THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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EDITORIAL
Sports are
back, but
the fans?
It’s gratifying to see students from Baker High
School and Baker Middle School playing sports
again.
Students have missed so much during the pandem-
ic, both in the classroom and on the fi elds and courts.
Sports were canceled during the spring of 2020. The
fall “mini-seasons” were an ersatz version, and the
last of those seasons had barely begun when it ended
due to a surge in COVID-19 cases.
But students, teachers and school staff have
proved, since elementary students returned to their
classrooms in October and middle and high schoolers
in November, that they can learn in-person without
spreading the virus.
Baker County’s case rate dropped substantially
starting in mid-January. The county has been in the
lowest of the state’s four risk categories since Feb. 12
and will stay there at least through March 11.
There was ample reason, then, for state offi cials
to approve an abbreviated season for the traditional
fall sports — football, volleyball, cross-country, soccer
and cheerleading. All are underway in Baker schools.
Games, meets and matches against other schools
could start March 1.
Unfortunately, spectators won’t initially be allowed
at events for the fall sports season, which continues
through March 19 for BMS and through April 10 for
BHS.
Buell Gonzales Jr., the Baker School District’s
athletic director, said he will reassess the fan issue af-
ter games have begun, and that there is a possibility
that a limited number of fans could be allowed.
In the meantime, Gonzales said the district will
livestream home events and, possibly, contests at
other schools.
Taking precautions during the pandemic is under-
standable. And Gonzales’ plan to focus on making
sure the actual competitions happen, then looking at
allowing fans, is sensible.
So long as Baker County is at the lowest or the
moderate level for risk under state guidelines, it
should be feasible for the district to allow some par-
ents and other fans to watch Baker students compete
at home events (the district has no say over games at
other schools).
For counties at the lowest risk, the limit for outdoor
events is 300 people total, including participants and
fans, and for indoor events it’s 50% of the venue’s
maximum occupancy. If Baker County moves to the
moderate-risk category, the limits would drop to 150
for outdoor events and to 100 for indoor events.
Those limits obviously don’t allow for the usual
crowd for a football game at Baker Bulldog Memo-
rial Stadium. But there is ample space, between the
grandstand on the west side of the stadium and the
bleachers on the east side, to accommodate a limited
number of fans and ensure social distancing. So, too,
for volleyball matches in the BHS and BMS gyms.
Soccer matches at the Baker Sports Complex have
an advantage in that spectators can see the fi eld rela-
tively well from the parking area. For a cross-country
meet at, for instance, Quail Ridge Golf Course, fans
could easily spread out as well.
The situation is a bit tenuous, to be sure.
And even with the higher limits for counties at the
lowest risk, the number of fans who want to attend in
some cases likely would exceed the available capacity.
But students deserve to have an audience when
they return to competition. And parents deserve to
have a chance to watch at least some of their kids’
games.
It won’t be normal, of course — no student cheer-
ing section making enough noise to echo through the
stadium or gym.
But what has been normal over the past year?
Even a muted version of the familiar is something
to cherish in 2021.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald
Your views
Quiet zone, school bond will
improve our community
I hope city residents and new city
council members will support two ef-
forts to improve the health and safety
of our community. Public safety is more
than just law enforcement and health
is more than medical treatment. A
train whistle Quiet Zone will improve
all our lives, and the health and learn-
ing ability of our youngest community
members. Yes, the voters rejected the
measure in 2002, but it had a fairly
high price tag at that time. Voters also
recently rejected a school bond. I don’t
think that means they reject the idea
of public education or safe learning en-
vironments. I think it means they don’t
want to pay that much for it. Now that
the price tag could be very low to zero
(for city taxpayers) and Quiet Zones
have established a record of increasing
community safety, it makes sense to do
something that makes all Baker citi-
zens safer, even those who cannot vote,
show up at council meetings, write let-
ters to the editor, or post on Facebook.
The school district is proposing an-
other school bond that is signifi cantly
smaller than the last one, and one that
will bring in an equal amount of state
funding. At 66 cents/$1,000 of property
value I think this generation of prop-
erty owners should fund the safe edu-
cation of today’s children in the same
way that our education was supported
by our parents’ generation of property
owners. For my family, the increase in
property tax equates to less than $10
a month. For that trifl ing amount, kids
get warmer, more effi cient classrooms
and safer schools. One school gets a
new roof and middle schoolers get a
cafeteria. I cannot think of a better
investment in our city and our future.
Both these efforts will make Baker a
safer and better place to live, learn, and
thrive. Our children should be our top
priority.
Barbara O’Neal
Baker City
Learning more about the virus
By Chris Janetopoulos
There is much confusion regarding
COVID-19 spread — understandable
given the evolving nature of the data
set and the proliferation of misinfor-
mation. Before children head back to
school, it’s critical their teachers and
parents understand the risks.
