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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (April 15, 2020)
STATE MyEagleNews.com Wednesday, April 15, 2020 A7 Gov. Brown: Reopening Oregon will ‘take longer than we want’ State joins California and Washington in pact on opening states’ economies By Dick Hughes For the Oregon Capital Bureau Reopening of Oregon businesses will occur “gradually, carefully and incrementally,” Gov. Kate Brown said Tuesday, but she refused to say when that might happen. “It will not be easy. It will take longer than we want,” she said. Brown and health officials held a press conference to announce her framework “for restarting business and public life in our state — how we’re going to approach reopen- ing Oregon” from the COVID-19 pandemic. “We have to be cautious or it will backfire,” Brown said. “We know that a vaccine or an effective treat- ment may yet be months away. And if we move too quickly, we will see a spike in cases that could lead to an overwhelmed hospital system and unnecessary deaths.” Businesspeople and health pro- fessionals will be brought together to discuss how to gradually reopen restaurants, retailers, child care and personal services such as hair and nail salons. “For example, this might include additional guidelines for reconfig- uring the delivery of services with additional physical barriers like plexiglass dividers, or requirements for wearing PPE,” she said. She promised “a science-driven process” based on several conditions for reopening Oregon: slowing the growth of COVID-19 cases, having more personal protective equipment, increasing test capacity, establishing a robust system for tracking who has been exposed to the coronavirus and ensuring effective isolation and quar- antine for people who test positive, including nursing home residents and homeless individuals. The state’s latest modeling esti- mates that, under current conditions, COVID-19 cases and hospitaliza- tions would remain steady through mid-May but would shoot up if those regulations were eased. Responding to questions, Brown would not spec- ify a date for potentially relaxing business restrictions and social dis- tancing requirements. Much has yet to be determined. Brown said epidemiologists and her recently formed Medical Advisory Committee were working on the appropriate metrics for evaluating the state’s progress. The state does not know how much PPE is needed, including hav- ing sufficient gear for physicians and dentists to resume elective surgeries and other procedures, or potentially to protect employees in personal-ser- vice jobs. More testing capability also is needed, enabling at least 15,000 Ore- gonians a week to be tested, accord- ing to Dr. Dean Sidelinger, state health officer. Not all Oregonians will be tested for COVID-19. And contact tracing of Oregonians will require a vast number of workers. As of Tuesday, 32,363 people had been tested in Oregon since Jan- uary. The Oregon Health Author- ity reported that 1,633 of those had tested positive. Fifty-five have died. The total number of Orego- nians with COVID-19 is unknown because many either were not tested or received inaccurate results. On Monday, Brown announced Oregon is working with Washington and California on when to reopen the states’ economies. “We are announcing that Califor- nia, Oregon and Washington have agreed to work together on a shared approach for reopening our econo- mies — one that identifies clear indi- cators for communities to restart public life and business,” the three governors said in a statement issued Monday afternoon. The eventual lifting of social dis- tancing and other interventions will require systems for testing, track- ing and isolating individuals with COVID-19, according to Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. They did not give a timeline. “In Oregon, the Governor’s Med- ical Advisory Panel will be involved in reviewing the public health com- ponents of decisions related to the lifting of various social distanc- ing orders,” Press Secretary Charles Boyle said. “While each state will have its own specific plan, our office is coor- dinating with the governor’s offices in Washington and California to develop common criteria for this framework and a way for our health departments to coordinate on an ongoing basis.” Boyle said that reopening Oregon would happen neither overnight nor statewide all at once. “Health outcomes will be the ulti- mate metric guiding decisions to reopen communities,” he said. “We will only reopen Oregon if the data shows we can do so without jeopar- dizing public health.” Sen. Wyden calls for major overhaul of 1930s federal unemployment rules By Peter Wong Oregon Capital Bureau U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden says the temporary expansion of unemployment benefits to more workers — a step he champi- oned and which became part of the $2 trillion federal response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic — should be made permanent. As the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees the unemploy- ment insurance system, Wyden negotiated not only a 13-week extension and a $600-per-week increase in benefits, he also secured expansion of benefits to self-employed, gig and part- time workers, freelancers and independent contractors. Although some changes have been made since the last economic downturn, more than a decade ago, the nation’s unemployment insurance sys- tem dates back to the 1930s. Wisconsin created the first state program in 1932, and the Social Security Act of 1935 encouraged states to do so. All did by 1937. Back then, typical U.S. wage earners were the men in two-parent families — and benefits replaced only part of their lost wages until they could get other full-time jobs. Wyden, in an interview with Pamplin Media Group, said economic realities are different more than 80 years later. “The unemployment system created in the 1930s has been in a time warp. I insisted that all of them (new worker catego- ries) be covered, plus the $600 per week and the four months of coverage,” Wyden said. “I think this could be the founda- tion of a more comprehensive plan for unemployment insur- ance reform when we defeat this virus and we can go on to looking at policy in a more deliberate way.” Wyden’s Oregon spokes- man, Hank Stern, said the sen- ator’s immediate focus is on ensuring that unemployment benefits get into the hands of laid-off workers, no matter their category. Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, formerly a Democratic candidate for presi- dent, also has proposed changes. Eagle file photo U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, answers questions from Grant County community members during a town hall Oct. 7 at Prairie City School. Almost 17 million unem- ployment claims have been filed nationally in the past three weeks, and 169,000 claims in Oregon the past two weeks. The sheer volumes have tied up state employment agencies — states run the system under the guidance of the U.S. Depart- ment of Labor — and the back- logs of claims are frustrating laid-off workers. There are no estimates available on the num- ber of newly eligible workers. Oregon’s unemployment trust fund has about $5 bil- lion available, according to the Employment Department. Change comes hard The CARES (Coronavi- rus Aid, Relief and Economic Security) Act puts into effect some of the same proposals that Barack Obama offered in his final budget as president in Jan- uary 2016, a year before Don- ald Trump succeeded him. According to a statement then by Obama’s top economic advisers: “With the economy in better shape today, it is a good time to prepare for future con- tingencies by making sure that unemployment insurance — one of our front-line defenses for workers who lose their jobs and a key automatic stabilizer for our broader economy — is more responsive to economic conditions.” But Republican congressio- nal majorities took no action then. According to an analysis by the National Employment Law Project, one of three groups that backed sweeping changes, only 30% of unemployed workers in Oregon actually drew benefits in 2016, slightly better than the national average of 27%. “The workforce has changed and the nature of work has changed, but our system has not,” said Janet Bauer, policy analyst for the Oregon Center on Public Policy, which advo- cates for low- and moderate-in- come people. “Fewer workers are covered by the regular pro- gram now and that number has been going down. “We know about the prob- lem. The CARES Act goes in the direction we need to be going so that workers who have jobs today have protection when they are out of work. It provides the template for how we can think about restructur- ing the core of this program.” Bauer said advocates of change will have to come up with alternatives to fund the program, which now levies a 6% tax on the first $7,000 of taxable wages of employees. Even the temporary changes Wyden secured had to survive a showdown vote in the Sen- ate — a fight that may fore- shadow a future debate about whether the changes should be permanent. Oregon did adopt some changes after the 2007-10 recession, such as a recalcula- tion of the wage base for unem- ployment benefits and work- share programs. The latter allow the unemployment trust fund to be tapped for work- ers who are still employed, but whose hours have been reduced from the normal work week. COVID-19 BUSINESS RELIEF HELP Many financial Institutions and other lenders are offering payment relief programs or emergency loans, including SBA and USDA loan programs – Here are your local financial institutions’ phone numbers and addresses: Bank of Eastern Oregon 200 West Main John Day, OR 97845 541-575-1862 Umpqua Bank 150 West Main John Day, OR 97845 541-575-0257 US Bank 129 N Canyon Blvd John Day, OR 97845 541-575-1530 Old West FCU 650 West Main John Day, OR 97845 541-575-0264 S183433-1
