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“These people were all
making beneﬁ ts — these
people all made that deci-
sion to go away from ben-
eﬁ ts and get back in the
(labor) market,” McCon-
nell said. “This last group of
people, what do we do for
them, and why are they out
of the workforce?”
Across the region, unem-
ployment claims recovered
lower than their pre-pan-
demic levels in February
2020, before government
shutdowns halted the econ-
omy. The Oregon Employ-
ment Department reported
the number of unemploy-
ment claims for Eastern
Oregon for May was 1,468.
In February 2020, before the
pandemic, that number was
1,605.
Only 136 of those claims
come from unemployed
service industry workers
— representing 9.26% of
those receiving beneﬁ ts. For
Union County, that number
of claimants was 19, while
Umatilla and Baker counties
Delta :
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nearly 33% of residents are
vaccinated — has reported
some of the highest daily
case counts statewide in
recent weeks. From July 6
to July 9, Umatilla County
reported 67 cases. And since
mid-June, the county has
reported at least 260 cases,
according to county health
data.
“We’re actually curious to
know if this uptick in cases
is due to the delta variant,”
Messer said. “I would be
very surprised if it wasn’t.”
What you need to know
about delta
The delta variant, ﬁ rst
identiﬁ ed in India in Decem-
ber 2020, is the most “ﬁ t”
variant of all coronavi-
rus mutations, experts say.
All viruses mutate, and as
they do, they become better
adapted to latch onto a host.
had 56 and 19, respectively.
The majority of continued
claims, from all Eastern
Oregon counties, came from
the construction, agriculture
and production industries.
According to Oregon
Employment Department
data, the leisure and hos-
pitality industry saw a sig-
niﬁ cant chunk of workers
leave the ﬁ eld altogether
over the course of the pan-
demic. Many, it seems, were
able to ﬁ nd work in their
professional careers — ones
that matched their college
degrees or training.
That economic theory is
backed up anecdotally. The
Oregon Restaurant & Lodg-
ing Association polled a
number of restaurants across
the state. Out of the dozens
of responses that were pub-
lished, approximately 20%
mentioned employees not
returning because they had
found or were looking for a
career change.
“There were a number
of individuals that switched
industries during the early
part of the pandemic when
it became clear that it was a
crisis that was not going to
resolve quickly,” wrote Cari
But many experts say vacci-
nated people don’t need to
fear the variant.
Early research suggests
the delta variant is 50% more
transmissible than the alpha
variant, a strain out of the
United Kingdom that is 50%
more transmissible than the
original coronavirus strain
from Wuhan, China. That
means the variant is two to
three times as transmissible
as the original strain.
The delta variant has now
spread to 96 countries. In
India and Britain, two of the
ﬁ rst countries to report the
delta variant, 90% of current
COVID-19 cases are delta
variants, according to the
New York Times. The spike
has prompted leaders world-
wide to reinstate stay-at-
home orders and restrictions
on public gatherings, out-
door dining and other prac-
tices to prevent outbreaks.
And because of the uptick,
the World Health Organiza-
tion is encouraging residents,
including those who have
Alex Wittwer/For the Hermiston Herald
Lupe Delgado, the sous chef at Nookie’s Restaurant & Brewery
in Hermiston, works through orders during the business’ rush
hour June 26, 2021. Delgado and head chef Trevor Olsen have
worked overtime for months following the sudden departure
of the previous head chef at the restaurant, and have
struggled to ﬁ nd workers to ﬁ ll the vacancies at the business.
“There’s not just one
thing going on right now,”
said Chris Rich, the state’s
regional economist for
Eastern Oregon. “There’s
a bunch of diﬀ erent pieces
that contribute to what we
would really term more of
a tight labor market than a
labor shortage.”
One of those factors has
been a problem in Oregon
for several years.
“The big one that every-
one points to right now is
actually child care,” McCo-
nnell said. “They’ve had a
lot of closures of child care
places permanently. It’s not
so easy to take an economy,
shut it down and then just
expect it to wake back up.”
been vaccinated, to wear
masks in public until vac-
cination rates increase and
COVID-19 cases decrease.
The variant now accounts
for roughly one in every
four infections in the United
States, according to the Cen-
ters for Disease Control and
Prevention. However, the
CDC maintains that people
who have been vaccinated
against COVID-19 need not
wear masks.
Experts say it still is too
early to tell for sure if the
variant creates more severe
symptoms,
though
the
strain’s arrival in places such
as Los Angeles County led
to increased hospitalizations
and prompted the health
department to recommend
even vaccinated residents to
don facial protection.
