NEWS
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, August 4, 2021
A3
Grant superintendent urges local control after Gov. Brown’s K-12 mask mandate
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
Grant School District’s
superintendent is pushing for
local control after Gov. Kate
Brown said students in kin-
dergarten through 12th grades
would be required to wear
masks to prevent COVID-19 in
the upcoming school year.
Brown, on Thursday,
directed the Oregon Health
Authority and the state Depart-
ment of Education to create a
rule to require masks indoors
for K-12 schools statewide for
the 2021-22 school year, in line
with the U.S. Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention’s
recently updated guidance.
Grant School District 3
Superintendent Bret Uptmor
said the district had planned to
have local control since June
and that the board had not taken
a position on a mask mandate.
The school district, Uptmor
said, had been working on fi nal-
izing its plans for the 2021-22
school year when Brown made
the announcement.
“Our preparation for the
school year was predicated on
us having local control of deci-
sions,” Uptmor said in a Fri-
day press release. “I believe we
can provide the safest learning
environment using our data to
assess the danger of COVID in
our district.”
Uptmor said the governor’s
announcement surprised him
for a couple of reasons. First,
Eagle fi le photo
Grant School District 3 Superintendent Bret Uptmor.
as a superintendent of schools,
he said he hoped there would
have been enough trust to let
the school district know the
mask mandate was coming
beforehand.
“We didn’t know anything
about it,” he said.
Second, he said, the state
disregarded the other parts of
the district’s plan requirements
entirely, including physical dis-
tancing and vaccinations.
“We have a lot of things
that we’re trying to do to make
sure our kids are safe, and this
(masking) is only a portion of
it,” he said. “It’s not the entire
plan, and I think we can manage
wearing masks and not wearing
masks locally.”
Uptmor said he recom-
mended masks in the draft plan
that he sent to the board.
He said community mem-
bers told him they did not want
the schools to require face cov-
ering. He said some pleaded
with him to consider that posi-
tion when making the plan,
and he said he did consider not
requiring masks.
“There may be others out
there that would rather have
masks,” he said. “But the ones
I’ve heard from are all saying
no masks.”
Uptmor said the board
would be discussing the dis-
trict’s plan and a parent letter
at the board meeting at 6 p.m.
Tuesday at Grant Union High
School’s old gym.
In the meantime, Uptmor
said that he would like input
from residents before the meet-
ing. He also urged citizens to
“reinforce” his advocacy for
local control by contacting their
elected representatives and state
offi cials.
“I believe I have more of the
students’ interest in mind by the
actions that I take, rather then a
blanket, ‘everybody has to wear
a mask’ mandate,” he said.
Oregon announces Gov. Brown orders masks worn inside state buildings immediately
The Oregon Health Authority
Brown: Delta variant
Grant County’s
released a new forecast showing
more contagious
that, if current infection rates con-
tinue, new cases could top 1,170 per
$10,000 vaccine
By Gary A. Warner
day for the two-week period begin-
ning Aug. 4.
Oregon Capital Bureau
incentive winner
At current infection rates, hospi-
Seven new COVID-19 cases
reported in last week
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
Seven residents over the last week
have tested positive for COVID-19 as
the Grant County Health Department
reported Tuesday a resident in the John
Day ZIP code tested positive.
Meanwhile, the Oregon Health
Authority announced Tuesday that
Patricia Amling was Grant Coun-
ty’s $10,000 winner in the statewide
vaccine incentive drawing. The state
pulled winners randomly from a data-
base of vaccinated Oregonians on June
28. It awarded $10,000 to one person
in the state’s 36 counties, fi ve $100,000
scholarships and a $1 million grand
prize.
According to My Oregon News, Ore-
gon’s state news website, the odds of
winning the $10,000 in Grant County
were 1 in 2,500.
The county’s vaccination rate as of
Tuesday is at 43%, up from 40% last
week.
State health offi cials reported 1,056
new positive cases Friday, bringing the
state total to 221,799 since the pandem-
ic’s beginning. OHA reported fi ve new
COVID-19 related deaths in the state,
raising the death toll to 2,863.
In the U.S., the Centers for Disease
Control reported over 79,000 new cases
Aug. 1, bringing the nationwide total of
35,039,644 since the beginning of the
pandemic.
Gov. Kate Brown Friday ordered
mandatory masking inside state
buildings, an order covering work-
ers and visitors whether vaccinated
or not.
The edict — “eff ective immedi-
ately” — was the fi rst major manda-
tory action taken in Oregon follow-
ing a Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention report on Friday
saying the delta variant of COVID-
19 was faster and stronger than fi rst
thought.
“The science and data are clear:
The Delta variant is spreading in
our communities and is more con-
tagious,” Brown said in issuing the
order.
The order came on a day when
the state reported 1,076 new cases
and three deaths.
It’s the third time in the past four
days that the state has reported over
1,000 cases. Oregon hasn’t aver-
aged 1,000 cases per day since the
height of the pandemic last winter.
Brown would not be issuing any
additional mandatory orders on Fri-
day, spokesman Charles Boyle said
in an e-mail.
The governor is keeping track of
the situation, and OHA offi cials are
in contact with the CDC and other
states.
“We are working with hospitals
and health care providers to main-
tain hospital capacity,” Boyle said.
The increase in Oregon mirrored
the delta variant’s impact across
the United States. On Tuesday, the
daily number of new cases topped
PMG fi le photo
Gov. Kate Brown, at a 2020 press event, wearing her social distancing mask
in public.
100,000 for the fi rst time since early
February.
Oregon has now reported
2,858 deaths since February 2020.
There have been 612,343 deaths
nationwide.
Worldwide, the virus has killed
over 4.2 million, equal to the entire
population of Oregon.
Brown said the mask mandate
would protect frontline state work-
ers as well as the public coming to
the buildings for services.
States have started to take more
aggressive actions this week as the
delta variant originally found in
India in May has become the dom-
inant of four “variants of concern”
identifi ed by the World Health
Organization as off shoots of the
original virus fi rst seen in China in
late December 2019.
“The war is changing,” said the
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention late Thursday.
It released data on Friday show-
ing the variant as much more con-
tagious than estimated. Data also
showed that, while vaccinations
kept individuals from severe ill-
ness or death, mild or asymptom-
atic infections in vaccinated people
were as likely to spread the virus to
unvaccinated individuals as conta-
gion from those infected without
vaccination.
talizations would rise to 95 per day.
The forecast hedged in both
higher and lower possible outcomes.
If the rapid delta variant raises
concerns among residents, it could
drive up vaccination rates, which
have fallen below 5,000 new inoc-
ulations a day from an April high of
50,000 or more on a few peak dates.
Additional voluntary masking
— all that is currently demanded in
Oregon — could cut transmission,
along with an increased concern
leading people to make personal
choices to reinstate social distanc-
ing and other pandemic protocols.
But, the report also noted that
much of its data came prior to the
accelerating spread over the past
week. The hospitalization num-
bers were from July 20 data. The
report noted that a review showed
hospitalizations up 77% during that
period.
Brown did not change her June
30 order turning over public health
decisions to counties.
Since that time, cases and hos-
pitalizations in areas with low vac-
cination levels and high infections
have spiked. Many hospitals out-
side of the Portland metro area have
reported running out of intensive
care unit beds. The number of venti-
lators in use for COVID-19 patients
doubled to 41 since last week.
The spike will accelerate,
according to the OHA forecast.
Health offi cials say each infected
person could be passing the virus to
about two additional people.
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