For the second, two-week period in a row, restaurants, bars, theaters, gyms and other entertainment venues in Lincoln County can stay open for customers.
According to COVID-19 data released Tuesday by the Oregon Health Authority, the numbers of cases in Lincoln County have stayed low enough to keep the area in the state’s “high risk” category.
The new two-week period begins Friday and goes through Feb. 11.
That means restaurants and bars can remain open for limited dining and that gyms, aquariums and other entertainment venues can stay open.
The county is averaging 4-7 new COVID-19 cases a day, according to data from the New York Times newspaper.
“This is encouraging,” county Commissioner Claire Hall said Monday when told that the county would likely stay in the “high risk” category. “It seems like enough people are doing the right thing that we’re holding steady.”
County health officials said that they had not seen an expected increase in the number of COVID-19 cases from Christmas or New Year’s gatherings.
Placement in – or movement between — one of four “risk categories” occurs every two weeks. But each week the state lets counties know how COVID-19 numbers are doing and whether they are in jeopardy of moving into a higher category, which carries greater restrictions.
The current two-week “high risk” period began Jan. 15 and goes through Thursday. The case-counting period for what happens after Thursday was Jan. 10 through Saturday – and Lincoln County had 87 cases.
The threshold between the “high” and “extreme” categories is 200 cases per 100,000 population over a two-week period – or 100 cases in Lincoln County, which has a population of 50,000.
