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About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 8, 2020)
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2020 BAKER CITY HERALD — 3A LOCAL & STATE ANTHONY well as two other nearby sites, at Mud and Grande Ronde lakes. Continued from Page 1A The Labor Day weekend crowds con- But the hordes that arrived over the tinued a statewide and national trend long holiday weekend surpassed what this summer, with managers of camp- employees have seen in the past few grounds, national forests, wilderness years, Judy said. areas and other public lands reporting “It was defi nitely the most folks we’ve signifi cant increases in visitor numbers. seen at the lake,” she said. The consensus among land managers On Saturday, Anthony Lakes staff tal- and campground operators is that the lied 163 visitors in the day-use areas at coronavirus pandemic, which kept many Anthony Lake, almost twice as many as people confi ned to their homes during the 84 visitors counted on the Saturday the spring and also canceled most tra- of the Labor Day weekend in 2019. ditional summer events, has prompted Those totals are estimates only, Judy people to seek other forms of outdoor said, because not all visitors fi lled out recreation. envelopes completely for the day-use fee. “People want to get out to rural areas Day-use visitors, many of whom with lots of space, and that’s what we brought paddleboards, kayaks, canoes or have,” Judy said. other watercraft to ply the lake and in She said there were no major prob- some cases fi sh for brook and rainbow lems at Anthony Lakes related to the trout, account for only part of the crowds. weekend crowds. The campground on the east side of Judy said a signifi cant percentage of Anthony Lake was full during the week- vehicles had out-of-state license plates, end as well, and about 20 vehicles were led by Idaho and, to a lesser extent, parked at the trailhead for the Elkhorn Washington. Crest trail, near the campground. That’s also typical of winter weekends Anthony Lakes Mountain Resort man- when the ski area is operating, she said. ages that Forest Service campground as The weather this Labor Day weekend COVID-19 to a single location or were considered sporadic cases, Continued from Page 1A ones without a known origin. The Baker County Health Health Department Department had not an- offi cials are investigating nounced as of Monday after- the cases and doing contact noon whether or not the eight tracing to identify people new cases Sunday were tied who might have been in close WEST NILE Lisa Britton /For the Baker City Herald Around 9 a.m. Saturday a single boat was on Anthony Lake, but within a couple hours there were a couple dozen craft on the water. was nearly identical to 2019. Tempera- tures in Baker Valley were in the 90s on Saturday and Sunday both years, while at Anthony Lakes the temperature topped out in the upper 70s. contact with any of those who tested positive, said Holly, Kerns, a public information offi cer for the county. On Thursday Gov. Kate Brown removed Baker Coun- ty from the state’s “watch list” of counties, in part because the county’s rate of commu- nity spread of the virus had declined. The county has had 86 cases since the pandemic started in March. Two county residents’ deaths are connect- ed to COVID-19, according to the state. each pool — to a testing lab in Corvallis. So far this year Continued from Page 1A Hutchinson has sent 232 The other such year was pools. 2018. Baker County’s experi- Matt Hutchinson, who ence mirrors Oregon as manages the Vector Con- a whole. So far West Nile trol District, a 200,000-acre virus has been found in just area that includes most of three counties — Malheur, Baker, Bowen and Keating Jackson and Lane, and valleys, said he has set out with no human cases. the same network of 36 In 2019, by contrast, the traps per week this sum- virus was detected in eight mer. counties, and eight people, But those traps have including two Halfway resi- yielded fewer mosquitoes dents, were infected. The than in 2019. Last year he West Nile virus, unlike the sent 345 “pools” of mos- coronavirus, doesn’t spread quitoes — 10 to 50 bugs in from person to person. N EWS OF R ECORD Continued from Page 2A POLICE LOG Baker City Police Arrests, citations THIRD-DEGREE CRIMINAL MISCHIEF: Nicholas Neshun Lark, 37, Baker City, 5:18 p.m. Sunday in the 1200 block of Washington Ave.; cited and released. SECOND-DEGREE CRIMINAL TRESPASSING, SECOND- DEGREE THEFT: Trevor James Heath, 24, Baker City, 5:18 p.m. Sunday in the 1200 block of Washington Ave.; cited and released. HIT AND RUN (property): Hillary Rose Cagle, 34, Baker City, 7:28 p.m. Friday in the 400 block of Spring Garden Avenue; cited and released. Baker County Sheriff’s Offi ce Arrests, citations UNAUTHORIZED USE OF A MOTOR VEHICLE: Zachary Ryan Chase Smith, 25, transient, and Moriah Lynn Smith, 29, transient, 6:03 p.m. Friday on Old Auburn Road; cited and released. State denies Umatilla County’s appeal to move to Phase 