The variant is hitting
unvaccinated areas of the
country particularly hard,
including some southern
states. That’s what has some
health experts worried about
Eastern Oregon, where three
of the state’s ﬁ ve least-vacci-
nated counties are.
But now that Oregon
lifted its pandemic restric-
tions last week, health oﬃ -
cials are growing increas-
ingly concerned cases will
rise once again as the masks
come oﬀ and large summer
events are underway.
“I want to be optimis-
tic that everyone’s learned
a lot from this last year, and
that will help to prevent the
spread of illness,” said Ali-
sha Lundgren, deputy direc-
tor for Umatilla County
Public Health. “But even if
restrictions have started to
loosen, COVID has gone up
in our community.”
Lundgren said the num-
ber of cases being traced
back to social gatherings has
recently increased.
“That’s the ﬁ rst time
we’ve seen that since the
shutdowns because hardly
anyone was having gather-
ings,” she said. “That’s on
the rise, and I think what’s
going to be tricky, and it will
Shafer of Oxford Suites in
Pendleton to the restaurant
association on March 17,
2021.
Other factors
WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 2021
A January 2019 report
from Oregon State Univer-
sity found much of Oregon
remains a child care desert,
meaning there were three
children for every available
slot at child care centers.
According to a report
from the Oregon Employ-
ment Department, nearly
40% of the Oregon labor
force has children at home,
and with the inability to ﬁ nd
adequate child care, that has
left 17%, or roughly 350,000
workers, in a bind.
Some economists say
that labor shortages are sim-
ply wage shortages. This
led Mitch Myers, owner of
Nookie’s, to oﬀ er generous
incentives to prospective
employees.
“I’m having to pay a
$1,000 hiring bonus to
17-year-old kids, who don’t
even have a driver’s license,
with no work experience,
and paying $18.50 an hour,”
he said. “And you know
what happens? You hire
them, they work one day and
quit.”
Structural changes
McConnell said the pan-
demic caused a great struc-
be good to watch the vari-
ant data, but the other com-
ponent that’s in place for our
case numbers over the next
month is, everything’s open
again.”
Vaccines and delta
Experts agree all of the
available vaccines oﬀ er pro-
tection against the variant.
A study by Public Health
England showed the Pﬁ z-
er-BioNtech vaccine is 88%
eﬀ ective in eliminating the
risk of getting the delta vari-
ant of COVID-19. In early
studies, the Moderna and
Johnson & Johnson vaccines
have shown to be eﬀ ective
against the variant as well.
Like
all
vaccines,
COVID-19 vaccines do
not oﬀ er perfect immunity
against the virus, and there is
some preliminary evidence
that the delta variant is better
able to evade the vaccine’s
protection. Even so, break-
through cases are extremely
rare, experts say, and vacci-
nated people still have bet-
tural shift in the economy
that pulled workers out of
the labor force entirely,
though data on this remains
scarce.
“My hunch is that the
majority of the 761 peo-
ple (in Union County)
have structural adjustment
issues,” said McConnell,
“such as child care avail-
ability. Many of them may
also be unwilling to lose
Medicare beneﬁ ts. By mov-
ing back into the workforce,
they will lose access to care.
This economic crisis is high-
lighted by the signiﬁ cant
lack of aﬀ ordable health
coverage in the economic
system right now.”
McConnell also said the
federal unemployment ben-
eﬁ ts kicker amounts to $2.7
million in Union County
alone between July 1 and
Sept. 4, when the beneﬁ ts
are expected to end. But
ending them early, he said,
would be a mistake.
“So you may add more
incentive to look for work,”
he said. “But in the mean-
time, you’re actually going
to take a lot of money out of
the system, which may actu-
ally depress the economy.”
ter protection against delta
are less likely to contract a
severe case.
“We do know that if
you’re fully vaccinated and
you do get the virus, your
immune system is already
ready for it,” Hitzman said.
“So even if you do get
infected, you won’t get as
sick.”
He also said there are
“hardcore people out there
who do not want to get vac-
cinated,” yet the vaccine is
“the only thing that we’ve
got to ﬁ ght against it right
now.”
With Umatilla County
having reopened, and with
cases gradually increasing,
Lundgren said she’s mon-
itoring the situation with
caution.
“This is the moment
where we ask what’s going
to happen now that every-
thing’s open,” she said. “And
certainly having the delta
variant get out very aggres-
sively in our community
would not help.”