8A | WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2020 | SIUSLAW NEWS
COUNTY from page 1A
Lane County’s application
stated that during the past
weeks, it has been carefully
planning and building capacity
to limit the spread of COVID as
the community resumes more
normal levels of activity. With
low infection rates, sufficient
testing capacity, the ability to
expand contact tracing and an
adequate supply of personal
equipment, the county said it
believes it is ready to begin re-
opening.
Phase 1 of reopening will last
for 21 days and will include ex-
pectations for residents to prac-
tice good hygiene and staying
home when sick.
“Employers would develop
appropriate policies for social
distancing, protective equip-
ment, temperature checks, san-
itation and monitoring employ-
ees for symptoms,” the county
wrote.
Vulnerable populations will
be asked to stay home, telework
will continue where possible,
and non-essential travel will be
discouraged.
After that initial phase, if the
county can show it has kept the
spread of COVID-19 down,
non-essential travel could re-
sume while schools and gyms
could be reopened — all with
social distancing guidelines in
place.
After at least 21 addition-
al days, worksites could have
unrestricted staffing, visitors
to nursing homes would be al-
lowed and restaurants and bars
could have more seating.
“Each incubation period lasts
14 days, so the phased plan re-
quiring communities to wait 21
days at each phase would take
into account any changes over
an incubation period — plus a
week — to assess the current
status prior to moving to the
next phase,” the county wrote.
“In Lane County, we have not
had significant growth of cases
during the pandemic…”
However, because testing
was very limited during the be-
ginning of the pandemic, only
those who had severe, specific
symptoms (fever, shortness of
breath and cough) and need-
ed hospitalization were tested.
Therefore, the actual data re-
garding prevalence of COVID
in Lane County is incomplete
and not entirely known.
To get around this, the coun-
ty is using the metric of emer-
gency department visits and
hospital admissions.
Regarding emergency de-
partment visits for COVID-like
illnesses, counties must be less
than “the historic average for
flu at the same time of year,” per
state regulations.
According to data from the
county, emergency department
visits have been in the “normal”
range since April 10.
As for a decline in hospi-
tal admissions, only 15 Lane
County residents with con-
firmed COVID cases have been
hospitalized since March 1.
“The maximum number of
Lane County residents hospi-
talized at one time was eight
people on April 11 and 12,” the
county reported. “There have
been no confirmed hospitalized
cases since April 24.”
At the time of the county’s
submission, the county had
16 active cases of COVID, and
zero hospitalizations.
“In order to quickly detect
any changes in the growth rate
or localized outbreaks, the
community needs access to
widespread testing, particularly
in the event that cases are in-
creasing on the disease curve,”
the county wrote.
Counties are required to
administer a weekly testing at
a rate of 30 people per 10,000.
Lane County estimates that
would mean 1,071 tests per
week — or 153 tests per day.
According to the application,
“Based on the daily average
number of tests for the week
ending May 3, Lane County
is currently conducting about
185 tests per day and just under
1,300 per week.”
PeaceHealth and McKen-
zie-Willamette hospitals have
capacity to administer up to 400
tests per day and each hospital
has committed to processing
up to 50 tests per day for Lane
County Public Health (LCPH)
as part of outbreak investiga-
tions, sentinel surveillance and
other urgent needs.”
That combined capacity
could mean up to 3,500 resi-
dents could be tested weekly, if
needed.
The county must also pro-
vide testing sites that are ac-
cessible to underserved com-
munities. Lane County stated it
had multiple sites where testing
can be done with a doctor’s or-
der. According to Lane County,
McKenzie-Willamette Medical
Center, in cooperation with the
University of Oregon, is operat-
ing a testing site at the Spring-
field hospital where anyone
with a doctor’s order can get a
test. Most primary care provid-
ers can take a sample and have
contracts with labs and can per-
form the test.
Nova Health urgent care,
with locations in Eugene,
Springfield and Cottage Grove
can perform the tests and have
them analyzed at McKen-
zie-Willamette’s lab.
Both McKenzie-Willamette
and PeaceHealth hospitals are
testing all admitted patients.
“Lane County Public Health
is currently conducting sur-
veillance testing for staff and
clients at homeless respite sites
and homeless shelters,” the
county wrote. “During May,
this will expand to testing staff
and residents at long-term care
facilities and surveillance test-
ing in the Latinx community in
cooperation with trusted part-
ner organizations.”
While the county will be able
to increase daily testing beyond
its current number, it states that
the minimal number of testing
each day should average 500,
representing approximately 1
percent of the population being
tested each week.
“Optimal levels would be
closer to 1,000 tests per day
administered to residents,” the
county wrote. “As testing re-
sources become more available,
the state is relaxing the guide-
lines for who is eligible for
testing — when the testing re-
sources were scarce, access was
limited to only those who were
most ill or had other specific
risk factors.”
