A2 THE BULLETIN • MONDAY, APRIL 12, 2021
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DESCHUTES COUNTY
Crook County cases: 839 (3 new cases)
Crook County deaths: 19 (zero new deaths)
108 new cases
Oregon cases: 170,568 (499 new cases)
Oregon deaths: 2,440 (zero new deaths)
120
(Jan. 1)
7-day
average
90
new
cases
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 cloth face covering or mask.
6. Cover a cough or sneeze with a tissue or cough into your elbow.
7. Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces.
Jefferson County cases: 2,043 (8 new cases)
Jefferson County deaths: 32 (zero new deaths)
130
(Dec. 4)
What is COVID-19? It’s an infection caused by a new coronavirus.
Symptoms (including fever, coughing and shortness of breath)
can be severe. While some cases are mild, the disease can be fatal.
Deschutes County cases: 6,741 (35 new cases)
Deschutes County deaths: 72 (zero new deaths)
100
90
80
50
new
cases
(Feb. 17)
(Nov. 14)
28 new cases
8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri.
(July 16)
110
(Nov. 27)
47 new cases
31 new cases
70
*No data
available on
Jan. 31
due to state
computer
maintenence
60
50
40
(Oct. 31)
30
16 new cases
(Sept. 19)
9 new cases
ONLINE
BULLETIN
GRAPHIC
129 new cases
COVID-19 data for Sunday, April 11:
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SOURCES: OREGON HEALTH AUTHORITY,
DESCHUTES COUNTY HEALTH SERVICES
New COVID-19 cases per day
20
(May 20)
1st case
10
(March 11)
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It’s been over a year since a choir practice in Washington state sickened
53 people and killed two. These families finally start to get some closure.
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AP photos
PHOTOS FROM TOP: Music for the hymn “It Is Well With My Soul” rests on a piano at a March 27 memorial service for Carole Rae
Woodmansee at Radius Church in Mount Vernon, Washington. Hymns were among the last words spoken by Woodmansee. She
died a year ago — the day of her 81st birthday — from complications of COVID-19 after contracting it during a choir practice.
ABOVE: Woodmansee’s daughter Wendy Jensen helps her granddaughter Abby place items at her headstone in Sedro-Woolley.
BY MANUEL VALDES
Associated Press
S
EDRO-WOOLLEY,
Wash. — With dish soap,
brushes and plastic water
jugs in hand, Carole Rae
Woodmansee’s four chil-
dren cleaned the gravestone their
mother shares with their father,
Jim. Each scrub shined engraved
letters spelling out their mother’s
name and the days of her birth
and death: March 27, 1939, and
March 27, 2020.
Carole passed away on her 81st
birthday.
That morning marked a year
since she died of complications
of COVID-19 after contracting it
during a choir practice that sick-
ened 53 people and killed two —
a superspreader event that would
become one of the most pivotal
transmission episodes in under-
standing the virus.
For the siblings, the somber an-
niversary offered a chance at clo-
sure after the pandemic stunted
their mourning. They were finally
holding a memorial befitting of
their mother’s footprint in the
community.
“The hardest thing is that there
was no goodbye. It was like she
just disappeared,” said Carole’s
youngest child, Wendy Jensen.
After cleaning, the siblings
reminisce. They say their father
must be happy to be back with his
wife of 46 years. They thank them
for being good parents and re-
call how their mother used to say
“my” before calling their names
and those of other loved ones.
“I was always ‘My Bonnie,’”
Bonnie Dawson tells her siblings.
“I miss being ‘My Bonnie.’”
“She had been missing Dad for
a long time,” eldest sibling Linda
Holeman adds. Their father, Jim,
passed away in 2003.
Of the more than 550,000 people
who have died of the virus in the
United States, Carole was among
the first. Her death came just weeks
after the first reported outbreak at
a nursing home in Kirkland, about
an hour south of Mount Vernon.
Carole, who survived heart sur-
gery and cancer, had fallen ill at her
home. Bonnie took care of her un-
til they called the paramedics.
“You’re trying to say goodbye
to your mom, and they’re tell-
ing you to get back. It was a very
hard, emotional … to have to yell,
‘I love you, Mom,’ as she’s being
wheeled out the door with men
standing in our y ard 10 feet out
because they didn’t want to be
near our house,” Bonnie said.
Before the shutdowns
The rehearsal of the Skagit Val-
ley Chorale, a community choir
made up mostly of retirees and
not associated with the church
where they practiced, happened
two weeks before Gov. Jay Inslee
shut down the state. The choir
had taken the precautions known
at the time, such as distancing
themselves and sanitizing. But
someone had the virus.
“The choir themselves called us
directly, and they left a voicemail.
