WednesdAy • May 5, 2021 • Serving Central Oregon since 1903 • $1.50
SPORTS PULLOUT, A5-8
Deschutes and Crook counties
By a slim margin,
area moving down
from extreme risk
By GARy A. WARneR
Oregon Capital Bureau
The indoor dining ban and
other major restrictions under
COVID-19 rules will be lifted Fri-
day for 15 counties — including
Deschutes and Crook — because a
key metric was missed by 0.1%.
Gov. Kate Brown announced late
Tuesday that 15 counties put on the
extreme risk level for spread of the
virus — the highest of the four risk
levels — could operate under the
high risk standards instead.
“Oregon no longer meets the
statewide metrics,” Brown said in a
Central Oregon
OSU and OSU-Cascasdes
to require vaccinations
for staff, students in fall
statement.
The extreme risk level shuts
down indoor dining, limits crowd
sizes, caps entertainment and ex-
ercise activities and requires most
businesses to close by 11 p.m. Vis-
its to residents of nursing homes
are curtailed. Under high risk,
restaurants can offer indoor din-
ing and other restrictions are loos-
ened.
Brown’s statement ended a con-
fusing delay of several hours be-
yond the normal release of risk
level ratings.
Oregon State University an-
nounced late Tuesday afternoon that
every staff member and student,
including those at OSU-Cascades in
Bend, must receive the COVID-19
vaccine before teaching or learning
on campus this fall.
That means thousands of staff and
students will need to get vaccinated
by Sept. 22, when the fall term starts.
Students exclusively enrolled in
online courses with OSU will not
need to be vaccinated, but the uni-
versity highly encouraged them
— and everyone — to get the
COVID-19 vaccine in a press release
sent late Tuesday afternoon.
“High rates of vaccination among
our students, faculty and staff are
needed to help improve the safety
and well-being of our community,”
OSU’s interim President Becky John-
son said in the release. “This vacci-
nation requirement is intended for
students and university employees
so that we mutually contribute to the
greatest level of population protec-
tion possible from COVID-19.”
See Risk level / A4
— Bulletin staff report
Vaccination rates not enough
to protect the community
By sUZAnne ROIG
The Bulletin
A little more than five
months into vaccinating against
COVID-19, about half of Cen-
tral Oregon’s eligible population
in Crook, Jefferson and Deschutes
counties have received a shot.
Statewide, slightly more than
half of those eligible, those 16 and
older, have been vaccinated, which
means that Oregon has a long way
to go to get to community immu-
nity, said Rudy Owens, Oregon
Health Authority spokesman, in
an email.
“We’re still a long way from
achieving that community immu-
nity, which is when a population
has indirect protection from an
infectious disease because enough
people are immune to prevent fre-
quent spread,” Owens said.
The goal of President Joe Biden
and Gov. Kate Brown is to get the
economy back to normal by this
summer, Owens said. But that can
only happen if “a significant major-
ity of Oregonians get vaccinated.”
“There is no magic number of
what the right number is for vac-
cinations,” said Chunhuei Chi, Or-
egon State University professor of
the Global Health Program in an
interview. “Herd immunity is de-
pendent upon how contagious the
virus is. The more contagious the
disease, the more people we need to
be vaccinated to obtain immunity.
“It’s difficult to achieve this.”
At St. Charles Bend on Tuesday,
there were 34 COVID-19 patients;
eight were in intensive care and
seven on ventilators, according to
the hospital website.
See Vaccination / A4
LABOR DAY WILDFIRES
Madras, Culver high schools Owners
plan in-person graduations get more
time to
rebuild
By PeTeR WOnG
Oregon Capital Bureau
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
Madras High school senior William Clements receives his cap and gown from Amber Carlson, a representative of Jostens, in front of the school, which has an-
nounced official plans for an in-person graduation ceremony June 5.
Most area high schools taking
a wait-and-see approach
By JACKsOn HOGAn
The Bulletin
M
ost Central Oregon high schools have
adopted a wait-and-see approach
for this year’s graduation ceremo-
nies. Their ability to hold an in-person, all-to-
gether celebration will depend on the local
COVID-19 case counts at that time.
But high schools in Jefferson County have
already decided.
Madras and Bridges high schools an-
nounced in-person graduation ceremonies
on June 5 at the Madras High School football
field. The two schools will have 137 and 51
graduates this year, respectively.
Culver High School, which has 42 se-
niors, will also hold an outdoor ceremony at
the district athletic field, barring an intense
weather event, said Superintendent Stefanie
Garber.
Madras High’s parents and students over-
whelmingly supported having a more tra-
ditional ceremony instead of repeating the
drive-thru, one-at-a-time diploma handouts
that were held last June, said principal Brian
Crook.
“There were a lot of positives to the drive-
thru. It was really fun,” Crook said. “But listen-
ing to the community and our seniors, they
want the traditional ceremony, and I under-
stand.”
The ceremony won’t be exactly the same as
years past, Crook said. Instead of letting ev-
eryone into the football stadium, students will
only get a set number of tickets to hand family
and friends who wish to attend.
The number of tickets for Madras and
Bridges graduates will depend on how bad the
COVID-19 situation is in Jefferson County,
according to a district press release. Each Ma-
dras High graduate will get between two and
six tickets, depending on the risk level Jeffer-
son County is in on June 2.
Because there are fewer Bridges graduates,
their ticket allotments will range from four to 16.
See Graduation / A13
Owners would get more time to re-
build homes and businesses destroyed
in the 2020 Labor Day wildfires, with-
out running afoul of planning re-
quirements, under two bills that have
cleared the Oregon House.
Both bills passed on 56-0 votes on
Tuesday. One goes to the Senate, the
other to Gov. Kate Brown.
House Bill 2289, which goes to the
Senate, gives property owners five
years — instead of the normal one
year — to start reconstruction, which
would not be considered a “land use
action” under Oregon law. It applies
in areas affected by wildfires under a
state of emergency declared by Gov.
Kate Brown between Aug. 1 and Sept.
30, 2020.
The Labor Day wildfires destroyed
an estimated 4,000 homes. The largest
concentration, about 2,500, was de-
stroyed in the Almeda Fire in South-
ern Oregon, but other fires were
spread across Oregon.
Building permits are not usually
considered land use actions.
But Rep. Brian Clem, D-Salem,
said a work group he convened under
the House Agriculture and Land Use
Committee last fall after the wildfires
anticipated the potential of legal chal-
lenges to reconstruction. Clem be-
came chairman of the House Special
Committee on Wildfire Recovery this
session.
“If this were deemed a land use de-
cision, an angry neighbor could liti-
gate, some other group could litigate.
What we are trying to do is give a safe
harbor,” he said.
“If you are rebuilding basically the
same footage at the same location, it’s
not a land use decision — it’s not ap-
pealable to the state Land Use Board
of Appeals; it cannot be appealed to
the county commissioners or the city
council — and you can proceed with
your rebuilding.”
TODAY’S
WEATHER
Record temps
High 85, Low 46
Page A13
INDEX
Business
Classifieds
Comics
A11
A13-14
A9-10
Dear Abby
Editorial
History
A7
A8
A3
Horoscope
Local/State
Lottery
A7
A2-3
A6
Obituaries
Puzzles
Sports
A4
A10
A5-7
The Bulletin
An Independent Newspaper
We use
recycled
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Vol. 117, No. 329, 14 pages, 1 section
DAILY
See Rebuild / A13
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