Overall, testing in Oregon
still falls short. Lane County
admitted that, while its testing
has increased, it is “still lag-
ging.”
While the county can reach
minimum testing to relax re-
strictions, “ultimately the com-
munity also needs expanded
sentinel and surveillance test-
ing,” the county wrote.
Contact tracing involves
identifying and reaching out to
the contacts of someone who
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tests positive for an infectious
disease. Contacts are then test-
ed and, for those who test posi-
tive, the process is then repeat-
ed for their contacts, and so on,
until the chain of transmission
is interrupted.
Until recently, only those
with COVID that needed to be
hospitalized met the strict test-
ing criteria, so contract tracing
has been minimal.
“As testing becomes more
widely available, Public Health
will implement more extensive
contact tracing, which is ex-
pected to include isolation and
quarantine of known and sus-
pected cases,” the county wrote.
“In some cases, people who are
isolated or quarantined at home
will need support and resourc-
es, such as groceries, laundry
and prescription medicines.”
Those who are unhoused or
unable to return to their homes
will also need additional ac-
commodation.
“It is not yet clear how wide-
spread infection is in Lane
County. Therefore, it is diffi-
cult to estimate the resources
that will be needed locally,” the
county wrote.
To reopen, the state requires
15 contract tracers per 100,000
people.
“To meet this requirement,
Lane County would need 56
contract tracers, even though
we currently only have 13 active
cases,” the county wrote. “Lane
County Public Health’s contract
tracers work in teams of six, su-
pervised by a nurse or disease
investigation specialist. Based
on past experience, eight FTE
are needed to do adequate con-
tact tracing for up to 10 active
COVID-19 cases.”
The county currently has a
pool of staff and volunteers to
bring the capacity up to 20 FTE
traces, enabling research of up
to 50 active cases. But with part-
nerships between Lane County
Sheriff ’s Search and Rescue, the
University of Oregon and the
Oregon Health Authority, the
county will have a pool of 200
staff and volunteers who can
“be mobilized quickly to work
under a nurse or disease inves-
tigation specialist to conduct
contact tracing if a surge in dis-
ease requires expansion to 56
tracers,” the county said.
The county said it will also
ensure that there will be at least
one bilingual (Spanish/En-
glish) contract tracer and cast
investigator per team. Existing
contacts with tribal communi-
ties will also provide tracing for
tribal populations that speak
Mam, Q’anjab’al, Q’eqchi and
Mixtec.
“Lane County currently in-
vestigates 95 percent of all new
cases within 24 hours and ex-
pects this to continue,” the ap-
plication stated.
The application referenced
the Roadmap for Reopening
from the American Enterprise
Institute, which states that one
of the triggers for reinstituting
stay-at-home orders is a dou-
bling of cases every 3-5 days.
“Because the virus is so con-
tagious, it’s critical that the situ-
ation is closely monitored, and
that the healthcare system is
able to quickly respond in the
event that increased disease is
detected,” Lane County said.
Hospitals will need to have
capacity for severe cases, and
health care providers need to
have sufficient PPE (person-
al protective equipment). The
community also needs to be
prepared to activate stay-at-
home strategies if needed to
combat a significant outbreak.
Currently, hospitals have the
ability to increase beds by 20
percent in case of a rise in cases.
“Lane County currently has
sufficient facilities to isolate 15
individuals … and will have
facilities in place for at least
55 individuals by May 15,” the
county wrote.
In Cottage Grove, one hotel
has agreed to provide up to five
rooms, while three hotels have
volunteered their rooms in
Florence.
“Sponsors have provided
10 tiny homes to Lane County
for use by homeless individu-
als who need to be isolated or
quarantined,” the county wrote.
Recently, the county has also
purchased a property with 40
rooms that can be used for iso-
lation. The facility is expected
to be ready to open on May 15.
In addition, Lane County
manages the local clearing-
house that is used to support
healthcare providers in the
event of a surge. There are
currently 216,350 procedure
masks, 48,452 N-95 respirators,
12,576 gowns, 265,244 gloves
and 5,949 face masks.
“We are committed to the
health and safety of our res-
idents and all Oregonians;
therefore we have put together
a blueprint that will guide us
in monitoring the spread of
COVID-19 and outlines our
plan to adhere to state guid-
ance on Phase 1,” the county
wrote. “Should data and con-
ditions indicate a need, we are
prepared to re-impose physi-
cal distancing measures either
county-wide or in affected ar-
eas.”
Our Sales & Service
Departments
are now open by appointment.
Thank you for your understanding as we
slowly start to provide services.
We will keep you updated as
we progress through opening
the rest of the departments.
For the safety of our community
we are following
measures to prevent the spread of
Covid-19.
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