A2 THE BULLETIN • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021
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GENERAL
INFORMATION
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
DESCHUTES COUNTY
COVID-19 data for Thursday, Feb. 4:
Deschutes County cases: 5,484 (17 new cases)
Deschutes County deaths: 47 (1 new death)
Crook County cases: 702 (zero new cases)
Crook County deaths: 15 (zero new deaths)
Jefferson County cases: 1,801 (13 new cases)
Jefferson County deaths: 25 (zero new deaths)
Oregon cases: 145,320 (730 new cases)
Oregon deaths: 1,998 (7 new deaths)
COVID-19 patients hospitalized at
St. Charles Bend on Thursday: 11 (2 in ICU)
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ONLINE
130
(Dec. 4)
What is COVID-19? It’s an infection caused by a new
coronavirus. Symptoms include fever, coughing and
shortness of breath. This virus can be fatal.
7 ways to help limit its spread: 1. Wash hands often
with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. 2. Avoid
touching your face. 3. Avoid close contact with sick
people. 4. Stay home. 5. In public, stay 6 feet from others
and wear a mask. 6. Cough into your elbow. 7. Clean and
disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces.
LOCAL
VACCINATIONS
22,516
Number of vaccinations
given by St. Charles
Health System
108 new cases
120
(Jan. 1)
90
new
cases
110
*No data
available on
Jan. 31
due to state
computer
maintenence
(Nov. 27)
90
70
60
50
(Nov. 14)
28 new cases
(July 16)
40
31 new cases
(Oct. 31)
30
16 new cases
(Sept. 19)
20
(May 20)
1st case
100
80
47 new cases
9 new cases
www.bendbulletin.com
BULLETIN
GRAPHIC
129 new cases
7-day
average
8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri.
SOURCES: OREGON HEALTH AUTHORITY,
DESCHUTES COUNTY HEALTH SERVICES
New COVID-19 cases per day
10
(March 11)
*
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Lottery results can now be found on
the second page of Sports.
Oregon’s vaccine equity group
expected to meet in secret, again
BY FEDOR ZARKHIN
The Oregonian
Oregon’s coronavirus vac-
cine equity group was expected
to meet in secret Thursday af-
ter holding a different closed-
door session this week in which
some members questioned
how health officials will put the
group’s recommendations into
practice.
State health officials created
the Vaccine Advisory Commit-
tee to help decide who should
be inoculated against the coro-
navirus after health care work-
ers, senior care residents and
workers, teachers and seniors.
The group’s meetings had
been public until this week.
State officials say the committee
finished its official work Jan. 28,
sending recommendations to
the Oregon Health Authority,
and the latest sessions are not
subject to public meetings law.
State officials originally said
Tuesday’s meeting would be to
“discuss implementation issues”
but later changed the agenda
to list only “debrief and evalu-
ation.” The session appeared to
be an opportunity for members
to more freely air their con-
cerns.
Thursday’s two-hour meet-
ing will be an “unofficial
Erik Robinson/OHSU via AP
Oliver Pelayo, an OHSU registered nurse, prepares vaccine doses during
a drive-thru clinic at the Portland International Airport on Jan. 24.
wrap-up,” said Erica Heartquist,
a health authority spokes-
woman.
The health authority has
taken pains to portray the
meetings as pro forma debrief
sessions. According to min-
utes from Tuesday’s meeting,
the group discussed vaccine
access, information access and
the need to combat disinforma-
tion, according to a summary
provided by the Oregon Health
Authority.
The summary also listed
a few bigger-picture ques-
tions, such as, “How will OHA
demonstrate to community
how racial equity is guiding
vaccine distribution?”
But the health authority has
changed course and said it will
not record Thursday’s meeting,
take minutes or put together a
transcript.
One committee member,
Musse Olol, said the Tuesday
meeting included language
questioning the process and
outcome — precisely the reason
he said he thinks Thursday’s
meeting should be public.
“For the first time, we are
talking about how things went
down. This would be a good
opportunity for the public to
know,” Olol said. “There should
be no secret.”
Attempted dognapping foiled when workers,
friends track down stolen van full of pooches
BY KALE WILLIAMS
The Oregonian
Sunni Liston was doing what
she usually does at the end of
her work day: returning dogs
to their owners in downtown
Portland.
Liston and her husband, Rick
Liston, run Coopers Dogpatch,
a doggy day care service that
picks up pooches in Portland
and takes them to their rural
Clackamas County property
near Damascus before ferrying
them back to the city at the end
of the day.
The drop-off was going ac-
cording to plan Monday eve-
ning. The van was loaded up
with 12 kennels and at least one
owner had completed a pickup
and another had just arrived
when Liston got out of the driv-
er’s seat to open the rear doors.
