/Oregon emergency COVID-19 restrictions will be lifted no later than June 30, Brown says – oregonlive.com

Oregon emergency COVID-19 restrictions will be lifted no later than June 30, Brown says – oregonlive.com

Gov. Kate Brown will lift Oregon’s mask mandate, capacity limits on businesses and social distancing requirements no later than June 30, the governor said Friday, scaling back earlier plans to reopen the state only when 70% of the population is vaccinated against the coronavirus.

“It means, effectively, Oregon is 100% open for business,” Brown said. “This is a pivotal moment for Oregon.”

The governor’s new plan scales back an earlier decision, but Brown said in her announcement Friday that vaccinations administered to date have prepared Oregon to reopen.

“It is because of this success that we can move Oregon forward, and into the next chapter of this pandemic,” Brown said. “We are ready.”

The state will still adhere to federal guidance mandating masks in specific settings such as airports, public transit and health care settings, Brown said.

An analysis by The Oregonian/OregonLive estimates Oregon won’t reach that threshold until July 7. Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen previously predicted the state would hit that milestone by June 30 in a worst-case scenario.

As of Thursday, 68.9% of Oregonians 18 and older had received at least one shot, with about 35,300 to go to hit the threshold. The weekly average as of Thursday was about 2,915 first doses to adults administered per day, down from 5,362 a week prior.

As of Friday, 2,371,850 Oregonians 12 and older had received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The state, health care providers, counties, community organizations and others have pulled out all of the stops in trying to convince Oregonians to get shots. But despite promises of lottery prizes for all those vaccinated, gift cards and continuous outreach campaigns, less and less people are getting shots each day.

And state data show vaccination rates differ dramatically between counties and different races and ethnicities.

While just over half of all white Oregonians have received at least one shot, only about 37% of Latinos and 39% of Blacks have. And the percent of Benton County residents who have been jabbed was more than twice as high as in Malheur County — 64% versus 29%.

Oregon’s plan is to vaccinate 80% of people of color by the end of August.

To solidify her commitment to reopening Oregon, Brown signed an executive order Friday rescinding five other orders that put restrictions on the state, including mask mandates, Oregon’s county-level risk system and numerous restrictions on businesses.

It’s unclear what the precise rules will be for schools. Teachers and students will be expected to continue to follow regulations on preventing the spread of disease, but the state has yet to issue updated guidance for the upcoming academic year.

Brown’s order does keep in place some of her emergency powers, which she said are necessary to retain access to federal help and to allow some flexibility in the state’s work trying to vaccinate Oregonians. The new version of the state of emergency declaration will not allow agencies to put in place new restrictions.

June 30 will also signal a new phase in the state’s overall approach to managing the pandemic. No longer with the state take the lead role, said Allen, the health authority director. Counties will now be responsible for contact tracing, any local mask or social distancing mandates they believe are necessary, tackling outbreaks and encouraging vaccinations.

“We can pull back the statewide protections for the virus forced on us and shift responsibility for managing COVID-19 to the local level” thanks to the nearly-70% adult vaccination rate, Allen said — more or less the same division of labor that exists in normal, non-pandemic times.

The health authority will now provide back-up help to counties, as necessary, and will otherwise be responsible for ensuring COVID-19 testing is available, allocating vaccine supplies and helping local vaccination efforts, looking out for coronavirus variants and collecting and publishing data. Even that will be scaled back, however, with no more coronavirus case, hospital capacity and other pandemic data to be released on weekends or holidays.

But even as the health authority winds down operations and hands the reins over to local jurisdictions, it’s unclear what the consequences of the reopening will be for the spread of the virus. Mask-wearing and social distancing have been critical in curbing spread of the disease, and without those and other restrictions, it’s only to be expected that cases could start rising again.

Brown would not say what her threshold would be for reinstating statewide restrictions on Oregonians’ behavior. The state will keep watching hospitalization trends, Brown said, but given the number of Oregonians vaccinated, she said she hopes “we won’t need to get to that point.”

“We obviously don’t know what the future holds,” Brown said.

Data journalist Mark Friesen contributed to this report.