NEWS
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2020
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A7
New Umatilla and Morrow county
worksites added to OHA outbreak list
OREGON AUTHORITIES REPORT
WORKPLACE OUTBREAKS
]The OHA’s latest weekly COVID-19 workplace outbreaks
report for Umatilla and Morrow counties were:
Lamb Weston, Hermiston, 161 cases
Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution, Pendleton, 69 cases
Medelez Trucking, Hermiston, 43 cases
Shearer’s Foods, Hermiston, 33 cases
Columbia River Processing, Boardman, 32 cases
Walmart Distribution Center, Hermiston, 28 cases
Atkinson Staffi ng, Hermiston, 22 cases
Two Rivers Correctional Institution, Umatilla, 19 cases
Good Shepherd Medical Center, Hermiston, 17
Walmart store, Hermiston, 15
JM Eagle, Umatilla, 10 cases
Smith Frozen Foods, Weston, 10 cases
McDonald’s, Hermiston, 10 cases
Threemile Canyon Farms, Boardman, 10 cases
Marlette Homes, Hermiston, 8 cases
Lamb Weston, Boardman East, 8 cases
Family Health Associates, Hermiston, 7 cases
Home Depot, Hermiston, 5 cases
Shutdown:
Continued from Page A1
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Hermiston Cinema lets the public know with its signs that the theater closed temporarily after
Umatilla County returned to baseline status.
ble populations? Get us the
tools and resources to iden-
tify the sick more urgently
and let’s work together to
overcome this crisis.”
Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Ath-
ena, said he would be sup-
portive of the state send-
ing additional fi nancial aid
to Umatilla and Morrow
counties in light of the shut-
downs, and said that with
the Oregon Legislature’s
emergency board still meet-
ing and a special session
of the Legislature planned,
there would likely be oppor-
tunities to do so.
He said it was hard to
see businesses that the pan-
demic “just keeps hammer-
ing them.”
“It breaks my heart,”
he said. “I know it’s been
tough. We’ve lost businesses
already.”
He said hindsight is
20/20, but he feels that pub-
lic health offi cials in Uma-
tilla County have been doing
the best they know how,
with the knowledge and
resources they have had.
“They’re good people
trying to do a good thing,”
he said.
Oregon Capital Bureau
reporter Gary Warner and
East Oregonian editor
Andrew Cutler contributed
to this report.
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“Honestly, I have been
in contact regularly with the
local county commissioners.
I would prefer to do things
collaboratively, but in this
case, it has become a crisis,”
Brown said.
As local government
leaders reacted to the deci-
sion, Hermiston Mayor
David Drotzmann pub-
lished a copy of a letter he
sent to Brown, telling the
governor that closing, open-
ing and then reclosing busi-
nesses caused serious harm
to them.
He said in some cases
those jobs would not come
back, causing “lasting
adverse consequences for
years to come.” Drotzmann
said he had spoken with the
governor previously about
the fact that cases would rise
after more things opened up.
“However, if you drill
down on the data, you will
see we only have 314 active
cases, 13 hospitalizations
and a total of 23 deaths,
most elderly with preexist-
ing conditions,” he wrote.
“Also, the data demon-
strate the highest prevalence
among the 20-40 (year old)
age groups.”
He went on to say that the
door-to-door testing samples
conducted by Oregon State
University on July 25-26
showed a large number of
people were not showing
symptoms at the time of
their test, which proved the
need for widespread testing
with rapid turnaround times
to help get the virus under
control.
“We don’t have a lot
of white collar or govern-
ment-based jobs that allow
for telecommuting,” he
wrote. “When our work-
force gets shut down, the
rest of the state (and the
world) doesn’t eat. So out
of necessity people can’t
wait 7-14 days on a maybe.
We need more certain/rapid
answers. Returning to base-
line won’t work. How many
outbreaks are we seeing at
restaurants, barbershops and
bowling alleys?”
“You want to slow the
spread and protect vulnera-
Umatilla County would be
placed back to “stay home,
save lives” shutdown sta-
tus starting at noon on July
31. In a statement in OSU’s
news release she said that
the results of the study
“confi rms what we have
feared based on weeks of
troubling data from the
Oregon Health Authority.”
One of several met-
rics that Brown cited in
her announcement of the
shutdown was that 45% of
Umatilla County’s cases in
the past week were “spo-
radic” cases that con-
tact tracers were not able
to trace back to a specifi c
person, suggesting a high
rate of community spread
rather than a few isolated
pockets. State epidemiol-
ogist Dean Sidelinger said
the OSU study — which
found that half of the 30
neighborhoods visited had
at least one positive res-
ident — confi rmed that
Hermiston has “wide com-
munity spread.”
Ben Daziel, a co-direc-
tor of TRACE COVID-19,
said the results were cause
for concern because efforts
to test and isolate people
when they show symptoms
will not be enough.
Hermiston’s results are
signifi cantly higher than
the fi rst round of test-
ing in other cities where
TRACE has been con-
ducted. In Corvallis, OSU
estimated two in every
1,000 people had COVID-
19 during the weekend in
question. In Bend, that
number was one in every
1,000. In Newport, it was
34. In Hermiston, it is
an estimated 169 out of
every 1,000 people.
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The COVID-19 virus con-
tinues to make its way into
new worksites and long-term
care facilities in Hermiston.
According to the Oregon
Health Authority’s weekly
report,
which
contains
data up to July 26 and was
released on Wednesday, July
29, Sun Terrace in Hermis-
ton was added to the list of
congregate care facilities in
Oregon that have had three
or more confi rmed COVID-
19 cases. The report listed six
cases linked to the facility.
Pam Carrier, who is the
community relations direc-
tor for the assisted living
facility, said they are work-
ing with the county health
department and other agen-
cies to address the outbreak,
including regularly checking
residents’ temperatures and
carefully monitoring them
for symptoms. She said for
now residents are being kept
to their rooms other than nec-
essary trips, such as doctor’s
appointments.
“Our residents are being
troopers, they truly are,” she
said. “But it’s been hard on
them.”
OHA
also
reported
worksite outbreaks for the
week. The list covers work-
places with 30 or more
employees that have had at
least fi ve cases linked to them
through employees testing
positive or close contacts of
those employees testing pos-
itive after being exposed to
the employee while they
were ill.
At 44%, Hermiston also
had much lower participa-
tion rates than the other cit-
ies, which ranged between
68-80%.
In addition to the test
results, OSU also released
information about what
Umatilla County residents
can do to slow the spread
of the virus to a level where
businesses and schools can
reopen.
Staying home while
sick is important, research-
ers said, but the high rate
of asymptomatic carri-
ers also shows why it is
important to strictly follow
guidelines about wearing
masks and staying six feet
apart from all non-house-
hold members, and avoid
being around other people
more than necessary. Peo-
ple should also quaran-
tine if they were exposed
to a confi rmed case of
COVID-19.
Miguel Ascencio, a
community health worker
with the ConneXions pro-
gram at Good Shepherd
Medical Center, said vol-
unteering as TRACE team
member was eye-open-
ing to see how widespread
misinformation and mis-
conceptions about the
virus were in Hermiston.
He urged people to do their
part to help protect the
community from a virus
they might not even know
they were spreading.
“The biggest thing they
can do is to wear their
face coverings,” Ascencio
said. “It might be annoy-
ing to wear it, but they
have got to think of their
family members — their
kids, their grandparents —
because they are putting
their lives at risk. Wearing
a mask can go such a long
ways when out in public
or in the stores.”
Continued from Page A1
BREWS &
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
Testing:
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