The Blue Mountain eagle., March 18, 2020, Page 6, Image 6

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CORONAVIRUS IMPACT
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
State shuts down on-site consumption at restaurants, bars
Four-week ban includes canceling all
gatherings of 25 or more, urging public
to keep gatherings to 10 or less
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown
on Monday banned on-site
consumption of food and
drink at restaurants and bars,
a 180-degree turn from indi-
cations she gave earlier in
the day that she would not
order closures or curfews.
Brown’s order, which
takes effect Tuesday, March
17, allows restaurants to
offer delivery or takeout
service. But across Oregon,
restaurants were electing to
close entirely.
According to state labor
data, businesses employ
about 155,000 food service
workers.
The development came
as Brown continues to ramp
up restrictions intended to
keep people out of crowds
and away from each other if
they’re sick.
She has ordered nursing
homes and other licensed
facilities to limit visiting to
the 30,000 Oregonians liv-
ing in such settings. She has
ordered every public school
closed through at least April
1, sending 580,000 students
home for at least two weeks.
And on Monday, she
tightened the state’s ban
on gatherings, now pro-
hibiting any involving 25
or more people and urging
Oregonians not to convene
in gatherings of more than
10 people. She also urged
any business that isn’t able
to expand service to take-
out or delivery to evaluate
where Executive Director
Carmen Castro and the orga-
nization’s business develop-
ment team is working with
clients to weather the impact
of COVID-19.
“I don’t have a lot of
information to share about
what members are saying
at this point,” Castro said.
“Our clients have expressed
concern about their busi-
nesses as well as their own
personal and family health.”
The Oregon Restau-
rant and Lodging Associa-
tion represents 2,600 mem-
bers and more than 183,000
employees across the state.
CEO and President Jason
Brandt said Monday that his
organization will be giving a
presentation on the immedi-
ate needs of the hospitality
industry and its employees
in two upcoming meetings
with state leaders: the Gov-
ernor’s Economic Advisory
Task Force scheduled Tues-
Hospitals preparing for surge in COVID-19 cases
By Les Zaitz
Oregon Capital Bureau
Health authorities are preparing
Oregon’s 62 hospitals for an expected
surge in patients infected with the new
coronavirus, encouraging a stop to
elective surgery, arranging for addi-
tional patient beds and shifting some
emergency care to medical clinics and
doctors’ practices.
The challenge is clear.
Oregon officials have estimated
that, if they can’t slow the spread of
COVID-19, the state could have 75,000
infected residents by the middle of May.
Based on China’s experience, medical
experts calculate that about 80% would
face mild to moderate conditions that
might not need intense medical care.
But that could leave Oregon with
14,000 people with severe to critical
symptoms, a number that would over-
whelm the state’s hospital capacity.
Oregon hospitals have about 6,600
hospital beds and, based on 2018 data,
six out of 10 are occupied by patients
at any one time. At that time, Oregon
hospitals had 1,059 intensive care beds,
with about half of those in the Portland
area.
The reality of those numbers has
state and hospital officials adapting their
crisis plans, refined after the 2009 out-
break of H1N1, commonly known as
the swine flu, according to Dr. Richard
Leman, chief medical officer with the
Oregon Health Authority’s Health Secu-
rity Preparedness and Response unit.
Leman said in a Sunday interview
with the Oregon Capital Bureau that
every Oregonian now has a role in con-
taining the virus. He said the advice isn’t
new — but has to be heeded.
“We’ve just got to make this part of
the culture,” he said.
That includes washing hands, cov-
ering coughs and cleaning with alco-
hol-based sanitizers that can kill the
virus. He said sick people simply have
to stay home.
“That’s what we can all do together,”
Leman said.
He said health authorities are work-
ing to “expand the capacity within hos-
pitals, of what we can do, how many
people we can take care of, how we
take care of people even if they are very
sick.”
He said hospitals already are stop-
ping elective surgeries in what he said
was a “rather important step.” The state
isn’t directing such a step, however.
He said, by example, that canceling
a colonoscopy “frees up some personal
protective equipment that we otherwise
wouldn’t have” and makes those per-
forming such procedures available for
other care.
Leman said some hospitals have
extra beds, but they are limited by regu-
lations in how many they can use at any
one time. He said Oregon is expecting
a ruling that would allow hospitals to
day, and the Legislature’s
Special Joint Committee
on Coronavirus Response
taking place Wednesday at
10 a.m. in the Capitol.
“The first thing we have
to start with is making sure
there’s no one-week wait-
ing period to access unem-
ployment insurance. Given
the current state of affairs,
people cannot wait a week,”
Brandt said. “Second, we
should relax rules around the
work search provision.”
