Tiffany Eckert

A recent gift to the Lane Community College Nursing Scholarship Endowment will help more students stay in school, graduate and become nurses in their communities.

As folks prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving this year, veterinarians remind us the holiday dinner table may contain hazards for our canine companions.

Since 1979, PeaceHealth Sacred Heart caregivers have sponsored efforts to help struggling families enjoy a Thanksgiving meal. This year volunteers say, the need is greater than ever.

Teams from Oregon State University and the University of Oregon recently partnered to test a random sample of residents in Eugene-- for COVID-19. The results are in.

According to the US Department of Veterans Affairs, women are the fastest growing population in the military today. So, the demand for equitable, high-quality health services for women has also increased. Recently, the Roseburg V.A. System made some additions-- just for female vets.

White Bird Medical Clinic has partnered with Kaiser Permanente to develop a safe, COVID-19 screening and testing center for Lane County’s unhoused populations.

Over the last two days, Lane County has seen 116 new COVID-19 cases and two reported deaths from the virus. Health officials say they have identified three established outbreaks around Halloween activities. A new surveillance effort indicates masking compliance remains an issue.

Over the weekend, hundreds of randomly selected Eugene households were approached to participate in a community COVID-19 testing effort. The TRACE project is expected to provide an estimate of the viral infection rate within city limits.

Over the weekend and Monday, Douglas County Public Health has seen 61 new cases of COVID-19. This spike puts the county over the 500-mark for residents in isolation and quarantine.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the largest hospital in the Southern Willamette Valley has been preparing for a surge of COVID-19 patients. That has yet to come, but with winter approaching, hospitals remain at the ready.

Here’s a public health message to bear in mind: Stress is bad for you. The build up of tension around the pandemic and now an historic election can take a serious toll. But there are workarounds.

The Holiday Farm fire destroyed nearly every structure in the remote town of Blue River and cut McKenzie Valley residents off from key services: the post office, the library, the general market. Especially critical was the loss of the medical clinic. But as the community is learning, it’s not so much the buildings that make the difference --it’s the people.

Last month, the City of Eugene launched a new "Stop the Spread" campaign effort--a COVID-19 messaging contest geared toward young adults, aged 14 to 30 years old.  This just announced: the contest deadline has been extended with a new deadline for submissions: 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, November 11, 2020.

Back in April, Oregon State University launched a program to test randomly selected Corvallis households for COVID-19. Now, that tracing effort is coming to Eugene.

Over the weekend, there were 81 new COVID-19 cases in Lane County. Meanwhile, neighboring Douglas County confirmed three new deaths from the disease.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown announced Friday that Lane County has been added to the Watch List for COVID-19 case activity. 

If you get a call from the Lane County Public Health department, officials say ‘please take it.’ This comes out of concern as non-compliance in the COVID-19 contact tracing effort continues to grow.

The founder and editor of the weekly newspaper McKenzie River Reflections has died. KLCC has this remembrance.