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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (April 4, 2020)
6A | SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 2020 | SIUSLAW NEWS MAPLETON from page 1A is to look at what all the requirements are and then have meetings with staff.” What distance learning will look like for each grade is different, “Especially when it comes to elementary,” O’Mara said. “The shorter amount of screen time for those kiddos, the better. We have to figure out how to balance that with the instruction we have to give to students virtually.” The district is still in the process of fig- uring out what online capabilities its stu- dents have. While school staff polled fam- ilies on whether or not they had internet access, the types of devices students have access to are still being looked at. “For some families, they don’t have cell phone access, but can still do WIFI call- ing,” O’Mara said. “For other, computer access is limited to a PlayStation or get- ting data on their phones. Those are the things we really have to delve into.” The district does have a program that provides Chromebooks to its seniors and laptops to its middle school students. The district will be looking at what families need when deciding how to distribute those to students. Family needs of any kind are a concern for the district, and staff are working on keeping in close contact throughout the shutdown. “We put a system in place early this week where every student and family will be contacted by a staff member each week to create that connection, see how things are going and check in,” O’Mara said. “It lets the teachers be involved, and it lets the kids and families know we haven’t for- gotten them — we’re still here and want to support them. I think that’s important.” The district had been making food de- livery trips every day of the week during the shutdown, but starting next week it will cut deliveries to only Monday and Wednesday, though it will still provide meals for the entire week. “Part of the reason for reducing it is to reduce the amount of contact that com- COUNTY from page 1A Rural versus urban Questions on how the state should report cases was discussed early on in the crisis, according to Davis, with information com- ing from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga. “Oregon took up this ques- tion early on in light of our own unique situation here — except for a couple of dense metropol- itan areas, we are largely rural, small communities,” Davis said. Two arguments came out for and against naming communities with COVID-19. “There were some people say- ing, ‘Yes, I think in our county it is fine to release individual information. We think the rami- fications of doing so will be man- ageable, and it’s not a violation of HIPPA,” Davis said, referring to the law barring the release of private health information to the public. However, others felt that if smaller, rural cities were named, patients with COVID-19 would be easily identified and poten- tially targeted — as has happened with past outbreaks such as HIV, SARS and Ebola. “I think what has colored the public health reasoning behind this are those isolated and ex- treme incidences where people have really gone above and be- yond to make an individual’s life miserable, even taking poten- tially harmful physical actions against people [with a disease],” Davis said. But Davis also pointed out that stigmatization is not the norm. “I think the general public is not interested in shaming peo- ple,” he said. “I don’t think the public is interested in condemn- ing people for getting sick, espe- cially since we understand how contagious this illness is. It’s no fault of the individual.” The state was not able to come to an agreement on whether to release location information of confirmed COVID-19 cases, so it left the decision up to individual counties, according to Davis. “In Lane County, the initial assessment was leaning on a national public health model of keeping patient privacy intact,” he added. The reasoning being that if a munity and staff have, just to reduce the risk of spreading the virus,” O’Mara said. As far as graduation requirements for seniors, at press time ODE still has not given guidance. “We’ve been waiting anxiously and we keep asking,” O’Mara said. “We are going to get them there, and we’re going to sup- port them the best we can. They worked hard for 13 years, and we don’t want them to miss out on this.” The one thing that Mapleton students are missing is going to school itself. “I’ve gotten a couple text messages from high school students, and they miss school. They want to be back in school,” O’Mara said. “They said they never thought they would say that.” But the superintendent stressed that kids are resilient and can make it through, with the help of adults. “I think it’s up to us as adults to help make this a positive experience for our kiddos. It is traumatic, it is trying, it is dif- ferent. It’s something that none of us have ever had to deal with. I think it’s import- ant for us as adults to make this as pos- itive an experience as we can,” she said. That can be difficult with the fallout of COVID-19. “Some adults are dealing with a loss of job, and having kids home full time affects the stress within the home. It’s stressful for us as adults. We need to put some systems in place at home, and I’m doing it myself, to do self care and turn- ing this into a positive experience. Kids are going to remember this time,” she added. O’Mara also spoke to the importance of keeping children informed of the reali- ties of the situation. “We need to talk to our kids about why the school is closed and why we need to keep social distancing,” she said. “It’s hard when we see a kid picking up their lunch and they want to give you a hug. How do you tell them not to? But we need to. We need to be the leaders and the role mod- els and say, ‘Okay, let’s do an air hug and explain to you why.’ Kids are resilient and woman in her 50s in the Eugene/ Springfield area were to contract the virus, it would be difficult to pinpoint exactly who she was be- cause of the large population of the two cities. “However, in a small commu- nity like Swisshome or Dead- wood, where there might be only three people in their 50s overall, it would be pretty easy to narrow down,” Davis said. While LCPH has a duty to pro- tect HIPPA law, “It’s also about respecting individual civil liber- ties, rights and medical privacy,” he said. “It’s about trying to make sure folks in communities in Lane County feel confident that they can have communications with Lane County Public Health about personal health informa- tion and it won’t be made public.” Also playing into the decision was the fact that Oregon was already putting in place strict social distancing guidelines and treating community spread of COVID-19 as a reality. “It is already in your commu- nity, and it’s already spreading around. And there likely will be cases — and some of those cases will never be identified,” Davis said. So, the county made the deci- sion to only report two areas: Eu- gene/Springfield would get one designation, and the rest of Lane County would be considered “outside” or “rural.” Interconnected rumors The approximately 4,200 miles that constitutes “rural” in Lane County has hundreds of communities, many of which have sizable populations. This includes Cottage Grove (pop. 10,169), Florence (pop. 8,947), Junction City (Pop. 6,101), Cre- swell (5,375), Veneta (pop. 5,016) and Oakridge (pop. 3,294). Then there are the hundreds of small communities in the county that connect to these cities. For example, the Siuslaw re- gion includes Florence, Dunes City, Mapleton, Swisshome, Tide and unincorporated areas that make up an estimated 16,000 res- idents in total. The communities are inter- connected, sharing the same medical care at PeaceHealth Peace Harbor, as well as the same shopping destinations and Buying or Selling? I can help. they know we’re all going to get through this. I just hope the majority of them have fonder memories than not.” Despite the isolation of social distanc- ing in the already isolated upriver com- munity, O’Mara is seeing signs that peo- ple are coming together more than ever. “I don’t see isolation,” she said. “For instance, in the Deadwood community there’s a phone tree where people check in on each other. I think that’s happening more now than before, just because of the isolation that a lot of people are comply- ing with.” The district is in constant touch with organizations such as Mapleton Food Share to find out what their needs are, and the school is coming up with a list of resources they can share to people of all ages. “Are we able to maybe reach out in dif- ferent ways to our community that may not have school-aged children, but are still in need?” O’Mara asked. “Those are definitely conversations that we’re having because it’s something we can help pro- vide for our community.” As for the school itself, Mapleton School District staff is using this time as an opportunity to better know the com- munity they serve. “They come every day to pack the food, deliver the food, make those con- tacts with the community. That puts them at risk, and so right now those are our rock stars and we could not do that without them,” O’Mara said. The district has created a remind- er app, giving out resources for mental health and other assistance. “They are really in touch with the community and I get text messages from them saying, ‘Hey, this was a great day, or this is something you need to know about this family,’” O’Mara said. “It almost feels like there is more of a connection because we’re out in the community, rather than all the kids coming to our school. We’re going out to them. I feel like this is an op- portunity we need to take with our fami- lies to reach out in their world.” demographics. Based on con- versations already taking place in communities throughout the Siuslaw region, most have at least one individual who thinks they may have COVID-19 or thinks a community member has it. Siuslaw News posed a scenar- io-based question to Davis: If LCPH statements only identi- fy confirmed cases as being in “rural Lane County,” then every community not within the Eu- gene/Springfield region is like- ly to assume they are the latest location with the virus. And if every community outside of the Eugene/Springfield area thinks it has the latest COVID-19 case, it could create ongoing coun- ty-wide confusion, with commu- nities unable to confirm the facts. “I think you’re absolutely right in your assessment,” Davis said. “I think there are dangers to that. I unfortunately don’t have a really clear answer. The weight of the decision so far has really been focused on patient privacy rath- er than the acknowledgement of the geographic differences of our county.” Davis stated that he has seen people self-outing online because of the rumors. But so far, these examples are from the Eugene/ Springfield area. In that case, Lane County confirmed that there was a case in the region. However, if someone from Flor- ence were to contract the disease and decide to identify themselves online as a public service, they could not point to Lane County as an official reference point to distinguish it from being just an- other rumor. And neither can local news sources. “That is an unfortunate casu- alty given the nature of informa- tion sharing,” Davis said. The dangers of the rumor mill are not limited to privacy concerns. Lane County’s refusal to share information could also make the spread of the disease worse while weakening commu- nity efforts to effectively combat the disease. In the past week, The Ore- gonian published two articles regarding the state’s response to the pandemic. Quoting a recent study by the Oregon Health Au- thority (OHA), it was stated there was strong possibility that the so- PPE from page 1A and about a dozen much-needed N95 masks, approximate- ly 250 pairs of nitrile gloves and more than a dozen dispos- able full-body cover- alls,” Messmer said. People who wish to sew their own masks may reference MARK BRENNAN/SIUSLAW NEWS PeaceHealth Peace Donations of PPEs may be dropped at Florence Harbor’s recom- Public Works, 2675 Kingwood St. mended pattern at www.peacehealth.org/coronavirus. Law enforcement officials are To purchase a mask from a local requesting caution on the part of family — $10 each, available in both consumers and asking for help in de- child and adult sizes — contact Sa- terring criminals. brina Hand at 541-999-5184 or five- U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams 5hands@gmail.com. The Hands are said, “We are aware of instances of donating two masks for every mask consumer fraud stemming from the they sell. COVID-19 public health emergency. “The West Lane Emergency