It has been demonstrated that all
ages can be infected by the virus, and
the older you are, the more likely you
are to have complications. While rare,
very serious illness and death can
occur in children, and preconditions in
children and adults can contribute to
hospitalization. Multiple studies have
come in the past month demonstrating
school attendance does not appear to
play a strong role in COVID-19 spread
and that opening schools has had little
direct effect on community transmis-
sion.
National Geographic was recently
given exclusive access to an Icelandic
study that provides some clarity on
transmission between individuals.
Scientists from the Directorate of
Health and deCODE genetics out of
Reykjavik monitored every citizen in
the country after being potentially
exposed to COVID-19 during spring
2020. Children were defi ned as under
age 15 and found to be half as likely
to be infected; they were additionally
half as likely as adults to transmit the
virus. Interestingly, almost all of the
COVID-19 transmissions to children
came from adults.
Other data has suggested underly-
ing mechanisms that may account
for these fi ndings. While the ACE2
receptor has been implicated in infec-
tion and appears to be downregulated
in most children, an additional study
out of Vanderbilt University found
that an enzyme that helps chop up the
spike protein increases in expression
in adults. This processing is thought to
assist viral entry into the cell, and its
presence in certain cells of the lungs
correlated with COVID-19 infection.
In addition to having a strong innate
immunity and more diverse antibody
repertoire that protects against CO-
Letters to the editor
• The Baker City Herald will not
knowingly print false or misleading
claims. However, we cannot verify the
accuracy of all statements in letters.
VID-19 infection, children may also be
protected because they lack proteins
needed for infection of certain cells in
the lungs.
As the data continues to accumulate,
a picture is starting to emerge that
makes scientifi c sense regarding the
differences in infectivity and disease
we are seeing across age groups. When
children do get infected, the majority
quickly eliminate the virus. Therefore,
the time that they are infectious is
shortened, providing less duration
for them to infect their cohorts, and
potentially limiting their symptoms.
Given it may take a larger dose of virus
to become infected if you are a pre-
adolescent child, overall transmission
between children should be lower.
On the other hand, adults have a
weaker innate immunity, and they also
have the proper proteins expressed
in their lungs permitting infection, so
it may take a smaller viral load for
an adult to get infected from a child.
Conversely, adults, because they are
poor at clearing the virus, are infectious
longer, may have higher viral loads,
and would typically develop worse
symptoms. Adults also have a larger
lung capacity and would expel air for
further distances, which would have a
greater likelihood of infecting everyone.
Additionally, the older you are, the
more likely you are to have dysregu-
lated immune function and preexisting
conditions. Taken together, numerous
properties of the virus, your immune
response and your physiology work
together to determine the probabilities
of infectivity and disease.
This model suggests that teachers
and staff, and adults in general, should
be cautious around children, but even
more so with other unmasked adults,
including colleagues at breaks and
lunches. Lastly, it is important that
researchers carefully determine the
degree to which children, or subsets of
children with preconditions, infect one
another, as it has implications for who
should have priority for vaccinations.
Interestingly, it is now well accepted
that asymptomatic individuals are
contributing to the spread of CO-
VID-19, with estimates suggesting that
nearly 60% of all spread occurs in this
manner. This percentage will likely
vary, depending again on the prob-
abilities outlined above. Nevertheless,
since asymptomatic individuals are
not sneezing or coughing, this provides
further support that normal breathing
and talking, along with singing, leads
to transmission and is further evidence
for the role of smaller aerosols in driv-
ing this pandemic. Microscopic aerosols
can travel beyond 6 feet, and this needs
to be carefully considered in the trans-
mission of COVID-19. This is critical,
because it means that the closer you
are to inhaling the air that someone
else exhales, the higher your probabil-
ity of getting infected. This may also
mean you are not safe if you are more
than 6 feet away, especially indoors
with poor air circulation. An elegant
contact tracing experiment in South
Korea recently provided evidence that
one can be infected, even when on
the other side of a restaurant, when
individuals were not wearing masks,
and air fl ow carried these tiny aerosols
across the room.
So, while hand-washing is good hy-
giene that should be encouraged, this
is a respiratory virus spread largely by
aerosols, and the probability of getting
live virus from your hands or a surface
into your respiratory tract appears
small. COVID-19 transmission can
be dramatically curtailed with mask
wearing, which children generally don’t
mind, and once their teachers are vac-
cinated, the risk of COVID-19 spread
to the students and vice versa drops
signifi cantly. Regardless, it is important
for our politicians to remember that
our teachers should be treated with
respect as we make these critical deci-
sions.
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not include this information cannot be
published.
Mail: To the Editor, Baker City Herald,
P.O. Box 807, Baker City, OR 97814
Email: news@bakercityherald.com
Chris Janetopoulos is an associate
professor of biological sciences and co-
director of the BioImaging Core Facility
at the University of the Sciences in
Philadelphia. Email: c.janetopoulos@
usciences.edu