THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
4A
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EDITORIAL
Easing
restrictions
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has in effect acknowl-
edged that the state’s system for setting COVID-19
risk levels in the 36 counties, and the associated
state-imposed restrictions on businesses and activi-
ties, was too reactionary.
Baker County has benefi tted from the governor’s
reconsideration.
Under the system in place from December through
mid-March, the county, based on the tripling of new
cases during the two-week measuring period that
ended April 3, would have moved from the lowest of
the four risk levels to the highest (“extreme” in the
state’s parlance) starting April 9.
But in March Brown announced that counties, in
certain situations, would not be subject to more strin-
gent restrictions immediately after recording a jump
in cases over two weeks.
As a result of the change, Baker County, which
dropped to the lowest risk level on March 26, will
remain at that level through at least April 22 despite
posting 79 new cases for the two-week period ending
April 3 (compared with 24 in the previous period).
Under the old system, any more than 59 cases dur-
ing that period would have pushed Baker County
into extreme risk.
Now, the county’s risk level, starting April 23, will
be based on case counts, and test positivity rates, for
the period April 4-17, what the state deems the “cau-
tion period.”
The difference in effects between the old and the
current state approach is considerable.
If Baker County returned to the extreme risk level
— it dropped from that level on Feb. 5 — the effects
on restaurants and bars, theaters and other busi-
nesses would be dramatic.
Today, with the county at the lowest risk, restau-
rants and bars can have indoor dining up to 50% of
their capacity. In counties at extreme risk, by con-
trast, indoor dining is prohibited.
The risk level system, with its two-week periods,
creates uncertainty that is grossly unfair to business
owners as they try to plan their operations. A restau-
rant owner, for instance, faces the prospect of being
stuck with freezers full of food, and cooks and servers
scheduled to work, only to be banned from welcom-
ing diners.
The system is inherently fl awed because it relies
solely on case counts and positivity rates, without
considering the biggest sources of COVID-19 infec-
tions. Throughout the pandemic, Oregon has subject-
ed restaurants and bars to some of the state’s more
stringent restrictions, despite a shortage of evidence
that indoor dining is a signifi cant vector for the virus.
The new two-week caution period, though an im-
provement, fails to address that gap between cause
and effect.
Baker County Commissioner Mark Bennett, in an
email to the Herald on Tuesday, April 6, wrote that
the county’s recent surge in cases has “not shown
a direct correlation to restaurants or bars ...” Ben-
nett contends that restrictions intended to curb the
spread of COVID-19 should not, therefore, focus on
those businesses.
Bennett is right.
Also on Tuesday, Brown announced another
change to the risk level system, adding new state-
wide thresholds that must be met for any county to
move to the extreme category. No county will move
to, or stay in, that category if fewer than 300 people
— total, for the entire state — who have tested posi-
tive for COVID-19 are in a hospital. As of Tuesday,
that statewide number was 163.
This is another positive change, acknowledging
that one statistic — new case totals — doesn’t neces-
sarily refl ect how the virus is affecting the medical
system.
But the governor needs to do more to address
the ongoing inequities in the restrictions she has
imposed, including those that do little if anything
to limit the spread of the virus but cause signifi cant
harm to businesses that have been struggling under
the yoke of those restrictions for more than a year.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
Your views
Welfare system widens voter
base for Democrats
Let us drop the term “racist” as it has
become obvious that the word is only
used by the simple-minded to try for
special privilege and recognition of a
quality of their birth, not of their value
as a functional human being. Looking
back to the 1960s, when all people of
good conscience deplored the then prac-
tice of racial discrimination, we dealt
with the inhumanity and freed our
country of this vestige of the Democrat
South. After that, things were working
well until Lyndon Baines Johnson, a
disgusting person, introduced the pro-
gram which gave free money to welfare
people under terms that removed the
father from the home. For the lazy and
promiscuous, it became a way of life
passed down through the generations.
The Democrats were happy with the
outcome as it provided a reliable voter
base they depend upon, and do to this
day. How about this — “if you are on
public assistance you cannot vote in
any election held in a year where you
receive public money for more than six
months.”
Rick Rienks
Baker City
Concerned about America’s
status as a free nation
I have a concern about our current
administration and its willingness to
kill thousands of legal citizens of this
country by abortion and then opening
our southern border to allow thousands
of illegal immigrants to come in and
make citizens of them. In a government
of the people it seems to me the admin-
istration is overstepping its authority
here.
I know pro-abortionists claim a fetus
isn’t a live person until it is born, but
just think of it this way. Every preg-
nant woman from the days of Adam
and Eve has never given birth to any-
thing other than another human being,
so if killing a fetus isn’t killing another
human being, what is it? When a baby
is stillborn, doctors say it died in the
womb. Doesn’t that mean there was life
in the womb, or it couldn’t have died?
