You will have noticed that what the CDC says, what the FDA says, what the President says and what our Governor says often do not agree with one another. This is because each of them is looking at the problem with a different perspective. The FDA is interested in reinforcing its strict adherence to scientific decision-making. The CDC is much more interested in stopping  the pandemic. The President looks at the whole country and makes decisions that involve supporting the economy, displaced workers and people who must continue to work because they are in vital services. The Governor deals with the state of Oregon, and is also concerned with the economy and the welfare of the greatest number of Oregonians. In Oregon, statewide, over 70% of the population eligible for vaccination has received at least one dose, and over 60% are fully vaccinated. In Jackson County, only about 55% have received even a single dose of vaccine and under 50% are fully immunized. We live in a different world, where the rate of COVID cases is increasing as the Delta Variant becomes more prominent.

The leadership of RVUUF has few distractions from assuring that the members of our community, when they are allowed to return to our building, can do so safely. When the policy was adopted, it did not seem unreasonable to expect a vaccine to appear and be widely accepted, and for the pandemic to evaporate. The vaccines took longer than expected to surface and were not universally accepted; as a result, we have new variants appearing, keeping us in pandemic mode. The Delta Variant, now dominant in the US and in Oregon, is dramatically more communicable than the original strain; this means epidemic-level spread can continue in spite of
about 50% of the population being vaccinated.

It is entirely reasonable for RVUUF’s leadership to decide to keep the building closed even after other venues are open, based on the age and health of our membership. Our primary concern must be with the health and safety of our community. Our decisions will also be affected by the building we meet in. These are not easy decisions, and there are not easy decision-making strategies.
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COVID in Jackson County
First, a caveat about tracking anything like a pandemic: it is not easy. One might think that making the diagnosis of COVID would be straightforward, but it is not. Establishing COVID as the cause of death is even more difficult. While the CDC, the Oregon Health Authority and Jackson County all do their best to provide up-to-date numbers reflecting the current status of the pandemic, they often do not have complete information available. On a recent day, for instance, the Oregon Health Authority reported seven newly-reported deaths due to COVID. Only two of them were deaths that occurred in July and only three within the last 10 weeks. The other four were older, and one was from last December. So, on analysis, the seven deaths in one day were not an alarming spike, but deaths we should attribute to past months. Similarly, various states and counties report more reliably or less reliably than others – not so much whether they report as when they report. For instance, the reporting of COVID cases and deaths falls every week over the weekend, then has above average numbers on Tuesday or so. In fact, the Oregon Health Authority is no longer updating reports on Saturday and Sunday for, we presume, just this reason.

Following weekly statistics is more reliable, but still not perfect if some deaths are not reported until months after they happened. But we cannot wait months before gathering the numbers to figure out what they mean, so we do the best we can with weekly reports. What do we know? Even with the high rate of immunization in Oregon (over 70% of those eligible for immunization have received at least one dose, and over 60% are fully immunized), there is still being a surge of cases. The predominance of the cases, on a per population basis, is no longer in the Portland Metro Area, however, because the highest immunization rates are in the Portland Metro Area. The surge in cases is in Jackson County and other counties where the uptake of vaccination has lagged (Jackson County is about 55% of eligible people have received at least one shot and fewer than 50% are fully immunized).

COVID is still a potential epidemic in Jackson County. Caution is warranted.