Work search provisions
in federal law requires one
to be proactively seeking a
new job when applying for
unemployment, but Brandt
points out that with the
ongoing outbreak of corona-
virus, the state is encourag-
ing people to stay home.
“If we’re trying to save
lives, obviously that’s an
exemption that needs to be
made immediately,” he said.
Outside of advocating in
front of Oregon’s elected
leadership, Brandt said, his
organization is pushing out
the message that there are
ways to continue support-
ing your favorite local busi-
nesses. Purchasing gift cer-
tificates to redeem later
— as long as their gift cards
are not run through a third-
party service — can help
infuse cash into a small
business you want to sup-
port now. Making use of
drive-throughs, takeout and
delivery service for those
business that have chosen to
remain open are also options,
according to Brandt.
“I think people would
benefit from looking at the
bright side down the road,
once we get past this crisis
… there is light at the end of
the tunnel,” he said. “Today
was a really tough day, but
we’re focused on making
sure we showcase the resil-
iency of this industry.”
As coronavirus pandemic
enters ‘stark new phase,’
hospitals prepare for a
shortage of beds
With an already low per-capita
hospital bed rate, Oregon could find
itself with too many sick people and
not enough places to treat them
By Jake Thomas
Oregon Capital Burea
Eagle file photo
Blue Mountain Hospital District is taking extra precautions because of the coro-
navirus.
“expand the number of beds — if they
have the staff.”
While rural hospitals — and half
of Oregon’s qualify as such — are far-
ther from support and face greater chal-
lenges to maintain staffing, the federal
government has relaxed rules so they
can care for more patients.
“One of the challenges we are going
to see is we are an independent hospi-
tal, we are a small community-based
private hospital,” said Erik Thorsen,
CEO of Columbia Memorial Hospital
in Astoria.
He said that Columbia Memorial is
the largest hospital in Clatsop County
and serves about 50,000 people, with
over half on Medicare or Medicaid. He
said there’s a large retired community,
and many patients suffer from heart dis-
ease or cancer.
In response to the coronavirus out-
break, he said he’s confident that the
hospital is well-equipped.
He said the hospital monitors how
many people are coming into the emer-
gency department as well as its sup-
ply of personal protective equipment to
keep its staff from being exposed to the
virus.
“For most of our supplies, we are
in good shape,” said Judy Geiger, the
hospital’s vice president of patient care
services.
Leman said state officials “are look-
ing very seriously” at establishing
“alternate care sites” to treat those who
are too sick to be at home but don’t need
hospital-level care. This would be for
people such as those who have trouble
breathing — a symptom of COVID-
19 — who can be treated outside a hos-
pital setting for that “extra bit of help”
recovering.
Leman said Oregon’s doctors, physi-
cian’s assistants and other medical pro-
fessionals will be expected to care for
more people who normally would be
sent to a hospital emergency room for
deep cuts or broken bones.
“We’re asking them to step up,”
Leman said. “There are a lot of well-
trained people. They can do a lot.”
That diversion would help spare
hospitals and leave more resources for
those infected with COVID-19 who
need hospitalization.
“We think that’s what we need to
do,” Leman said.
He noted most people who are
infected with the disease are expected to
have mild symptoms.
“Many people do not need to see a
health care provider at all,” Leman said,
and instead can resort to home rest and
recovery.
Another challenge is getting hos-
pitals and other medical providers the
supplies they need. He said hospitals are
reporting they have what they need —
for the moment.
Gov. Kate Brown last week asked for
immediate supplies from federal caches,
but learned Friday the state was get-
ting only a portion of what it requested.
Federal officials are doling out sup-
plies based on a state’s percentage of
the national population, according to an
email issued Friday by a federal official
with the U.S. Health and Human Ser-
vices Department.
Brown, for instance, asked for
400,000 N95 respirators. The federal
agency said it would provide 36,855.
The governor requested 600,000 face
and surgical masks. Oregon will get
87,795.
In one shipment on Saturday night
and another Sunday morning, the state
received a portion of its request, includ-
ing 36,300 N95 respirators, 87,500
masks, 12,762 gowns, 26,245 gloves
and 16,700 disposable face shields.
“We are not getting the equipment
we need,” Brown told reporters Friday,
saying her administration has reached
out to federal officials daily to learn
what supplies would be coming.
ATTENTION
Grant SWCD Weed Control Dept.
Working for You in 2020
HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS
Are you ready for the next step?