I have also heard that some abor-
tion advocates want to extend abortion
rights even beyond birth. If this is a
fact and the way our laws are getting
so lax on criminals, even murderers,
why not do away with the term murder
and replace it with the term “delayed
after birth abortion?”
Since abortion clinics were consid-
ered essential during the pandemic,
I’m guessing that statistics would show
that in 2020 this nation killed as many
human beings through abortion as
were killed by COVID-19.
Another concern to me is the term
“Black Lives Matter.” The term seems
to indicate that blacks are the only
people who have ever been persecuted
and are still being persecuted. I’m sure
this refers to the time of slavery in this
country and to the present time, but
this is just a small segment of history
compared to the history of the world.
Now let’s take a look at another seg-
ment of mankind in history. If you look
in the Bible you will fi nd that Israel,
the Jewish nation, has been enslaved
and persecuted almost from the begin-
ning of time. One of the latest examples
was Hitler trying to exterminate the
Jews during the Second World War.
Throughout the world’s history many
nations or empires have risen to power,
normally by conquering or enslaving
other nations. Eventually the same
thing happened to them and they also
disappear. So far the only nation in his-
tory to disappear through conquest and
slavery and then reappear as a nation
is Israel. After all the Jews have gone
through and fi nally fi nding equality
as a nation again, they are still facing
the fact that many nations and some
other segments of the world population
still want the Jews eliminated from the
world.
Why the difference in attitude to-
ward the two groups mentioned here?
Shouldn’t we assume that Jewish lives
matter too?
Another concern about the current
administration is its abuse of our Con-
stitution. Based on our Constitution
the presumption is that our govern-
ment is of the people, by the people and
for the people. This indicates that the
elected offi cials work for the people.
The current administration apparently
has a different interpretation of the
Constitution. To them it reads: “Gov-
ernment over the people, by the elected,
for the elected.”
This indicates the people are subject
to them.
Until we the people stand up for
our rights, we are allowing the elected
offi cials to form a ruling class for
themselves and we are no longer a free
nation.
Dick Culley
Baker City
OTHER VIEWS
Sharing the vaccine with the world
Editorial from the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette:
As more Americans roll up their
sleeves for a potentially life-saving
vaccination, we are called by moral
imperative and social justice concern
to refl ect on the reality that countries
without the Western world’s economic
capital are being left behind.
A New York Times story tells the
grim tale: Residents of wealthy and
middle-income countries have received
about 90% of the nearly 400 million
vaccines that have been delivered. Poor
countries could wait for years to see
their citizens vaccinated.
There is a choice to be made, and the
U.S. has outsize power in the delibera-
tion. A patent is pending on a 5-year-
old invention that is at the center of
several COVID-19 vaccines, and the
government will control the patent. It
could be used to pressure drug compa-
nies into producing the vaccines and
expanding access to countries in need.
America must respond to this crisis.
The unparalleled success in develop-
ing the vaccines that now are being
distributed came partly at the incen-
tive of massive public funding from the
U.S., Britain and the European Union
in the form of public-private partner-
ship with drug companies.
This success, hailed as a monumen-
tal triumph of science and medicine,
will not deserve our national pride if
we do not share the success with those
who are less fortunate.
Patent-sharing is a start. Compa-
nies should be compelled to publish
their vaccine formulas then follow up
with guidance as to production.
The World Health Organization is
pleading for help. It created a technol-
ogy pool in 2020 to help companies
share their expertise across borders.
The system is in place. Not one vac-
cine company has chosen to partici-
pate.
Manufacturers in India and Canada
have said they could produce the
vaccine if they could achieve a patent
licensing agreement. This is where the
U.S. could help. Usually, drug compa-
nies control nearly all of the intel-
lectual property associated with the
production of drugs. But, the pending
patent deals with the manipulation
of a certain coronavirus protein, a
manipulation that was discovered in
2016 at a lab at the National Insti-
tutes of Health. It was shared with
Moderna, and government-run trials
commenced. The Johnson & Johnson
and Pfi zer vaccines also rely on the
2016 discovery.
President Joe Biden has promised
to help an Indian company produce
about 1 billion doses by the end of
2022, and his administration has
donated doses to Mexico and Canada.
The promise is paired with another:
that Americans will be cared for fi rst.
Being at the front of the line is a
comforting place to be. But we are
called to turn in our comfortable spots
and look at who waits behind.
If we are not to be moved by com-
passion and conscience, then perhaps
we should refl ect on competition and
America’s standing as a world leader:
Russia and China have stepped up to
say they will fi ll the vaccine void.
Americans should reach out to their
federal leaders and ask that vaccines
be treated as “global public goods.” The
U.S. should usher to approval a pro-
posal at the World Trade Organization
to waive intellectual property rights
for COVID-19 vaccines and treatment.
Medical innovation is a human accom-
plishment that must be shared, for the
good of humanity. All of humanity.