Serving Central Oregon since 1903 • $1.50
Monday • March 22, 2021
SOUTHWEST BEND
2 bodies
discovered;
suspect
in custody
Detectives investigating incident
at Romaine Village trailer park
By GaRRETT andREWS
The Bulletin
A suspect is in custody after two bodies were
discovered in a manufactured home in southwest
Bend on Sunday.
At 12:28 p.m., Bend Police officers were called
to “suspicious circumstances” at a unit in Romaine
Village in the 60000 block of Granite Drive, accord-
ing to Bend Police spokeswoman Lt. Juli-Ann Mc-
Conkey.
Inside, they discovered the bodies of two people
and through interviews developed a person of inter-
est. That person was arrested later in the afternoon,
McConkey said.
Police have not publicly identified the dead peo-
ple or the suspect.
As of 4 p.m., the streets outside Romaine Village
were closed to traffic and the regional major crimes
team called in to investigate.
“This is definitely an active investigation and we’ll
be working through the night,” McConkey said.
e
Reporter: 541-383-0325, gandrews@bendbulletin.com
COVID-19
Contact tracing
apps pit privacy
against utility
Oregon may release one soon; other
states struggle to make theirs effective
By LIndSEy Van nESS
Stateline.org
The digital contact tracing effort in Virginia is 2
million phones strong. Roughly a quarter of the adult
population has downloaded the state’s COVIDWISE
app or opted in on their iPhones to receive exposure
notifications. Almost 26,000 times, a notification has
been sent to let someone know they were likely ex-
posed to a person with COVID-19.
But that’s the bulk of the information the state
health department can glean.
The system doesn’t track user locations, so of-
ficials don’t know where exposures happened, ac-
cording to Jeff Stover, an executive adviser to the
commissioner of Virginia’s Department of Health.
Officials can’t follow up on notifications to see
whether exposed residents are isolating.
WINDING UP
for the season
Photo by Ryan BREnnECKE • The Bulletin
Brad Edmunds, of Bend, tries to control
his kite as a gust of wind blows through
while practicing flying at Riverbend Park
on Saturday. “I’m on spring break this
week, so if the winds are up I will be out
practicing to get ready for the upcoming
(kiteboarding) season,” he said.
See Tracing / A4
2020 was the year of clean air
— then came all the smoke
By HannaH doRMIdo, JoHn
MUySKEnS and BonnIE BERKoWITZ
The Washington Post
Eric Risberg/AP file
The San Francisco skyline is barely visible due to smoke from wildfires that were burning across
California in September.
TODAY’S
WEATHER
Rain, some snow
High 48, Low 23
Page a10
INDEX
Comics
Dear Abby
Horoscope
A7-8
A4
A4
Kid Scoop
Local/State
Nation
Wildfires that charred millions
of acres in the West wiped out the
country’s pandemic-related clean
air gains in 2020, according to a
report released this month.
Because pandemic restrictions
limited travel and other activities,
fine-particle pollution from the
burning of fossil fuels dropped
A9
A2-3
A3
Puzzles
Sports
Weather
A8
A5-6
A10
13% between March and July
compared to the previous year
and dipped again in November
and December, said Lauri Myl-
lyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre
for Research on Energy and Clean
Air, who collaborated on IQAir’s
annual World Air Quality Report.
But the 2020 historic wildfire
season more than made up the
difference. Overall, the U.S. av-
erage for the deadliest type of air
pollution rose nearly 7% over
2019 because of smoke from fall
fires, primarily those in Califor-
nia, Oregon and Washington.
Fine-particle pollution refers
to bits that are 2.5 microns in di-
ameter or smaller, or less than
one-20th the diameter of a hu-
man hair. These particles are tiny
enough to penetrate deep into
lungs and enter the bloodstream,
where they can trigger asthma
attacks and other lung and heart
problems and may cause cancer.
See air quality / A10
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Fires wiped out pandemic-related environmental gains
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