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Live updates: Oregon’s COVID-19 death toll climbs to 433

Oregon has lost six more lives to COVID-19, bringing the coronavirus’ death toll in the state to 433, the Oregon Health Authority said Wednesday.

The fatalities include two people in their 50s: a 55-year-old Jefferson County man with underlying medical conditions, and a 55-year-old Marion County woman who tested positive May 5 and died Aug. 25. The woman’s death certificate listed COVID-19 as a “significant condition contributing to death,” health officials said.

Also deceased: a 62-year-old Multnomah County man, a 90-year-old Baker County man, a 92-year-old Multnomah County woman and an 82-year-old woman whose place of residence is still being verified. Each had underlying medical conditions, the health authority said.

Officials reported 222 diagnoses Wednesday, bringing total confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases in Oregon to 25,571 since the start of the pandemic.

Many professors at Southern Oregon University in Ashland expressed relief when the campus announced this summer that most courses would be taught online.

But the transition to a new model of teaching has brought long workdays, technical challenges and an emotional burden for faculty members.

“I am 100% burned out and so is everyone I know,” said SOU digital media professor Andrew Gay. “I think that all of us are still pretty much in crisis mode of knowing that we have these really difficult tasks.”

The Pacific Crest Trail Association will not begin issuing long-distance hike permits in October as originally planned. Organizers cited the ongoing pandemic and continuing spread of the coronavirus on their website. Instead, they’ll be monitoring the situation for next year and will reevaluate 2021 permits by mid-January. The nonprofit group is urging people to hike locally rather than tackle the 2,600-mile through hike, though its warnings are nonbinding and some backpackers have still insisted on hitting the trail.

With hundreds of thousands out of work, Washington and California have instituted some of the country’s strongest directives to ensure people don’t have their power or water shut off because they can’t pay their bills.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, meanwhile, has been almost completely silent on the issue, preferring in many cases to trust that utilities around the state will protect customers struggling amid unprecedented circumstances.

Consumer advocates said that trust might be misplaced. While the state’s large investor-owned utilities like Portland General Electric and Pacific Power aren’t currently pulling the plug when customers can’t pay their bill, many of Oregon’s consumer-owned utilities have ended a self-imposed moratorium in recent weeks, resuming regular disconnection practices.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has plans to commute the sentences of more prison inmates who are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19.

The Department of Corrections has seen some of the state’s biggest outbreaks of the disease, with 613 inmates and 177 staff who have tested positive for the virus. The department reported that 513 inmates and 139 staff members have recovered. Three inmates have died from the virus.

In June, the governor commuted the sentences of 57 people who are incarcerated.

The governor will only consider releasing inmates who are within two months of release, are not serving a sentence for a violent crime against another person, have suitable housing upon release, and have had good behavior while in custody for at least a year.

Another 20 people tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Clark County, Washington, and one additional person has died, the local public health department reported Tuesday. To date, 2,455 residents of Clark County have tested positive for the virus and 48 have died. The man who died was older than 80 and had no underlying medical conditions, officials said.

Since the start of the pandemic, 71,705 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in Washington, and 1,876 have died, according to the latest data available from the state.

Copyright 2020 Oregon Public Broadcasting

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