The voicemail said a positive per-
son in the choir, 24 people now
sick,” said Lea Hamner, commu-
nicable disease and epidemiol-
ogy lead for Skagit County Public
Health. “It was immediately evi-
dent that we had a big problem.”
Hamner and her team went to
work interviewing choir mem-
bers, often repeatedly, and those
with whom they came in contact
after the practice, a total of 122
people. They meticulously pieced
together the evening, tracking
things like where people sat and
who ate cookies or stacked chairs.
That level of access and detail
is rare among outbreak investiga-
tions, Hamner said, so when cases
waned in the county a few weeks
later, she sat down to write a report.
“There was a lot of resistance
to calling it an airborne disease,”
Hamner said. “But we found this
middle ground of this disease that
can both be droplet and airborne.
So that was a big shift. After the
paper, the CDC started to ac-
knowledge airborne transmission.”
‘Woke people up’
The outbreak had gained no-
toriety after a Los Angeles Times
article, prompting other research-
ers to study the event, further ce-
menting the conclusion that the
virus traveled through the air at
the rehearsal.
“I think this outbreak in the
choir is viewed … as the one
event that really woke people up
to the idea that the virus could
be spreading through the air,”
said Linsey Marr, a Virginia Tech
professor and expert in airborne
transmission. Marr was among
239 experts who successfully lob-
bied the World Health Organiza-
tion to change its guidelines on
transmission.
The other person who died
from the choir practice was
83-year-old Nancy “Nicki” Ham-
ilton. Originally from New York,
Hamilton settled north of Seattle
in the 1990s. She put out a per-
sonal ad in the Everett Herald, and
that’s how she met her husband.
“We went down to the bowling
alley in Everett,” said 85-year-old
Victor Hamilton. “We picked it
up from there.”
Hamilton hasn’t been able to
hold a memorial for her. Their
families are spread throughout the
country, and he’d like to have it in
New York City if possible. He’s eye-
ing June 21 — her birthday.
In nearby Mount Vernon,
family and friends stream into
Radius Church, gazing at an in-
stallation of a few dozen photos
of Carole that the siblings put to-
gether. Loved ones recall Carole’s
devotion to her family, faith and
music. They sing “Blessed Assur-
ance,” her favorite hymn. Its lyrics
were among her last words to her
children from the hospital.
BY MEERAH POWELL
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Oregon Health & Science Univer-
sity leaders told students and employ-
ees last week they will be able to share
their experiences and observations as
part of an external investigation of the
teaching hospital’s culture regarding
harassment and retaliation claims.
The investigation, led by former
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
and former federal prosecutor Nancy
Kestenbaum, will look into allegations
of sexual harassment, discrimination,
retaliation and racism.
It comes about a month after a fe-
male employee filed a federal lawsuit
against a doctor at OHSU for sexual
assault. The suit includes the insti-
tution itself and other employees.
The main defendant in the case is Ja-
son Campbell, a former anesthesiol-
ogy resident at OHSU who was also
known as “TikTok Doc” for posting
dance videos that went viral.
The woman who filed the lawsuit
said multiple OHSU employees vio-
lated mandatory reporting rules by
not properly filing complaints about
the allegations against Campbell. She
also said she faced retaliation for re-
porting sexual misconduct.
OHSU leaders said the lawsuit
against Campbell is not the sole rea-
son for the investigation, which is
being run by the law firm Covington
& Burling LLP. “Covington’s investi-
gation will examine our culture — in-
cluding our policies, programs and
procedures — from a wider lens to
help us identify root causes and iden-
tify or create ways to address areas re-
quiring improvements.”
EUGENE
Declared riot
on May 29 has
led to 30 arrests
The Register-Guard (Eugene)
Eugene Police have now totaled 30
arrests of people suspected of rioting,
breaking into businesses and setting
fires on May 29 during a protest in the
wake of the death of George Floyd.
It was the first of many protests
here after the May 25 death of Floyd .
In response, demonstrators marched
through Eugene’s streets. When the
group reached the intersection of Sev-
enth Avenue and Washington Street,
some protesters set fires in the streets,
destroyed public and private property,
and looted businesses.
The latest arrest came last week . Aza-
riah Michael Klote, 22, was arraigned
Tuesday on charges including rioting,
second-degree burglary and first-de-
gree theft. Klote was arrested after a
traffic stop while leaving a Safeway, ac-
cording to a police news release. He is
due back in court May 12. This was the
third recent arrest related to May 29.
In mid-August, Eugene Police pub-
lished images from social media and
security cameras showing more than
60 people police were trying to identify .
Between January and this month,
eight other adults arrested follow-
ing the declared riot have had court
appearances. Of those, five pleaded
guilty, while other cases are ongoing
or had court dates moved back.
In an email, police spokeswoman
Melinda McLaughlin said the depart-
ment has identified “numerous” other
suspects to eventually arrest.