A8
STATE
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
COVID-19 variant
rising in Oregon
By GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — A new omicron vari-
ant of COVID-19 is driving a rise in
infections, but is not expected to be
a signiﬁ cantly severe wave of the
now 110-week pandemic in Oregon,
state health oﬃ cials said this week.
The BA.2 “subvariant” of omi-
cron spreads up to 80 percent faster
than the ﬁ rst omicron wave, now
called BA.1. It’s swept across the
United States over the past month,
leading to a swell of infections and
hospitalizations.
It’s now the overwhelming
source of new infections in Oregon,
according to the latest data from the
Oregon Health Authority released
Friday.
The sheer speed and spread of
BA.2 will cause what is by most
accounts the seventh wave of
new infections since COVID-19
appeared in Oregon on February 28,
2020, two months after it was ﬁ rst
found in Wuhan, China, at the end
of 2019.
COVID-19 cases rose for the
week ending April 3, breaking a
streak of nine consecutive weeks of
falling cases and hospitalizations.
OHA reported 1,988 new positive
cases, up 42% from the previous
week.
Oregon oﬃ cials underlined that
nearly all the severe cases requiring
hospitalization and those who die
from COVID-19 are not vaccinated.
While breakthrough cases in vac-
cinated people accounted for more
than four in 10 new cases in the most
recent week, those people also make
up 68% of the Oregon population.
If infected, a vaccinated person
has a less than 5% chance of severe
illness and less than half of 1% of
death. The average age of a vacci-
nated person who dies from COVID-
19 is currently 80.
For the past week, deaths were up
and rising. A forecast from Oregon
Health & Science University’s fore-
cast, released Friday, said there were
140 COVID-19 deaths in the most
recent week, up from 99 the previ-
ous week.
“While the decline is still evi-
dent, the level of deaths per day are
proving to be closer to the numbers
seen during the delta wave,” OHSU
reported.
Hospitalizations in Oregon fell to
95 in Oregon on Friday, the lowest
level since prior to the deadly delta
variant wave last summer.
OHSU says it now expects the
daily count to peak at 220 patients
per day on June 10. That’s fewer than
the 300 forecast two weeks ago —
but with a top date a month later.
OHSU said the projection was
based on patterns seen in states
where BA.2 took hold earlier. Sev-
eral states in the Northeast of the
nation have seen increases in cases.
Only Vermont is seeing an increase
in hospitalizations.
In comparison, a peak of 1,178
people with COVID-19 cases
were in hospitals in Oregon on
Sept. 1, 2021, the peak of the delta
wave. September 2020 totaled
610 deaths, the highest monthly
total of the 7,296 deaths so far in
Oregon.
A sign that more infections can
be expected was the rise in the
percentage of tests that came back
positive. OHSU said test positiv-
ity had dropped to 2.5% for the
week ending March 19. The rate
is expected to rise to 3.4% by
mid-April.
During the height of the orig-
inal omicron spike, when tests
were more often at medical and
public health facilities, positive
test rates hit above 25% statewide
in January.
However, COVID-19 test
reports have fallen precipitously
since the beginning of the year.
The falling totals are due at
least in part to the increased avail-
ability of free rapid tests sent by the
federal government to any resident
who signed-up online.
The CDC has reported peo-
ple are unlikely to report nega-
tive tests and less likely to report
positive tests unless they develop
symptoms.
OHSU said that one area of
uncertainty is the impact of pub-
lic behavior that could accelerate
the spread of BA.2. With the end
of mask mandates for indoor pub-
lic places in Oregon and the deci-
sion to let the more than two-year-
old COVID-19 state of emergency
lapse on April 1, a return to pre-
delta spike habits have shown up in
OHSU’s metrics.
The forecast said in Oregon,
voluntary mask use has signiﬁ -
cantly decreased, while restaurant
visits are matching the national
average. Indoor shopping is trend-
ing higher than the national aver-
age, while attending large events is
slightly lower than elsewhere.
A signiﬁ cant number of cases
were patients admitted to the hospi-
tals for reasons other than COVID-
19 but were found to be positive for
the virus during routine tests.
