Oregon Governor Announces New Restrictions In 5 Counties
Portland, Ore. — Oregon Gov. Kate Brown will announced a two-week pause on social activities in counties were COVID-19 transmission is on the rise.
The new measures will be in effect for two weeks, from November 11th through November 25th in Malheur, Marion, Multnomah, Jackson and Umatilla counties.
The new measures include:
- Urging all businesses to mandate work from home to the greatest extent possible.
- Pausing long-term care facility visits to protect staff and residents.
- Reducing maximum restaurant capacity to 50 people (including customers and staff) for indoor dining, with a maximum party size of six. Continuing to encourage outdoor dining and take out.
- Reducing other indoor activity maximums capacity to 50 people (for example: gyms, fitness organizations/studios, bowling alleys, ice rinks, indoor sports, pools, museums).
- Limiting social gatherings to your household, or no more than 6 people if the gathering includes those from outside your household, reducing the frequency of those social gatherings (significantly in a two-week period), and keeping the same 6 people in your social gathering circle.
The two-week pause is for counties with a case rate above 200 per 100,000 people over a two-week period, or more than 60 cases over a two-week period for counties with less than 30,000 people.
Five more counties – Washington, Baker, Union, Clackamas and Linn – are close to the COVID-19 thresholds.
The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) will examine their COVID-19 metrics on Monday to determine if those counties should be added to the two-week pause list.
On Friday, the OHA reported 770 new cases of the virus and six more deaths.
Governor Brown and state health officials said the virus is spreading through the state an unprecedented rate due in large part to “in-person, indoor social gatherings.” The new measures are an effort to stop the spread and save lives.
