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August 24, 2021

Serving Lincoln City Since 1927

Brown announces vaccine mandate

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Raven Rocks Gallery: For the love of art By Amber Deyo newsguardeditor@countrymedia.net

Health care workers, K-12 school staff now mandated to get vaccinated By Jeremy C. Ruark jruark@countrymedia.net Governor Kate Brown has announced two new vaccination measures to address Oregon’s hospital crisis, caused by the Delta variant surge. Brown said the measures will help keep Oregon students safe in the upcoming school year and minimize disruptions to in-person instruction. Oregon’s vaccination requirement for health care workers will no longer have a testing alternative. Health care workers will be required to be fully vaccinated by October 18 or six weeks after full FDA approval, whichever is later. All teachers, educators, support staff, and volunteers in K-12 schools will be required to be fully vaccinated by October 18 or six weeks after full FDA approval, whichever is later. Brown made the announcement during a Thursday, Aug. 19 media briefing. “With over 845 Oregonians hospitalized from COVID-19 and 226 Oregonians in our ICU’s (intensive care units), our hospital and ICU beds are over 93% full,” Brown said. “Overwhelmingly, the Oregonians who are being hospitalized or who are dying from COVID-19 are unvaccinated.” “Our hospital system is on the verge of collapse,” Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen said. “Patients are spending days in emergency rooms because critical care beds aren’t available. Patients are parked in hallways and staffing is critically short.” Allen said more than a quarter of the adult population remains unvaccinated. “This triple grip of the Delta variant is tightening,” Oregon State Epidemiologist Dean Sidelinger said. St. Charles Medical Center Bend’s Chief Physician Jeff Absalon also joined the Zoom media briefing. “I can’t overstate this,” Adsalon said. “What we are going through right now is unimaginable. We are overwhelmed and this is really a dire situation.” Absalon said health care workers are suffering from moral injury because they are not able to care for their patients due to the surge. Brown said the state doesn’t have enough health care professionals to treat patients. “We are all at risk right now when our hospitals are full,” Brown said. “There may not be a hospital bed for you if you have an unexpected emergency. When ambulances have no where to go, people die fro preventable deaths.” Brown said she is deploying all available resources to help, including deploying the National Guard and nurse strike teams, establishing temporary decompression units to free up bed space and removing barriers to discharging patients who no longer require hospital-level care. Oregon has made requests to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Biden-Harris administration, Brown said, for additional federal resources and support. Brown has formed a Hospital Care Prevention and Response group consisting of health care stakeholders to problem solve in real time and suggest new measures to aid health care workers and hospitals during the ongoing-hospital crisis. “We cannot wait for help to come,” Brown said. “We must proactively implement solutions right now.” Brown said additional health and safety restrictions may be needed. “All options are on the table,” she said. “The best way

See vaccinate, Page 2

Photo by Amber Deyo

DM Windwalker Taibi (Doug) of Raven Rocks Gallery only works on projects that he can easily set down to assist and chat with customers who come in.

The story of Raven Rocks Gallery includes a farmer’s market beginning, nonprofit business assistance, a COVID-19 shut down, and relocation to an area they’ve always wanted to be, but had it not been for an online personals website, Mary Jo Oxrieder and DM Windwalker Taibi (Doug) may have never opened a gallery together. He was in Ohio and she was in Washington. He was a special education teacher and she was a social worker. They were in their mid 50s. Their children were grown and they were on their own. Taibi appeased his friends who were urging him to “get back out there,” by agreeing to post his profile for 24 hours. That same day Oxrieder discovered the website, saw his profile and emailed him. They hit it off right away. They continued to email for about three months. Taibi’s friend told him before he made a decision, he might want to stand in the same room as her, so he flew out to meet her face to face. “And as it turns out, we were right,” Taibi said. “So shortly thereafter I moved out here.” The both had left their careers and were looking for the next thing to do. They both loved art and they were already doing it. Within

See raven, Page 8

County COVID-19 August cases up four times count from July By Amber Deyo newsguardeditor@countrymedia.net

With the number of cases of COVID-19 in Lincoln County in August now higher than they were before vaccine availability in December 2020 and four times as many as were in July, the update to the Lincoln County Commissioners from Interim Public Health Director, Florence Pourtal, continued to stress the importance of getting vaccinated, wearing a mask indoors and social distancing. Commissioner Chair Doug Hunt said it was his understanding that as the virus spreads, it can mutate, and it

seems to be getting worse. He said he was concerned that as it continues to mutate and we deal with new variants that it’s going to have a more severe impact and become more lethal to more people. Pourtal agreed with the concern as the COVID virus has shown to be good at transforming so that it can better replicate. “What people need to remember or realize is that in order for us to stop those mutations and transformations we have to vaccinate even more people and ensure that we are preventing the spread of this virus by also masking when we’re indoors and around other

people,” Pourtal said. “What i can tell you about the delta variants in general is that they are about three times more contagious than their predecessors.” Hospitalization rates throughout Oregon have seen a steep increase. She said as of August 17, there eight times as many people hospitalized than we had six weeks ago, Pourtal said. “This is really clear and you can see it throughout the country and you can see throughout the state, that most of the people who are hospitalized at this time have not been vaccinated or have not been fully vaccinated yet,” Pourtal

See county, Page 8

WORLD-CLASS MUSIC RETURNS TO THE OREGON COAST!

Siletz Bay Music Festival 2021 September 4th -12th

FULL SCHEDULE & TICKETS AVAILABLE www.siletzbaymusic.org index Classifieds................. 4–5 Police Blotter.................6 Opinion..........................7

VOL. 94 NO. 34

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