Umatilla County will remain on “Baseline Stay Home” status for the next few weeks at least.
Gov. Kate Brown announced on Friday that the county was moved from Phase 2 re-opening back to Stay Home status and that Morrow County would move back to Phase 1 status due to widespread outbreaks of coronavirus in the two counties.
Both counties had been placed on the state’s Watch List on July 3 and received additional support from state public health officials. Teams from Oregon State University canvassed Hermiston on the weekend of July 25-26 giving free COVID-19 tests door-to-door.
The teams visited 30 neighborhoods, with 249 of the households visited – or 44 percent – agreeing to participate. In all, the field workers received samples from 471 people, and 41 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. TRACE modeling, which takes into account the sensitivity of the test and the locations of the positive individuals, estimates the prevalence of the virus last weekend was 169 out of every 1,000 people in Hermiston. That translates to nearly 3,000 infected people in the city overall.
“COVID-19 has spread dramatically in both Umatilla and Morrow Counties for the past month,” said Gov. Brown. “My heart goes out to the families in Morrow County, Umatilla County, and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation who have been impacted by this disease.”
These changes in county reopening status will be in effect for 21 days from July 31. The governor and public health experts will review the situation on a weekly basis and take any needed action in coordination with county leaders.
Read the full press release for more details about Baseline Stay Home status and Phase 1 status, as well as details on COVID-19 in both counties.