Don’t forget to apply for a
Silvies Valley Ranch
Educational Scholarship.
Open to Grant & Harney County students.
Postmark deadline is
April 1, 2020
Applications are available from your
school’s guidance counselor or online at
www.silvies.us
S177194-1
Thanks to the Grant County Court and Northeast Oregon Forests Resource
Advisory Committee, Grant Weed Control is able to offer a 25% Cost
share program for Noxious Weed Control on Private Grazing Lands,
through a Title II funded Grant Project. This program will provide a
maximum $5,000 of noxious weed control services with a $1,250 maximum
landowner contribution to qualifying participants. To be eligible for
participation, the treatment property must not be actively irrigated and
must be primarily managed for livestock grazing, minimum of 20 acres in
size, located within Grant County, and must contain priority noxious weed
species. Applications for this limited weed control assistance opportunity
will be ranked and funded according to a priority noxious weed list.
Contact the Grant Soil and Water Conservation District Office at
(541) 575-1554 or visit 721 S. Canyon Blvd., John Day, OR 97845 for
applications and additional information.
This application deadline for this program is April 10th, 2020.
As the coronavirus con-
tinues to spread in Ore-
gon, the state is on a path
to run out of hospital beds
by next month without a
significant slowing of the
disease or drastic response
by public health officials.
Gov. Kate Brown and
her health team Mon-
day afternoon announced
new statewide restrictions
while mapping out a plan
to boost the capacity of
hospitals to deal with the
expected wave of patients
infected with COVID-19.
She banned gatherings
of 25 or more — a sub-
stantial change from ear-
lier prohibitions of gather-
ings of 250 or more. She
ordered restaurants and
bars to stop sit-down din-
ing, but allowed them to
provide delivery or take-
out service.
“Isolation from our
friends and neighbors is
the only way to flatten the
curve of transmission and
get Oregon through this,”
Brown said.
State health officials
revealed the results of
modeling done by Ore-
gon Health and Science
University of how the
pandemic virus will hit
Oregon. They repeated
earlier forecasts of 75,000
infected Oregonians but
added that they expected
the number of known
cases to double every
six days without strong
action.
Dr. Dana Hargunani, the
chief medical officer for
the Oregon Health Author-
ity, starkly explained what
would happen if a spike in
cases can’t be averted.
“We will not be able to
save everyone,” Hagunani
said.
She said physicians
could face “heartbreak-
ing decisions” as Oregon
enters “a stark new phase”
with the virus.
Dr. Renee Edwards,
OHSU chief medical offi-
cer, said the modeling
showed Oregon would
need an additional 1,000
hospital beds and 400
intensive care unit beds to
accommodate the surge.
The state’s 62 hospitals
have 6,600 beds.
Edwards said 20%
of those who contract
COVID-19 would require
hospitalization.
Oregon
needs
to
quickly add hospital beds
across the state to cope.
She said that OHSU,
for example, could need
80 ICU beds for expected
COVID-19 patients by
mid-April — double what
it has.
“This happens to be
near our current ICU
capacity,” she said. “And
on a normal day, our ICU
is already full of Ore-
gonians who need criti-
cal care, even without the
COVID crisis.”
Brown said the state
intended
to
“expand
bed capacity by adding
beds in non-hospital set-
tings,” although she didn’t
elaborate.
Oregon has one of the
lowest per-capita bed rates
nationally. The state has
just 1.6 hospital beds per
1,000 people, according to
data from the Kaiser Fam-
ily Foundation.
In Portland, Kaiser Per-
manente, Legacy Health,
Providence Health and
OHSU plan to operate
as a single entity to build
capacity, coordinate med-
ical responses and pre-
vent a shortage of hospi-
tal beds.
While the effort is
based in the Portland area,
Brown said it could func-
tion as a model for the rest
of the state.
EST.
1883
SILVIES VALLEY RANCH
S173768-1
By Sam Stites
Oregon Capital Bureau
whether they should remain
open.
“Each action has a rip-
ple effect across our state,
both on a personal level and
an economic one,” Brown
said. “Working together, we
can overcome these hurdles
in an Oregon way.”
On Sunday, Brown told
reporters she was consid-
ering imposing a curfew
or even closing the state’s
restaurants and bars, but on
Monday morning, she said
she decided against such
actions. And four hours
after that, she announced
the ban on inside dining.
According
to Amy
Lewin, spokeswoman for
the Portland Business Alli-
ance, her organization is
evaluating the impact to
its members, including the
financial harm.
The situation is similar
at the Hispanic Metropoli-
tan Chamber of Commerce,