WEDNESDAY, AUG. 5, 2020
HermistonHerald.com
EasternOregonMarketplace.com
BACK TO SQUARE ONE
Umatilla County gets put back to a
baseline shutdown over COVID-19
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
Staff photos by Kathy Aney
Nelly’s Super Tacos in Hermiston, above, has been takeout-only for most of 2020. Below, both times Broken Barrel
was forced to switch to takeout-only led to decreased sales and staff reductions for the Stanfi eld bar and grill.
BACK TO BASELINE
The following rules and
guidelines are in place while
Umatilla County is in baseline
mode:
• Stay home as much as possible
and limit nonessential travel
• Civic and faith-based
gatherings, such as government
meetings or church services, are
capped at 25 people
• Social gatherings are limited to
10 people
• Restaurants and bars are
limited to takeout and delivery
• Facilities that must close include
gyms, playgrounds, pools,
entertainment facilities, youth
sports, spas, sports courts and
personal care services, such as
hair salons.
Umatilla County residents
had been bracing for a possi-
ble return to Phase 1 reopening
restrictions after the county’s
cases of COVID-19 per capita
continued to outpace the rest of
the state, but on Friday, July 31,
the county got sent all the way
back to the baseline “stay home”
level fi rst implemented in March.
The announcement from Gov.
Kate Brown on the evening of
Thursday, July 30, put Uma-
tilla County back to baseline and
Morrow County to Phase 1 as of
noon the next day. Under base-
line rules, eating establishments
must return to takeout and deliv-
ery only, and businesses, such as
salons and movie theaters, must
close.
Martha McClusky, owner of
Broken Barrel in Stanfi eld, said
both times her bar and grill has
had to switch to takeout only
has meant a “dramatic decrease
in sales,” forcing her to reduce
staff.
Like many restaurant own-
ers, she said she would not have
placed large orders for certain
items if she had known the shut-
down was coming. She said she
is currently offering steep dis-
counts on kegs so they don’t go
bad now that she can’t serve the
alcohol by the glass inside the
bar.
She said she felt grateful for
the community support in the
spring and now, however.
“I wasn’t hit so bad I couldn’t
stay afl oat,” she said.
As a thank you to loyal cus-
tomers in the spring, Broken Bar-
rel offered a free lunch for take-
out one week, which turned into a
weekly tradition once community
members started making dona-
tions to fund the effort. McClusky
said they plan to pick that back up
again during the shutdown.
Some restaurants never com-
pletely reopened after they fi rst
closed their doors to diners in
March.
Nelly’s Super Tacos in Herm-
iston has been takeout-only for
most of 2020.
Owner Nelly Sanchez said
she kept customers to the drive-
thru window even after she was
allowed to reopen the building
because she would be “devas-
tated” at the thought of a cus-
tomer or employee getting sick
at her restaurant. She said she
also feared it would actually
be worse for her business to go
through the expense of reopen-
ing under all of the restrictions,
only to have an outbreak or
exposure force a closure.
“The reason I didn’t open my
doors is because I knew it would
get worse, like it has,” she said.
“I saw other businesses open,
and then people were getting sick
and they had to close their doors
for a week. If I get closed for a
week that would kill me. I fi g-
ure if I can do a little bit (of busi-
ness) every day I will be OK.”
She said having a drive-thru
window does help some custom-
ers feel more comfortable pick-
ing up food, but they have also
lost a lot of customers since the
pandemic began.
The action to take Umatilla
County to baseline and Morrow
County back to Phase 1 was the
fi rst time Gov. Kate Brown has
reversed a county’s reopening —
something she told counties was
a possibility if their COVID-
19 numbers indicated they had
opened too fast.
In an interview with the Ore-
gon Capital Bureau, which pro-
vides state-level coverage for the
Hermiston Herald‘s parent com-
pany, Brown said for the past few
weeks she and health offi cials
made attempts to get Umatilla
County to take voluntary actions.
Union and Lincoln counties had
voluntarily rolled back from
Phase 2 to Phase 1 when they
faced rising infection rates. The
two counties were removed July
30 from the state’s watchlist of
counties where infections are ris-
ing beyond acceptable limits.
Brown had hoped to repli-
cate the same pattern with Uma-
tilla County, but said her over-
tures were repeatedly rebuffed.
She said county commission-
ers would only follow statewide
restrictions.
See Shutdown, Page A7
Door-to-door testing shows widespread cases
OSU study estimates
17% of Hermiston
residents positive for
COVID-19 on July 25-26
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
Oregon
State
University
researchers believe 17% of Herm-
iston residents were positive for
COVID-19 during the university’s
door-to-door testing period on July
25-26.
According to the announce-
ment on the morning of Friday,
July 31, fi eld workers from the
TRACE COVID-19 study col-
lected 471 samples from 249 ran-
domly selected households across
Hermiston on those dates. The
news release noted that fi eld work-
ers knocked on more than those
249 doors, but only 44% of homes
contacted agreed to participate in
the free, voluntary test.
The study had previously
announced it would take as many
INSIDE
Photo courtesy of Oregon State University
Researchers with Oregon State University prepare for door-to-door COVID-19 testing in Hermiston on July 25-26.
as 10 days for people to receive
their results from the lab, but the
tests were processed more quickly
than expected.
A3 Hermiston breaks ground on
new Funland playground
The results suggest that about
3,000 people in the city were car-
rying the virus on July 25-26. Of
those who tested positive, 80%
A3 Small schools that planned
to reopen in the fall are switching
gears to online-only
reported not having any symptoms.
Umatilla County Public Health
Director Joe Fiumara and Uma-
tilla County Commissioner George
A4 Hermiston Herald intern
Nada Sewidan refl ects on her
unique summer in Hermiston
Murdock told the East Oregonian
that the results showing wide com-
munity spread in Hermiston were
a factor in the state’s decision to
bring the county back to “stay
home” status on Friday — some-
thing Gov. Kate Brown confi rmed.
Mayor David Drotzmann said
in a statement that the results con-
stituted a “signifi cant warning” for
Hermiston.
“We now have a clearer pic-
ture of how many people are car-
rying this disease without knowing
it, and how rapidly it is spread-
ing family to family, household to
household,” he said.
The TRACE team also tested
for COVID-19 in samples of
wastewater taken from Hermiston
and Boardman’s recycled water
treatment plants, and reported that
the levels of the virus in the sew-
age were “signifi cantly higher”
than anywhere else in the state that
the team has tested.
The results of the study were
made public the morning after
Gov. Kate Brown announced that
See Testing, Page A7
A6 The Harkenrider Senior Activ-
ity Center continues serving seniors
during its building closure