2 a set of requirements before any ap- peal for Phase 2 will be granted. UMATILLA COUNTY — The “Where my understanding is for timing of when Umatilla County where we are right now, they are will be permitted to move back to not going to allow Umatilla County Phase 2 of reopening is up in the air to move to Phase 2 until such time after the state denied its appeal this that we meet all six public health indicators and our case rate for that week. “I no longer have any forecast on week is less than 100 per 100,000,” when Phase 2 will happen,” Uma- Fiumara said. tilla County Public Health Director In a Sept. 3 press release an- Joe Fiumara said on Wednesday, nouncing the county’s appeal was Sept. 2. “We were aiming for that denied, Gov. Kate Brown confi rmed three-week mark, which was next that due to higher case counts than earlier in the pandemic, no county week. I can no longer tell that to will be permitted into Phase 2 anybody with any confi dence.” without a case rate below 100 per Umatilla County Commissioner John Shafer confi rmed the county’s 100,000 people. appeal was denied during a Sept. 2 “The original prerequisites for conference call with Oregon Health Phase 2 were based on trend-based Authority Director Pat Allen and metrics,” the release stated. “At that state epidemiologist Dr. Dean time, counties had a relatively low Sidelinger. infection rate.” The county had appealed to the In Phase 2, indoor and outdoor state to move into Phase 2 starting recreation and entertainment Friday, Sept. 4., but Fiumara said venues, such as movie theaters and the state presented the county with pools, are able to reopen, in addition By Alex Castle East Oregonian also calculated a case rate of 180 per 100,000 people in Umatilla County for Umatilla County by the the week of Aug. 23-29, along with a numbers positive test rate of 13.3% that same According to a Sept. 3 update of the week. Oregon Health Authority’s public data Those calculations see-sawed from dashboard, Umatilla County is not reports the week prior, which listed meeting three of the six metrics being the county at a case rate of 113 per used to evaluate a county’s status dur- 100,000 (representing a fourth con- ing the pandemic. Those metrics are secutive week of declining numbers) uptrends in hospitalizations over the but a positive test rate of 16.3% from last 14 days, uptrends in positive test Aug. 16-22. rate in the last week and an uptrend While those numbers suggest a of more than 5% in new cases over the downtrend in the positive test rate, last week. Fiumara said the Oregon Health There were eight county residents Authority indicated the metric was hospitalized with the virus as of Sept. determined as showing an uptrend 3, according to Umatilla County because the rate increased from the Public Health. The Oregon Health beginning of the week to the end of the Authority doesn’t publicly provide the week from Aug. 23-29. numbers it uses to determine that “I’m not going to lie, it makes me sit there’s been an uptrend in the last here and think if we’re going to do a 14 days, but Umatilla County Public testing event, whether I do it early in Health reported there were seven the week or late in the week needs to hospitalizations in an Aug. 20 press be based on whether I think there’s go- release. ing to be a lot of positives or negatives,” The Oregon Health Authority Fiumara said. “And I don’t think that’s to youth clubs and playgrounds. the good public health response.” According to the county’s written appeal sent to the state, 19 of the 20 long-term care facilities in the county have completed at least a round of facility-wide testing, while three targeted testing events were held for “hard to reach populations” that included agricultural workers. The appeal highlighted that between those three events, only 8 of the 290 — or roughly 2.75% — of the people tested were confirmed positive. The county must also lower its per capita case rate to below 100 cases per 100,000 residents for a seven-day span, which means Umatilla County must report approximately 81 or fewer new cases over seven days. Umatilla County hasn’t had a sev- en-day stretch that would have met that metric since the week of June 6-12, the fi rst week the county and others in the state entered Phase 2 the fi rst time around. See Umatilla/Page 5A Proximity to Idaho complicates COVID-19 response in Malheur with face coverings, they ab- solutely shouldn’t,” Poe said. “The risk of rising Idaho cases Malheur Enterprise to the health and reopening of ONTARIO — Different Malheur County is real.” responses to the COVID-19 State data release last pandemic in Oregon and week showed Malheur Coun- Idaho, along with cross- ty had the highest number of border spread of the virus, COVID-19 cases per capita in boosted local cases of the the state. infection and complicated the The county saw a sudden response by Malheur County surge in COVID-19 cases in health offi cials. July. Its high number of cases While Malheur County per capita compelled the Mal- is culturally