
but its closure means only that the
clubhouse is shut down, the greens crew
has gone fishing and rental carts are stored
away. It doesn’t mean the course, itself, is
closed. You can still golf.
Several of Wallowa County’s hardy
golfers continue to play until the snow
flies — they don’t let the absence of cer-
tain amenities such as tee box markers,
or Rahn’s portable bathroom rentals stop
them.
Chuck Haines, who is not only an avid
player, but a long-time AMGC volunteer,
is one of the hardiest.
“It takes time to wean yourself off
golf,” he says. “I continue to play in the
fall until the weather gets bad and win-
ter prevails. Eventually I adjust, substitute
home projects to pass the time, but (in the)
spring I’m again anxious for another sea-
son of golf.”
During the summer season Tuesdays
at AMGC has always been designated
Ladies Day. Near the end of September
— unlike the men — it seems easier for
women to put away their clubs and pur-
sue warmer interests. Then again, there is
A
always the exception.
AMGC member Donna McCadden,
wanting to squeeze in a late-October game,
called me.
“It’s Tuesday, let’s go play some golf.
It’s balmy out,” she says.
“No, it’s brisk out there,” I say.
“Be a sport,” she says.
Mid-morning found us, goosebumps
and all, teeing off No. 1.
It proved to be an enjoyable nine holes
which included finding golf balls hidden in
the leaf-strewn fairway, red-raking a put-
ting path on No. 7 green, and hitting shots
over (instead of in) the creek ... all of this
while breathing in the crisp, clean air of
fall. Delightful.
For those golfers who are having end-
of-the-season blues, there should still be
some lovely late-morning and afternoon
golf days ahead, maybe up to Thanksgiv-
ing. Go play. Be respectful of the course
and who knows, you might find a golf ball
or two.
Judy Ables, outgoing AMGC president,
summed up the season.
“For the 2020 Alpine Meadows golf
season, a spring opening sounded omi-
nous,” she said, “but even with all the
fear and adversity COVID-19 pandemic
inflicted on everyone, the club survived
and has been incredibly fortunate thanks to
the wonderful support of our members, our
hard-working staff, our generous volun-
teers and committed board members.”
———
Rochelle Danielson of Enterprise loves
the game of golf and has golfed for many
years at Alpine Meadows.