NEWS
WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2020
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3
OSU completes door-to-door COVID-19 testing
Test results will take
a week to 10 days
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
Hermiston
residents
who participated in Oregon
State University’s COVID-
19 study last weekend will
wait seven to 10 days for the
results of their test.
Researchers visited ran-
domly selected homes in
Hermiston on July 25-26
to offer free COVID-19
tests, which will be used to
create an estimate of how
widespread the virus is in
Hermiston.
Umatilla
County
announced 132 new con-
fi rmed cases of COVID-
19 between the afternoon
of Friday, July 24, and the
morning of Monday, July
27, but none of those came
from the OSU study, known
as TRACE COVID-19.
Jeff Bethel, an associate
professor in OSU’s College
of Public Health and Human
Sciences and co-director
of the TRACE COVID-19
project, said samples col-
lected from homes in Herm-
iston by OSU over the week-
end are still being processed.
Participants will receive
their results in the mail
seven to 10 days after they
were tested, and can elect to
get results by secure email
as well.
“We’re very thankful for
the people that chose to par-
Photo contributed by Oregon State University
Researchers with Oregon State University’s TRACE COVID-19
were in Hermiston over the weekend of July 25-26 to conduct
door-to-door COVID-19 testing.
Photo contributed by Oregon State University
Researchers with Oregon State University prepare for door-to-door COVID-19 testing in
Hermiston on July 25-26. Participants will receive their results in seven to 10 days.
ticipate,” Bethel said.
According to the Oregon
Health Authority’s weekly
report released July 22, the
Hermiston ZIP code has
the highest number of con-
fi rmed COVID-19 cases per
capita in the state, at 331.8
cases per 10,000 residents.
Nazario Rivera, a com-
munity health care worker in
Hermiston who volunteered
with TRACE COVID-19
over the weekend, said it
has been worrisome to see
Hermiston’s cases continue
to rise at such a high rate.
He said he volunteered to go
door to door with OSU fi eld
workers because he hopes
that the study will provide
useful information for the
city and Umatilla County to
help slow the spread of the
City Council awards
contract for library
basement remodel
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
Knerr
Construction
will complete a $910,000
remodel of the Hermiston
Public Library’s basement,
after the Hermiston City
Council awarded the proj-
ect to the Hermiston-based
fi rm on Monday, July 27.
Once complete, the
remodeled
basement
level will serve as tem-
porary offi ce space for
city staff until the old
city hall, damaged by a
fi re in December 2019, is
repaired or replaced. After
city staff move back out of
the space, it will serve to
expand the library’s book
collection and children’s
area.
City Manager Byron
Smith said Knerr Construc-
tion came in $15,000 under
the estimates of Architects-
West, which designed the
remodel.
“We received fi ve bids,
which was a great turnout,”
he said.
The remodel includes
moving the bathrooms and
some offi ces and remov-
ing little-used study rooms
to create a large, open
space that in the future
would be easy for a single
library employee to super-
vise if the library’s book
collection and and reading
areas were expanded to the
basement.
Smith said the cost also
includes
improvements
to the HVAC system, and
rebuilding the ramps and
sidewalks around the back
entrance as required to
meet Americans With Dis-
abilities standards.
On July 27, the council
also voted to approve a deal
with Umatilla County for
the planned new city hall
virus.
“I think this can be a
really helpful tool,” he said.
Rivera said the volume
of negative comments on
social media about the study
had made him a little ner-
vous about knocking on
doors, but he ended up hav-
ing a good experience.
“There were folks that
did kindly decline, but at
least with my team, nobody
was rude,” he said. “They
just said, ‘no thanks.’”
He said he was surprised
that people would decline
the free medical service,
which could be a help to peo-
ple who don’t have health
insurance in particular.
Bethel said community
members like Nazario, who
accompanied OSU team
members, provided “invalu-
able” knowledge of the area.
In Hermiston, the com-
munity was broken up into
30 neighborhoods. Teams
visited each neighborhood
and knocked on doors in a
regular interval depending
on the neighborhood’s size
— every fourth house in the
area, for example, or every
fi fth.
Bethel said he didn’t have
specifi c numbers to release
yet on participation levels
in Hermiston, but he said
researchers are confi dent
they collected enough sam-
ples to produce good results
for the study.
“It’s voluntary,” he said.
“Some people say ‘No thank
you,’ and that’s fi ne, and
other people are very excited
to participate, and that’s hap-
pened in every community.”
