Hood River County pivoted on its previous stance Monday, voting 3-2 Monday to ask the state to approve its move to Phase 2 reopening, effective June 12.
“I’m hopeful that will be enough time for the state to approve it, I believe it is,” said County Administrator Jeff Hecksel. “It will give Public Health a few days to get their call center set up.” Chairman Mike Oates and Commissioners Bob Benton and Karen Joplin voted in favor. Commissioners Rich McBride and Les Perkins opposed it, as they had June 3. Oates changed his vote from the “nay” in the June 3 meeting considering the Phase 2 request.
The Board of Commissioners queried Health Department officials at length June 8 about the county’s ability, along with employers and other community partners, to control coronavirus spread under Phase 2. The key question was, can the county keep up with contact tracing under Phase 2 and its expansion of business openings and larger community gatherings that would come with it. Several board members advocated for approving the Phase 2 request but staying at the Phase 1 gathering size maximum of 25, opposed to 50 people inside buildings allowable under Phase 2, but Benton’s motion to ask for Phase 2 made no alteration to that.
On June 3, the board responded largely to the statement by Patricia Elliott, County Health Department director, that, “This is still a very active and ongoing investigation,” referring to newly-reported COVID cases in Hood River County.
“It has been a busy weekend, a continuation of last week,” said Elliott. “We had a big jump in our numbers: we now have 67 positives, 61 current, six presumptives,” Elliott stated.
The county has 22 people who serve as contact tracers, those who communicate with known contacts who are exhibiting symptoms, people who have either received a negative result or no results yet.
“We are 100 percent on the contact tracing being done within 24 hours, which is really tough,” Elliott said. “But we have been meeting that without any trouble. Everyone has been successfully traced. I think we’re fine.”
She said the county has started preparations to expand its contact tracing call center to take in more volunteers, and that expansion (with social distancing to ensure worker safety) would take no more than one or two more days.
Perkins asked Elliot, “Last week, you said regarding support of letter with date of June 12, does that still apply or are you comfortable moving forward sooner?”
Elliott said, “The further we get into this, Phase 2 isn’t going to make that much of a difference. People are either going to follow the rules nor not, and it won’t make a lot of difference at this point. We have the ability to expand or contract with contact tracers to meet the need. I am ambivalent about the date. I leave it up to you guys to decide.”
“We might have trouble keeping up,” Elliot told the board on June 3. Elliot had asked last week for more time for her department to respond to the situation, particularly regarding contact tracing of coronavirus patients and those they have been in contact with.
Elliott said June 3, “My fear is we would get overwhelmed and be unable to manage contact tracing on 95 percent of cases. If we got 20 in one day or even a significantly higher capacity, we might end up going backwards.” Other contact tracers have since been added.
The county’s letter from Hecksel states that Hood River County will have been in Phase 1 for 21 days as of June 4, that county first responders continue to have sufficient supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), that Public Health has 10 trained, experienced contact tracers on paid staff, with additional capacity available through OHA and Eastern Oregon Modernization Collaborative, as well as a local volunteer registry through GetReadyGorge.com.
“I know you are aware of our current outbreak status in Hood River County. We have had a very busy couple of days,” Elliot said June 3. “On Monday, eight positive cases were identified, and we are now at 29 for the county.
“Right now we are able to keep up with the contact tracing, and I will tell you it is a massive undertaking.” Elliott said. “It takes us eight hours a day, every day to reach everybody we are supposed to reach and talk to on a daily basis and that is many staff."
Hecksel said June 3 that the county reopening steering committee met to review the status of events and where the county is relating to state’s metrics for Phase 1 and whether we are able to move to Phase 2, and recommended the Board of Commissioners request that the governor move Hood River County from Phase 1 to Phase 2. The committee had requested in May that it take effect June 5, which was the earliest date the county was eligible to do so, according to Hecksel.
“A number of our tracers are reflective of our community; Spanish-speaking, bilingual and bicultural," states the county letter. “There have been no substantive changes to the Phase 1 application submitted in May. There has been no significant increase of incident cases or positivity. Hood River County, as a small rural county, has had few positive COVID-19 cases. Most of the recent positive cases are associated with an outbreak and are all epi-linked. As of June 3, the county’s presumptive and positive cases are 2 percent of those being tested. This compares to 3.2 percent statewide. The county’s percentage of testing is 4.7 percent of the population. This compares to 3.1 percent statewide. In Hood River County there has been one hospitalization, and that case is fully recovered.”
Benton said before the June 3 vote, “Given the professionals I have heard from and the steering committee who have worked hard on this, and being sensitive to those who can’t open, I feel responsible to move forward, and I‘m comfortable with the motion.”
Joplin said adjusting the date to June 12 “provides us time to not only see what happens and make changes, and time to explore our options as a board ... "
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