Omicron’s speed shows up in
many measurements compared to
versions of COVID-19 seen before
late November 2021.
The time from exposure to
admission to a hospital for a severe
cases has fallen from 12 to eight
days on average.
The typical hospital stay has
fallen from seven to ﬁ ve days, while
intensive care unit time has dropped
from 14 to 12 days.
The recovery period prior to
omicron was 12 days compared to
eight for earlier versions.
With little advance notiﬁ cation
or fanfare, the state several weeks
ago ended its daily synopsis of
COVID-19 cases provided to the
public and media since the begin-
ning of the pandemic.
The synopsis included hospital-
ization levels, deaths and informa-
tion such as the age, gender, loca-
tion and home county of those who
die will not be compiled daily.
Other summaries are being cur-
tailed, while OHSU will release a
forecast every other week rather
than weekly.
OHA says the data will still be
available on its many COVID-19
dashboards on its website, along
with weekday posting on social
media.
OHA said it was making the
changes to reﬂ ect the declining
number of severe cases, a deci-
sion made before the BA.2 variant
reversed more than two months of
declining numbers.
Charles Boyle, a spokesman for
Gov. Kate Brown said this week
the governor endorsed the change
to the timing, number and format of
the state reports used since early in
the pandemic.
“As part of that shift of living
with this virus over the long-term,
we expect to see state agencies and
entities, such as OHA and OHSU,
adjust the frequency of their
COVID-19 data reporting towards
less frequent but still regular pub-
lic reporting when cases are down,”
Boyle said in a statement Thursday.
“If Oregon is hit by another surge
of COVID-19, we would expect
them to reassess the frequency of
data reporting as well.”
OHA cut back on the frequency
of daily reports during last sum-
mer’s lull in cases, ending week-
end and holiday daily reports. The
reports were not restored when the
delta variant hit Oregon, despite
calls in the media and public for
more information.
Erick Peterson/Hermiston Herald
Equipment was in place to remove sections of debris from the destroyed Shearer’s Foods plant in Hermiston on Monday,
April 4, 2022.
Ex-safety manager faults Shearer’s
By ERICK PETERSON
Hermiston Herald
HERMISTON
—
Forty people are trying
to ﬁ gure out why a boiler
exploded at Hermiston
Shearer’s Foods plant on
Feb. 22, causing a ﬁ re that
destroyed the building
and put 231 people out of
work.
Scott Goﬀ , Umatilla
County Fire District No.
1 investigator, said on
April 5 that the examina-
tion of the site has been
delayed. First, there was
trouble because the rubble
was so great it was diﬃ cult
to sort through it. Also, it
took time to bring together
involved parties. In the past
couple of days, big winds
pushed back the investiga-
tion, which was the latest
delay.
The examination of the
destroyed Hermiston plant,
which once employed 231
people, has brought people
from the ﬁ re district, Shear-
er’s, insurance carriers and
representatives of involved
equipment and contractors,
according to Goﬀ .
Speculation
on the cause
Though the direct cause
of the cause of the explo-
sion is yet unknown, one
former Shearer’s Foods
employee claims lax safety
measures might have con-
tributed to the explosion.
“I saw a lot of things,”
Stephen Dean said. “I
spoke with several peers
that I had that no lon-
ger work there about how
many conversations I had
about that place being a
time bomb.”
According to Dean,
when he heard of the explo-
sion and the resulting ﬁ re,
the ﬁ rst words that came
out of his mouth were, “I
told you so.”
He said he was surprised
the ﬁ re, which destroyed
the building, sent a hand-
ful of people to the hospital
and left 231 people out of
work, was not worse. After
all, no one died.
He said he was plant
safety manager, working
directly with the manage-
ment team. He said he “pro-
vided safety culture and
inﬂ uence and direct safety
policy and procedure” for
about one year, from early
2018 to early 2019.
The Hermiston Her-
Erick Peterson/Hermiston Herald
A toppled section of the Shearer’s plant stands Monday,
April 4, 2022.
ald contacted the Shear-
er’s corporate oﬃ ce to ver-
ify Dean’s employment.
Shearer’s
management,
though, stated the company
would not share employ-
ment information out of
respect for employees and
their conﬁ dentiality.
