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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 9, 2020)
A14 NEWS Blue Mountain Eagle Vaccine Continued from Page A1 timelines, regulations, etc., we do not have a set date for when that will start.” Lindsay said the Cen- ters for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advi- sory board would be meeting on Dec. 10 and the state will “quickly” communicate addi- tional details following the meeting. “We anticipate that most of the health care workers will take it, but when I say most, I’m giving myself a lot of lat- itudes, greater than 50%,” she said. “But I don’t know what the refusal rate will be. I think that is a big question mark.” She said, when she talks to people, some say they are eager to take the vaccine, but others have told her they do not want to be the “guinea pig.” It will be interesting, she said, to see what the refusal rate will be in the U.S. A state- by-state comparison, she said, or a comparison to other coun- tries that have had a more “uni- form” response to the pan- demic would be revealing. Lindsay said she under- stands the public’s hesitation to the vaccine. Still, she also believes the CDC’s recommen- dations are based on the coun- try’s best interest. Lindsay said the public must remember that public measures for fighting the virus will not go away until most are immunized, roughly 75%, she said. “People can take it for what they will,” Lindsay said, “but there is a relationship between the number of people get- ting vaccinated and the public health measures going away.” Dr. Michele Andrasik, the director of social and behav- ioral sciences and community engagement at the COVID- 19 Prevention Network at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, said in mar- ginalized communities, under- lying mistrust of the health care system is legitimate. She said there are “safe- guards” in place to ensure ethics. “There have been instances where scientists have been unethical,” she said. “And now there are safeguards in place to really limit the abil- ity of any scientist of being unethical.” Experts have found that any chance of benefiting from the herd immunity that comes with vaccines diminishes if not enough people are immu- nized and protected from infection. Researchers at CUNY Graduate School of Pub- lic Health and Health Pol- icy used a computer simula- tion to calculate that, if 75% of the world’s population Wednesday, December 9, 2020 were immunized, the vaccine would need to be 70% effec- tive in preventing infection to get the pandemic to a manage- able level. If vaccine efficacy dips to 60%, then 80% would need to take the vaccine. Lindsay said the side effects she has read about with Pfizer’s vaccine are similar to the flu vaccine’s side effects. She said there has been “injection-site” issues, sensi- tivity and soreness. According to an article in Science Magazine, par- ticipants in both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccine trials have said they experienced symp- toms including fever, mus- cle aches, bad headaches and fatigue after receiving the shots. Still, the side effects generally did not last more than a day. Early on, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, a former Food and Drug Administration commis- sioner, said the FDA set clear efficacy standards. The admin- istration required the vaccine to be at least 50% effective. The FDA based this on the cri- teria it established with the flu vaccine. The FDA’s rationale is that the vaccine, though not per- fect, is better than nothing, and it can reduce the severity of the disease and the length of symptoms. She said the efficacy rate of both Pfizer and Moderna, 95% and 94.5%, respectively, had exceeded expectations so far. Hamburg emphasized that the FDA’s oversight does not stop once distribution begins. “As the vaccine is distrib- uted, there has to be some sys- tems in place for tracking it,” she said, “both to make sure that people get their appropri- ate second dose, but also so that we can continue to collect data about the experience of the vaccine in the real world, in terms of how well it’s work- ing, for whom and how long does protection last and, very importantly, ongoing informa- tion about whether any unex- pected safety issues may start to emerge.” Hamburg said both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines require two doses of the vac- cine to be effective. Lindsay said the county would use the state’s ALERT tracking system to ensure patients get their second dose. According to the CDC’s website, Pfizer’s booster is given three weeks after the first one, while Moderna’s is spaced out four weeks later. Lindsay said Pfizer’s vaccine has “special stor- age requirements.” The vac- cine, according to the CDC website, uses genetic mate- rial called mRNA. If provid- ers do not keep mRNA at an extremely cold temperature, it can break down, making the vaccine unusable. Fallout Continued from Page A1 council is willing to assist the tenants pursue their rights and remedies under Oregon land- lord and tenant law. Boring Properties did not respond to messages from the Eagle, and Green said the company has not responded to the city. Sean McGee, 23, who has lived with his wife in Boring Properties’ faded white cabin on Southwest Brent Drive for about a year, said he has been forced to go down to Canyon Creek near his house to scoop up water so he can flush the toilet. McGee shared with the Eagle his last text conversation Sept. 23 with Boring Proper- ties owner Darrinn Manuel in which McGee expressed his frustration to Manuel about utility payments and minimal help repairing other problems