She was at the back of the
van when she noticed the inte-
rior lights turn on.
Someone had just started the
engine.
Liston slammed the rear
doors shut and started banging
on them. “But within seconds,
it was rolling,” she told The Or-
egonian.
Along with the 12 dogs in
the van, including her own
Corgi-heeler mix named How-
ard, was her purse and cell-
phone. She had no way to con-
tact anyone. Her heart sank.
“I’ve been skydiving before
when my parachute failed, and
I had to use the reserve,” she
said. “I’ve always stayed calm,
but this time, I panicked.”
A number of Liston’s clients
work nearby, and she said one
of the owners coming to get
their dog alerted the business,
which sent out an email plead-
ing for help. Liston said a small
army of dog-lovers responded
quickly and “was ready to hit
the streets.”
Meanwhile, Liston used
someone else’s cellphone to call
her employees, Katelynn Bor-
der-Collins and Alicia Bennet,
back at home.
Border-Collins and Bennet
brought up a “find-my-phone”
app on a computer and, on the
screen, tracked the van as it
circled around downtown for
more than 40 minutes as Liston
contacted the police.
Eventually, the van came
to a stop in the parking lot of
an apartment building near
where it was taken, and Bennet
contacted a friend who lived
nearby to go and keep it from
leaving. The friend spotted the
van hidden behind another
large vehicle and blocked the
exit so the friend could go and
flag down a police officer.
By the time the friend re-
turned, the would-be dog-nap-
per had fled along with Liston’s
purse and keys, but the dogs,
all of them including Howard,
were safe and sound in the van.
“When I got there, some of
them were asleep,” Liston said,
the animals seemingly unaware
of the ordeal they’d just gone
through. A spokesman for the
Portland Police Bureau said
police got a call about the situ-
ation, but it had been resolved
before officers arrived.
Liston said she was humbled
by the experience, the way the
community quickly rallied to
help find the van full of pilfered
pooches and the friend who
tracked the van to where it was
found.
She was especially grateful
for the quick thinking of her
employees who helped to track
the van full of priceless cargo.
“If it wasn’t for the commu-
nity,” Liston said, “we might
have lost them all.”
State authorized to start
vaccinating inmates soon
BY NOELLE CROMBIE
The Oregonian
Gov. Kate Brown has au-
thorized the Oregon Health
Authority to provide the state
prison system with 10,000
doses of the Moderna vac-
cine for its inmate population
beginning next week, a top
agency official said Wednes-
day.
Brown plans to pro-
vide prisons with enough
COVID-19 vaccines “un-
til our job is complete,” Dr.
Warren Roberts, chief medi-
cal officer for the Oregon De-
partment of Corrections, told
lawmakers.
Oregon’s prisons currently
house nearly 12,600 inmates.
The first allotment of 5,000
doses is expected next week
and will be used to start clin-
ics for medically vulnerable
inmates, Roberts said.
That will be followed by
another shipment of 5,000
the week after.
“We have an aggressive
vaccination plan and are
ready to operationalize that
plan as soon as the vaccines
arrive,” said Colette Peters,
director of the prison system.
The vaccines will be of-
fered to inmates but won’t be
required, corrections officials
said.
The timeline came into
sharper view after U.S. Mag-
istrate Stacie F. Beckerman
on Tuesday ordered all in-
mates in Oregon’s prisons be
prioritized for the vaccina-
tions.
Her ruling addresses the
explosive rise of the virus in
the prisons, where the infec-
tion rate is 28% compared to
3.3% of the rest of the popu-
lation.
“Currently,” Beckerman
wrote, “an individual in
(state) custody is nearly 10
times more likely to contract
COVID-19 than the average
Oregonian.”
STATE BRIEFING
Man pleads not guilty
to 31 charges in Portland
hit-and-run rampage
Paul Rivas ducked out of
sight as he appeared briefly
Thursday morning in a Mult-
nomah County courtroom
and his lawyer entered not
guilty pleas on his behalf to
a 31-count indictment in
the hit-and-run rampage in
southeast Portland last week
that killed one woman and
injured seven others.
Rivas, with only his cuffed
hands visible through much
of the arraignment, told his
lawyer he was “feeling sick.”
Rivas’ next court date was
set for March 19. He was rep-
resented by court-appointed
attorney Jonathan Sarre.
The indictment charges
Rivas with second-degree
murder and failure to per-
form the duties of a driver
in the Jan. 25 killing of Jean
Gerich, 77, a pedestrian
who was hit twice and then
dragged for a block.
— Bulletin staff report
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