Dean, however, was
able to present a letter of
hire and his own resigna-
tion letter as evidence he
had worked there.
Early in his employ-
ment, he said, he did some
in depth looks into the
facility to identify risks and
hazards and found some he
deemed as “high risk” and
“high consequence.” He
was particularly worried
about oil ﬁ res, he said.
While he was at the
plant, Dean said, there
were “a bunch of mini-
ﬁ res,” which were the
result of material building
up in ovens. In policies and
procedures, he said, work-
ers were supposed to rake
out the ovens when in a
safe state. According to
Dean, procedures changed
so workers were using
compressed air to clean the
ovens instead.
“You don’t put com-
pressed air onto ﬁ res,” he
said.
He said this is just one
example of the culture at
the plant. Practices were
unsafe, not necessarily
because any one person
was directing them poorly,
but because those prac-
tices shifted towards being
unsafe, he said. Dean said
once people start doing
things one way, they pass
on those habits to new
workers and behaviors
become engrained.
OSHA weighs in
Aaron Corvin is the
public information oﬃ cer
for Oregon Occupational
Safety and Health, or Ore-
gon OSHA. He conﬁ rmed
that the agency is investi-
gating the Feb. 22 explo-
sion and ﬁ re. He stated in
an email, however OSHA
does not discuss the status
or details of active cases
and he would share infor-
mation about it once the
investigation is complete.
“In the past ﬁ ve years,
Oregon OSHA has con-
ducted four inspections
of this site, two of which
resulted in citations. One
of the citations followed
an accident investigation,”
Corvin said.
In one of the cases, he
said, the employer initially
ﬁ led an appeal of the cita-
tion but then later withdrew
the appeal.
Missing safety meetings
were among the causes for
citation.
Complaints of
safety problems
Dean said he brought up
major safety hazards to the
directors of the company
when in the company.
“I couldn’t get any-
where with management,”
he said. “They were spend-
ing millions on production
and innovation, but they
were spending nothing
on the safety department.
Whereas they had an astro-
nomical production budget,
we had roughly just enough
to pay for personal protec-
tion equipment.”
Dean described his
employment as “working
from nothing” and “build-
ing a grassroots program
when there was nothing
to work with.” He said he
quit out of frustration. An
“agent of change in the
industry,” he said he has
long worked to ﬁ x safety
issues at diﬀ erent com-
panies. After working
with Shearer’s, he felt he
could not improve safety,
as he could not encourage
management to prioritize
safety.
“It was a direct prob-
lem of management, in my
opinion,” Dean said, “in
how they viewed and pri-
oritized and felt toward the
safety of the employees at
the plant.”
He said he repeatedly
brought up safety con-
cerns to senior manage-
ment, but to no avail. Not
only did managers fail to
make changes, they dis-
missed his recommenda-
tions entirely.
“Their direct, verba-
tim, response to me when
I raised these safety con-
cerns was to ‘calm my tits;
they’ve been doing this
for 40 years.’ That’s the
phrase they used,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dean said,
the company was neglect-
ing environmental regula-
tions, too.
The one thing he said he
was able to do was to create
an active evacuation plan,
something the company
lacked prior to his employ-
ment. He said he also orga-
nized evacuation drills.
“It was diﬃ cult to do,
because it aﬀ ected produc-
tion,” he said.
He added there were
additional concerns, espe-
cially when it came to the
treatment of workers.
“They’d work people
till they couldn’t work
anymore,” he said. This
was a safety concern, he
said, because exhausted
workers would intention-
ally break lockout-tagout
safety rules. Having bro-
ken these rules, man-
agement would pun-
ish them with three-day
suspensions.
“It was motivation for
them to take their breaks,”
Dean stated.
He said his co-workers
would regularly point out
their own infractions, just
to be sent home for rest or
to attend a funeral or some
other necessary event.
Answers forthcoming
Goﬀ , while working
on the site for the ﬁ re dis-
trict, said investigators
should be able to remove
the roof from an area they
wish to study soon, bar-
ring weather delays. Then,
they should be able to have
answers for the explosion
by late this week, he said.