and politically heur County Court to limit aligned with its Idaho neigh- the size of indoor and outdoor bors, COVID-19 restrictions gatherings. The steps didn’t in each state vary based on work, and in August, Brown two divergent approaches. moved the county back a level Idaho adopted a regional in its reopening efforts. approach to the COVID-19 While lines on a map delin- crisis and pushed authority eate the two states, Malheur to fi ght the virus down to the County and Western Idaho county level. Oregon, mean- are very much the same com- while, is following mandates munity. set statewide by Gov. Kate As many as 5,200 Idaho Brown and her health advis- residents worked in Malheur ers. Sarah Poe, director of County in 2017, account- the Malheur County Health ing for 35% of all employees Department, warned in a web in the county, and 1,500 posting of the risks because Malheur County residents, of Idaho. 5% of all residents, work in “Even though there are Idaho, according to a 2019 fewer restrictions in Idaho report from Christopher Rich, and people who live or work Oregon Employment Depart- in Malheur County could ment regional economist. attend large gatherings and One large pull of employ- be in public around others ees from across the border is without protecting each other the Snake River Correctional By Pat Caldwell, Aidan McGloin and Aredshir Tabrizian Institution, where 71% of its 870 workers come from Idaho, according to the state Department of Corrections. With COVID-19 cases mounting, local health of- fi cials suspected many of the county’s cases may be linked to known Idaho cases. But the Malheur County Health Department had no way of linking a local COVID-19 case to a known Idaho case. “It was just showing up in our numbers as sporadic spread even though that per- son could be in quarantine and in close contact with an Idaho case,” Poe said. Sporadic cases are a key benchmark used by the state when it considers the severi- ty of a COVID-19 outbreak in a county. A high sporadic case count can affect a decision to allow a county to move ahead on Oregon’s reopening plan. By identifying the source of more cases, fewer are listed as sporadic. Finding a way to track and link the county’s sporadic cases was a high priority, said Poe. Poe said last week the Oregon Health Authority offered to help the county do that. “That means the sporadic rate should go down. What we are tracking is the residents in Oregon who have connec- tions to Idaho cases. We are not tracking Idaho cases that have connections to Oregon. So, we will certainly have more information but we will still be isolating and quar- antining based on exposure,” said Poe. Poe said the ability to track sporadic cases will be helpful. “It gives us more insight on how we track an outbreak. So, it will show us, essentially, that even though exposure was not to somebody in Mal- heur County, it was a known case,” said Poe. The differing standards in the two states means Oregonians are expected to wear masks and limit their social gatherings while Idaho residents largely go without such mandates. Washington County, Idaho, doesn’t require residents to take any special precautions, said Kirk Chandler, County Commission chair. Chandler said a low-key approach to virus restric- tions was the best way to go forward. “This is being manipulated, so we just backed off of it and said it is your freedom,” Blazing Fast Internet! 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If you feel you should not go into a place because you are an at-risk person, don’t go.” Chandler doesn’t believe COVID-19 cases in Idaho hurt Malheur County. “I don’t see what we are doing here impacting you any more that what you are doing is impacting us,” Chandler said. The Payette School District, in Idaho, however, delayed the return to school by a day as the infection continued to spread in the community. Its schools were reopening to all students Tuesday, and school will be held through Thursday the fi rst week. “Masks are highly recom- mended for all staff and students when physical distancing is not possible, and instruction is not com- promised,” according to the district’s website. Brown recently suggested that counties in Oregon and Idaho along the border should work together on a joint response to the crisis. Chandler doesn’t believe es- tablishing a common policy in the border area is necessary. “I don’t see why we would get together as a group of counties other than just what we are trying to do politically to get out of it,” he said. He sees the politics as an added challenge to the pandemic. “It’s turned into a politi- cal thing that has nothing to do with the disease, and the disease is just a way to control people,” said Chandler. Malheur County Judge Dan Joyce said he hasn’t reached out to his counter- parts in Payette or Wash- ington County as suggested by the governor. Joyce said creating a template for Mal- heur, Payette and Washing- ton counties to address the COVID-19 outbreak would be diffi cult. See Malheur County/Page 5A