Op- While Americans work to protect erations Group, PeaceHealth Peace themselves and their loved ones from Harbor Medical Center and the City the threat of COVID-19, some indi- of Florence send out a heartfelt thank viduals are actively trying to profit off you to everyone who has stepped up of this emergency. If you or someone to help us care for our community in you know believe you’ve been the these challenging times,” Messmer target or victim of an outbreak-relat- said. ed fraud scheme, please contact law On a related note, the Internal enforcement immediately.” Revenue Service (IRS) has released The following recommendations a COVID-19 warning about unsolic- appear on Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s ited calls claiming to represent those coronavirus webpage, govstatus. affected by the virus. egov.com/or-covid-19. “All com- “Taxpayers should be extra vig- munity members should stay home ilant for unsolicited phone calls or except to perform essential duties for emails concerning their economic business continuity or government impact payments,” said Justin Camp- functions, to get food, care for a rel- bell, Special Agent in Charge of the ative or friend, get necessary health Seattle Field Office for IRS-CI. “The care, or perform activities related IRS will not call or email you about to maintaining a healthy lifestyle your payment. IRS-Criminal Inves- during this time. It is okay to go tigation is stepping up our efforts in outside for walks if you are not in coordination with the Department a group and practice proper social of Justice to aggressively investigate distancing. It is not okay to travel to anyone that seeks to defraud our another community, including the community members during this Oregon Coast, in order to maintain crisis.” a healthy lifestyle.” cial distancing restrictions were working, and that Oregon was possibly close to flattening the curve low enough to keep hospi- tals from being overloaded. But the core data of these stud- ies is limited only to people ill enough to warrant a test. That leaves larger questions on how the virus affects the pop- ulation — and what is needed to begin the process of going back to daily life — uncertain at best. The reason? The inability to do wide testing, said Davis. “There just aren’t enough test- ing resources for us to be able to use testing as a weapon against this outbreak in an effective man- ner,” Davis said. “Public Health would love to see a mass test- ing exercise in Florence, where we could do drive-thu testing on 4,000 people that might be symptomatic. We would be able to identify which ones actually do have COVID and make clear and strong recommendations for those individuals. By doing that, we could significantly slow the spread of the disease in the community. At least then we can equip the community with a baseline level of how COVID is moving through.” However, given the fact that only a limited number of people are being tested right now, that’s not happening. “There are people who are probably have COVID. They are being told to simply stay home, which is the general direction for everybody right now, but es- pecially for individuals who are symptomatic.” Siuslaw News has spoken with non-tested individuals who be- lieve they had COVID-19, recov- ered and are now willing to break self-quarantine. “I would love to get the mes- sage out there that the level of immunity — and how people ex- perience immunity from COVID — is still a very much unknown verdict,” Davis said. “I think we’re basing our assumptions on MERS and SARS. This data is not directly relevant. I would never want to assume that I am not going to share a disease with the community merely based on these very loose understandings of this virus.” Problems could also arise for community responders such as West Lane Emergency Opera- tions Group which, without the ability to tell the community whether or not there are cases in the region, the ability to mobilize the community in the event of a spike in infection could be made more difficult. The need for transparency “I happen to live in a smaller, rural community myself,” Davis said. “I hear concerns from the people I live near. I absolutely know the fear and anxiety of be- ing kept in the dark. That’s the last thing in the world in terms of outcomes that we want to see happen.” According to Davis, LCPH is made up of doctors who have devoted their lives to promote the health of a community. “It just so happens, in order to stay funded, we have to remain under the umbrella of govern- ment. Not saying government is bad, but we have a different mindset and a different compo- sition than other government entities. It’s very pro-social and pro-health, and not nearly as focused on enforcement or oth- er elements that have fostered a level of distrust in some areas of Lane County,” he said. LCPH is attempting to expand the information it is allowed to give to help guide communities. “We’re pushing on our data folks to try and combine and consolidate information to be able to provide information to our smaller, rural communities,” Davis said. And he also believes that these issues can be worked out. “There clearly is a way,” Da- vis said. “I think the fragmented nature of public health policy implemented at local levels is both a positive for public health — because it allows for flexibil- ity to make those decisions at a local level — but also can be an impediment. During a time of emergency, strong leadership and clear information is imper- ative.” But to do that, there has to be broader conversation. “I think the other piece we have to address is that these con- cerns are being heard, that our officials are listening and not turning a deaf ear to the needs of our rural communities,” said Davis. “While I’m not a deci- sion-maker on many fronts, I think we need to bring every- body into the conversation and really help people understand how decisions are made — even if we have to make hard deci- sions. We have to bring people in on the decision-making process and, at the very least, help them understand how those decisions are being made and how to be a part of that process.” Get Results...List With Wendy. Wendy Krause Broker 541 999-7765 291 Sunset Dr – Panoramic ocean views in Winchester Bay. 3 bdrm, 2 bath, single story home with RV pad, hookups, covered boat parking, and 2-car garage. 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