with the property. Manuel told McGee, if he had paid rent, Manuel would be able to pay for utilities and other expenses. McGee said he was flawless at pay- ing the rent until recent months when he was frustrated by the lack of help from Manuel and when tenants have been pro- tected from eviction by execu- tive order. Green said tenants have been given rent forbearance due to the pandemic through the end of the year, which has deprived landlords of expected income, but this does not alle- viate a landlord from provid- ing the basic services the law requires from any landlord. He said nobody should have to live in an unlivable property. “Unfortunately in this case, it’s the tenants that are suffer- ing,” Green said. The city tried to be flex- ible with the multi-housing Eagle file photo Grant County Health Department staff prepare a COVID-19 test in May during a drive-through testing event. Many rap- id tests are not currently being counted by the state after a change in reporting, according to rural county health officials. Tests Continued from Page A1 The Eagle/Rudy Diaz Sean and Audree McGee use multiple blankets around their rental house to keep warmth during the winter. developers by giving them time to repair a water leak that caused water bills to increase and to make the past-due pay- ments, but the lack of action from the landlords prompted the city to cut the water off, Green said. McGee said the water prob- lems with the property go beyond the city: The roof leaks a steady stream of water when it rains, and mold is spreading on the ceiling panels. He said his relationship with Manuel has deteriorated like the property. Although the neighbor- ing units are vacant, McGee said he hears people occupy- ing them at night, which wor- ries him because he assumes they are using drugs and may be dangerous. McGee said he hopes peo- ple can empathize with his sit- uation. He said the people who live in the Boring Properties units are not bad people. “We’re just misunderstood,” he said. “Yeah, a lot of us are recovering addicts, and people The Eagle/Rudy Diaz Sagging ceiling tiles caused by leaks at a Boring Properties unit in John Day. counties do not have access to in-house labs and send out for them when someone is sick. Poe said rural Orego- nians lacked accessible test- ing options, and the purpose of bringing rapid tests to the county was to make it easier for people to test. “Early on, we’re given a rapid test machine,” she said. “Most of our clinics around here, including the hospital, all have rapid test machines, and none of those tests are being counted.” Poe said, previously, she and her staff had man- ually converted the format- ting so antigen and rapid test results could be submitted to the state’s database with the other results. However, she said the state is now purging the negative rapid test results from its electronic system, which was bogged down with so much data, so those negative tests can no longer be tracked. She said there were about 600 test results with a 10% positivity rate from drive- through tests in November that would not be counted under the current setup. The impact think automatically, ‘Oh, drug addict, you’re a waste of space in society,’ but everyone has skeletons.” McGee said he and his wife hope to save enough money to move out of the property. Poe said the problem is Malheur County’s positivity rate is 20%, and the county is conducting drive-through tests en masse using rapid tests with nowhere to send the test results — a large amount of negative tests that would reduce the rate will not be counted. “We’ve been fighting an issue with public percep- tions since the beginning of this, and items like this don’t help,” Fiumara said. Poe said ramping up test- ing amid an outbreak of pos- itive cases is the right thing to do, but it’s difficult when many residents are skeptical of the virus to begin with. “I have guaranteed my constituents because they are working really closely with us to expand testing, and we’ve had to do a lot of rela- tionship-building in a very conservative county even to get people on board to test,” she said. “I am losing all of the buy-in and the trust that went into increasing testing.” The positives The health administrators agreed the change to count all tests, and not just tests from new patients, will even- tually benefit rural counties. Fiumara said, if someone tested negative in May, but then returned for another test in September and was nega- tive, that second test would not have been counted as part of that September daily num- ber of tests administered. Not counting “serial tes- ters,” such as health care workers, increases the pos- itivity rate of counties, he said. The positivity rate is important, he said, because it is used to determine when to open schools or when and how to limit businesses. S218728-1 A MAN WAKES UP in the morning after sleeping on... an advertised bed, in advertised pajamas. Blue Mountain Eagle MyEagleNews.com Save up to 10% off sturdy, reliable, and comfortable work boots for the winter weather. Mills Building Supply S219674-1 He will bathe in an ADVERTISED TUB, shave with an ADVERTISED RAZOR, have a breakfast of ADVERTISED JUICE, cereal and toast, toasted in an ADVERTISED TOASTER, put on ADVERTISED CLOTHES and glance at his ADVERTISED WATCH. He’ll ride to work in his ADVERTISED CAR, sit at an ADVERTISED DESK and write with an ADVERTISED PEN. Yet this person hesitates to advertise, saying that advertising doesn’t pay. Finally, when his non-advertised business is going under, HE’LL ADVERTISE IT FOR SALE. Then it’s too late. AND THEY SAY ADVERTISING DOESN’T WORK? 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