UPDATE (3:31 p.m. PT) — School will look very different next fall for Oregon students.
The Oregon Department of Education has released a “blueprint” for how schools should operate amid COVID-19. Every school district now needs to draft plans that integrate public health, class instruction and community engagement.
Essentially, it’s up to individual schools to figure out whether teaching will happen on-site, through distance learning, or a hybrid of the two.
But there are some requirements if schools plan to have any on-site teaching. Students and staff must be screened for symptoms when they get on the bus or enter school buildings. Schools must establish a minimum of 35 square feet per person for classroom capacity. And staff who regularly interact within 6 feet of students or staff must wear face coverings.
“What the Oregon Department of Education has established is a process for school districts to listen to the community and develop health and safety plans that make sense for each district, each school, and each student,” Gov. Kate Brown said in a statement announcing the plan. “Together, we will proceed cautiously, testing each step as we move forward, and taking a step back if necessary to protect the health and safety of our students, families, and education community.”
Districts must review and make their reentry blueprints available to the community by Aug. 15.
In Washington state, a workgroup of education leaders and officials will on Friday present their own recommendations for reopening.
Oregon reports five COVID-19-linked deaths
The Oregon Health Authority reported 70 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 in the state Tuesday.
The state’s total number of known positive and presumptive cases is 4,988 as of Tuesday evening.
Officials reported five new coronavirus-related deaths. In Oregon, 169 people are known to have died from the disease.
Health officials are working to address multiple outbreaks in the state, including one in Lincoln County at Pacific Seafood, a shrimp plant in Newport, in which more than 120 people have tested positive.
Clark County cases at 605
Clark County reported two new coronavirus cases Tuesday, putting the county’s total at 605. To date, 28 people have died from COVID-19 in Clark County.
According to the most recently available data, Washington has 24,354 confirmed coronavirus cases. The state has seen 1,176 coronavirus-related deaths.
Multnomah County's Reopening Progress
Multnomah County is making progress toward meeting requirements to start reopening, officials said Wednesday, but they also acknowledged some areas where it’s falling short.
Multnomah County Public Health Director Rachael Banks told Multnomah County commissioners during a board meeting that there are enough available hospital beds to handle an increase in cases. But concerningly, hospitalizations started to increase on May 31, which is the last day they currently have data for.
“We expected to see an increase in cases,” Jennifer Vines, the lead health officer for the tri-county area, told the commissioners.“The whole premise of reopening was built on the idea that people would be mixing, and we’d need more testing and contact tracing.”
That increase in bed use and transmission is not due to recent protests, Vines said. The data isn’t recent enough to reflect that. Instead, she speculated that nearby counties re-opening could cause cases to increase in Portland.
It’s also important to note where in Portland COVID-19 is spreading. Since April, the number of infections in white people has declined.
“It’s particularly striking if you know the demographics of Portland,” said Kim Toevs, who leads the county’s infectious disease team. Depending on the metric, about 70% of Multnomah County is white. But only 16% of new cases on May 31 were white And while access to testing has improved across the board, communities of color still have less access to testing.
Copyright 2020 Oregon Public Broadcasting
