As Covid cases surge, Lincoln County is recommending — but not requiring — wearing masks in indoor, public places

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com

A quickly increasing number of COVID-19 cases in Lincoln County prompted county officials Thursday to ask that people age 5 and older resume wearing masks in public, indoor places.

Like other counties around Oregon, county commissioners did not take the next step and make masks mandatory — as they could do.

Although its overall COVID-19 numbers are small compared with some counties with low vaccination rates, Lincoln County has seen a steep increase in cases in July and the first week of August.

The county had 57 reported cases in June and 103 in July. For the first five days of August, the Oregon Health Authority reported 70 cases in Lincoln County, including 22 Thursday and 13 more Friday.

“That’s a number we were not expecting,” public health spokeswoman Susan Trachsel told YachatsNews. “It’s changed a lot in just a few days.

“We didn’t know for some time that vaccinated people could spread it (the Delta variant) as easily … but now there’s a lot more data and information,” she said.

Because nearly 90 percent of all cases in Oregon are now of the Delta variety, Trachsel said Lincoln County is assuming the same locally. “It’s behaving here like Delta behaves – fast spreading, sporadic and not necessarily tied to outbreaks.”

The new variant is also affecting vaccinated people, just not as severely.

Of the 103 COVID-19 cases in July, 31 percent of those testing positive had been fully vaccinated, health officials told commissioners this week. Of the six people hospitalized in July, two of whom were fully vaccinated, LCPH said.

Lincoln County in former “high” category

If Gov. Kate Brown still had restrictions in place based on the rate of cases in each county, Lincoln County would be again in the “high risk” category with 142 cases per 100,000 population. In the spring – before 73 percent of the county population was vaccinated — that would have meant capacity limits in restaurants and bars and restrictions on in-person gatherings.

The only restrictions approved by county commissioners this week is to require staff and the public to wear masks inside county facilities.

The OHA also announced Thursday that a 23^rd Lincoln County resident had died after testing positive for the disease. It said the 85-year-old man had underlying conditions, tested positive July 16 and died July 31 at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at Riverbend in Springfield. He was the state’s 2,882th death since the pandemic began in 2020.

In asking the public to mask indoors, the county commissioners and health officials said they looked at six elements before making its recommendation, including:

• The Delta variant is currently the main variant of COVID-19 in Oregon;
• The Delta is variant is three times more contagious than the previous iterations of the COVID-19 virus;
• This variant can cause more severe disease in infected individuals;
• Vaccinated individuals can transmit the virus to others if they get infected;
• Vaccines are still the best prevention method against severe illness due to COVID-19, hospitalizations, and deaths;
• Masks are the second-best known prevention method to curb the spread of COVID-19 in both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.

Covid forecasts are grim

The rapid increase in infections is unlikely to peak before autumn, according to a new forecast this week from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

The institute reported the Oregon surge is part of a worldwide wave set off by the delta variant. Infections are rising higher than vaccinations, an environment that can lead to more variants, which could disrupt recovery, health officials say.

Fall forecast: The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation’s forecast showed new infections in Oregon climbing to a peak of just under 7,250 daily by Nov. 1 if current trends continue. Immediate adoption of masks by state residents would halt the rise and have infections below 150 per day by Nov. 1. If all safeguards were dropped, infections would peak at just over 13,000 daily on Oct. 8.

Deaths don’t keep pace: The only relatively good news out of the current rise in cases is that the spike in infections and hospitalizations had not been as closely followed by deaths as in earlier waves. High vaccination rates among the elderly and medically vulnerable have cut the rate, along with the lower average age of those currently becoming infected.

Fatalities will rise: Though the pace has slowed, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation forecasts Oregon COVID-19 deaths would be an estimated 3,274 by Nov. 1 under current trends.

Weekly trends in Oregon

The Oregon Health Authority’s weekly COVID-19 report Wednesday showed:

• Cases during the week of July 26 through Aug. 1 increased 92 percent over the previous week;
• New COVID-19 related hospitalizations rose to 256, up from 146 the previous week, a 75 percent increase. By Thursday the hospitalization number had jumped to 457;
• There were 25 reported COVID-19 related deaths, up from 12 reported the previous week.
• There were 82,701 tests for COVID-19 for the week of July 25 and test positivity was 8.2 percent, up from 5.0 percent the previous week.
• During the week ending Aug. 1, the statewide case rate was 129.3 cases per 100,000 population. Thirteen of Oregon’s 36 counties had case rates in excess of 200 per 100,000 – and all 13 of these counties had population vaccination rates less than the statewide average of 56.4 percent.