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Grim Statistic: Harney County Has Highest COVID-19 Death Rate on West Coast

4/13/2022

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At the Local Candidates' forum held by the Harney County Democrats this week, none of the candidates supported Governor Kate Brown's mask mandates or mandatory vaccinations. They felt that the only legitimate role government could take was that of educator. This view was held even though, statewide, Oregon had among the lowest COVID-19 death rate in the country. It was striking that none of the candidates mentioned that their role, if elected, would be of a government leader and, as such, setting the example. One candidate, Patty Dorroh, suggested the possibility that the care administered by the hospital was the reason the death rate was so high. None suggested that politicization of the COVID-19 response or poverty was a factor. However, Pete Runnels, the current County Judge, reported that he was "beat up pretty good" for supporting the advice of public health experts, including his own Harney County Public Health Director.
Oregon Capital Chronicle ("Report: Harney County has highest Covid-19 death rate on West Coast"):
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A Poor People’s Pandemic Report 2022 shows that 36 people died in Harney County between February 2020 and this February, giving the county a death rate of 487 per 100,000 people. That’s That’s higher than any other county in Oregon, Washington or California.
Imperial County in southern California, where 860 people died over the two-year period, came next with 475 deaths per 100,000.
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Overall, Oregon, Washington and California had among the lowest Covid death rates in the country.
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The Oregon Health Authority said Oregon fared much better than many states because so many Oregonians wore masks and followed other Covid mandates. “Our Covid-19 strategy helped to save lives and kept cases and hospitalizations lower than in other states,” Rudy Owens, an agency spokesman, said in an email.

The report considered vaccination rates but said they didn’t explain variation in death rates.

“Average vaccination rates are in general higher in the highest income counties than in the middle- and low-income counties, however these differences do not explain the whole variation in death rates in the later waves of the pandemic,” the report said.

Poverty and demographics wound together as the common thread, the report said.

“Counties with the highest death rates are poorer than counties with lower death rates, with higher percentages of people of color,” the report said. “The 300+ counties with the highest death rates have a poverty rate of 45%, which is 1.5 times higher than in counties with lower death rates.”

The health authority said the pandemic made it clear that not everyone has an equal opportunity to be healthy.

“This includes people of color, people with low incomes, people who identify as LGBTQ+, people with disabilities, and people who live in rural areas of the state,” Owens said. “People in these communities face considerable barriers due to inequities in the social and physical infrastructures that affect health.”

Nic Calvin, director of Harney County’s Public Health Department, said poverty could have been a factor in the county’s death rate.

“In terms of access to the vaccine, it’s completely free so we’ve tried to break down any barriers,” Calvin said. “Once a person got Covid, poverty could have been a factor” in the severity of the disease.

The report found that in Harney County, nearly 40% were living in poverty, defined as a maximum of $2,265 a month for one person and $4,625 a month for a family of four.

In Josephine County, which had the second highest death rate in the state at 354 deaths per 100,000, nearly 44% were living in poverty, the report found. In Malheur County, which had the third highest death rate at 330 deaths per 100,000 in the two-year time span, the report found that 48% were living in poverty.

Calvin said Harney County’s low population – about 7,300 people – could have skewed the numbers.

“We’re such a small population,” Calvin. “If we have an additional five people die, that puts our per-capita death rate higher.”

Other eastern Oregon counties

Other eastern Oregon counties also have low populations, and among the lowest vaccination rates in the state. Lake County has the lowest vaccination rate in the state, with 46% of adults receiving one dose, according to the Oregon Health Authority. Malheur, Grant, Gilliam and Baker come next in that order. Harney County has the sixth lowest rate: 56% of adults have had at least one dose.

“Like most eastern Oregon counties, there was some resistance to getting vaccinated due to the political nature of the vaccine,” Calvin said. “We have had vaccinations available every day basically since the vaccine came out.”
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The groups behind the report hope it will rally members of Congress and President Joe Biden to do more to help poor people.

“The findings of this report reveal neglect, and sometimes intentional decisions, to not focus on the poor,” said Bishop William Barber II, president of the nonprofit advocacy group, Repairers of the Breach. “It is further evidence why we have called for the president to meet, at the White House, with a diverse delegation of poor and low-wealth people, religious leaders and economists to put addressing poverty and low wealth front and center.”