Most people being tested
for COVID-19 are showing
symptoms or are associated
with a worksite outbreak,
Bethel said, which can hide
the true prevalence of the
virus by missing people who
are asymptomatic. By test-
ing a random sampling of
Hermiston residents, OSU
researchers will be able to
create a more accurate esti-
mate of how widespread the
virus is in Hermiston. Bethel
said information gener-
ated by the TRACE project
will help local health offi -
cials better address the out-
break, and help the individ-
uals who receive their own
test results.
“We can identify people
who are unknowingly part
of the transmission cycle,
and stop that from happen-
ing,” he said.
TRACE COVID-19 has
previously conducted door-
to-door testing in Corval-
lis, Bend and Newport. The
team has returned for addi-
tional rounds of testing to
measure continuing lev-
els of the virus in those
communities.
In Newport, for example,
OSU announced that pre-
liminary results suggested
that 3.4% of the Newport
community had the novel
coronavirus that causes
COVID-19 on June 20-21.
A follow-up round sug-
gested that about 0.6% of
residents had the virus on
July 11-12.
Bethel said those results
were good news, but showed
the virus is still active and
people still need to take pre-
cautions, such as social dis-
tancing and wearing masks,
to prevent another increase
in cases.
Hermiston makes plans for CARES
Act funds to aid city, businesses
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
on the site of the damaged
city hall. The city plans to
add about 5,000 square feet
to the new city hall that are
not currently needed for
offi ces, but would be added
with an eye toward future
growth.
In exchange for using
all or part of that space for
up to 15 years, the county
has agreed to give the city
$2.6 million in enterprise
zone funds generated by
Lamb Weston and the
county’s building at 435
E. Newport Ave., worth
about $400,000. Smith
said the city tentatively
plans to exchange the
Newport Avenue building
with the owner of the Lan-
ham Building next to city
hall, which is needed to
give the city enough room
for its new, larger city hall.
The county would also
pay a monthly maintenance
fee to help cover costs,
such as utilities and jani-
torial. The fee would start
out at 40 cents per square
foot — which Smith said
would work out to $1,800
to $2,000 a month — and
increase to 80 cents by year
11.
The Hermiston City
Council has approved a plan
for more than $500,000 in
CARES Act funding that
will soon be available for the
city’s use.
During their Monday,
July 27 meeting, City Man-
ager Byron Smith said the
city will receive the federal
stimulus money, aimed at
assisting local governments
that have lost revenue from
the pandemic, on a reim-
bursement basis from the
state.
“The state has reassured
us they will expedite that as
soon as possible,” he said.
Smith said the city can
start by being reimbursed for
the $16,000 it contributed to
Umatilla County’s spring
grants for small local busi-
nesses that were shut down
by the pandemic.
He said the city also
expects to have spent about
$100,000 by the end of
2020 directly on COVID-
19 expenses, such as paying
overtime to cover for police
offi cers and other city staff
quarantining after close con-
tact with a COVID-19 case.
The rest of the money the
city plans to use as direct
support to residents.
The city plans to put
$100,000 toward a water
and sewer assistance pro-
gram for residents who
need help paying their bill
after their employment was
affected by the pandemic.
Another $25,000 will go
toward a similar program
to help residents pay elec-
tricity bills. Smith said
that money will be added
to the $250,000 that Ama-
zon Web Services recently
donated to help Hermiston
Energy Services and Uma-
tilla Electric Cooperative
customers keep up on their
bills.
He said the city hopes
to extend those programs
beyond those with the low-
est income, to include those
who make “just enough”
that they struggle to pay
their bills but don’t usually
qualify for such assistance.
He said the city can set its
own parameters for which
individuals and businesses
can apply.
The city also plans to
spend $75,000 on assist-
ing residents in need with
rental or mortgage pay-
ments. For both the housing
and utility assistance pro-
grams, he said the regional
nonprofi t CAPECO has
said it can administer the
funds on behalf of the city,
as it already has similar pro-
grams set up and people are
used to seeking help there.
The city plans to give
$40,000 to the Oregon
Worker Relief Fund, which
would direct that funding to
Hermiston residents, such as
undocumented immigrants,
who don’t qualify for other
CARES Act assistance.
The plan approved July
27 also calls for another
$184,000 to be spent on
assistance for local busi-
nesses that have seen
reduced revenue during the
pandemic.
Mayor David Drotzmann
said he would like to see the
money be available to busi-
nesses that already received
some Paycheck Protection
Program money, but are still
struggling fi nancially as the
pandemic has lasted far lon-
ger than the federal grant
covered.
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