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Democrats Boost Rural Economy, Schools, and Resilience

3/12/2022

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Oregon's robust economy has produced $2.5 billion in unplanned tax revenues that can be used to
create good-paying jobs and improve the quality of life for its residents.  The spending priorities identified by Oregon Democratic leadership were rural communities, behavioral health, public safety, workforce development, energy efficiency, education, and help for low-income Oregonians. HB 5202, approved during the 2022 short Oregon legislative session with bipartisan supports, created a budget to transform these priorities into specific  budget line items. For example, Harney County received $2 million to improve the Harney County fairgrounds in response to lobbying by the Oregon Fair Board. In acknowledgment of rural Oregon's unique needs and to reduce the partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans, HB 5202 also allocated  a no string attached $100 million rural Oregon infrastructure package to be spent at the discretion of state senators and representatives in rural Oregon counties. The bill also included $100 million for affordable childcare, although it is unclear how much of this this will be allocated to Harney County.

The portion of 2022 $100 million rural allocation package administered by State Senator Lynn Findley and State Representative Mark Owens will be on top of the $4 million allocated to State Senator Lynn Findley and $2 million allocated to State Representative Mark Owens by the Democratic-led Oregon legislature in 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan. Senator Findley allocated all of the $4 million American Rescue Plan funds under his control to Grant, Jefferson, and Malheur counties. Representative Owen allocated $1 million of the American Rescue Plan funds under his control to Harney County to  improve the Harney County Fairgrounds.

The 2021 American Rescue Plan is a one -time  pulse of  spending on programs intended contain the COVID-19 pandemic and rebuild the economy to benefit low- and moderate-income Americans who did not recover from the 2008 recession or were hard-hit by the pandemic.  Although not designed to specifically benefit rural America, rural areas may receive a higher percentage of the benefits because they experience a higher rate of poverty. For example, the Harney District Hospital received $631,745 in COVID-19 relief funding. Harney County school districts developed plans for how they would spend over $2 million of ARP funds for health and safety improvements and mitigate learning gaps caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2021, Harney County school District 3 board unanimously approved using $600,000 of the funds for an Audio Enhancement System for all of the district's schools. The jurisdiction of Harney County was projected to receive $1.43 million dollars, but is unclear, at the time of this article, how this money is being spent. The Burns Paiute Tribe received $104,915 to build affordable housing. The city of Hines will receive $314,000. The first payment  of $150,000 will be used to repair the lift station at the sewage lagoon, and remaining funds will be used to create a facility master plan of the wastewater system. It is unclear if the city of Burns received any American Rescue Plan funds.

In 2021 President Joe Biden also signed into law the Infrastructure  Investment and Jobs Act. The anticipated benefits of this bill to rural America include water projects, wildfire prevention, mine cleanup, greater flexibility in hours for livestock haulers, trucker recruitment and job training, improved roads and bridges, improved power grid security, habitat restoration in the Klamath Basin, increased funding for rural school districts, improved shipping port facilities, and increased broadband access.

The High Desert Partnership received over $5 million from the Oregon Department of Forestry to implement the Southeast Oregon Wildfire Resiliency Project. This money was allocated by the Democrat-led state legislature in Oregon SB 762. High Desert Partnership also received $750,000 from Business Oregon, the State of Oregon's economic development agency to provide technical assistance to small businesses in Harney County. The funds will be distributed to small businesses in collaboration with Euvalcree, the Burns Paiute Tribe, the Northeast Oregon Economic Development District, and Launch Pad Baker.

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Travel Nursing Impacts Harney District Hospital

3/12/2022

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U. S. Senator Ron Wyden held a town hall Friday for Harney County residents. Dan Grigg, Chief Executive Officer for Harney District Hospital, stated that the hospital was being impacted by nurses leaving to seek the higher pay of travel nursing. The  travel nursing  trend may require the hospital to raise nurse wages at a time when it is already operating on a tight budget. Wyden responded that the market is responding to a chronic shortage of nursing labor,  and that problem is exacerbated by nurses leaving their profession because of burn-out. He further stated that government policy can help with the front-end solution to the problem: Increase the number of people being trained for nursing careers.

Hopefully Governor Kate Brown's $200 million jobs training plan known as Future Ready  Oregon will help alleviate the nursing shortage. The bill aims to boost jobs training in healthcare, manufacturing, and construction.

Read the Vox article How the Era of Travel Nursing Has Changed Health Care for more information about this issue.
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