The state is still waiting on results for many of the 365 Union County residents tested over the weekend. Tim Heider, a public information officer with the Oregon Health Authority, said the 99 positive cases could have been among about half of those people, suggesting more than half the county’s recent COVID-19 tests came back positive.
“We’re expecting that tomorrow, we’ll probably have a lot more cases,” Heider said.
The Center for Human Development, a nonprofit charged with coordinating test results and contact tracing in the small northeast Oregon County, said that “a number of cases have been associated with Lighthouse United Pentecostal Church, which recently hosted a testing clinic.”
A video of a recent worship service, published on the church’s Facebook page on May 24 but has since been deleted, showed worshipers by the hundreds standing as closely together as was normal in pre-pandemic times as they sing, clap and move to the music. At that time, Union County was in Phase 1 of reopening, under which faith communities were not allowed to convene in large groups.
A person who answered the phone at the church Monday hung up when The Oregonian/OregonLive asked about the Union County coronavirus outbreak.
Oregon Health Authority officials said they did not know how many positive cases were linked to members of the church.
County Commissioner Matt Scarfo said the county is prepared for this outbreak and that the Grande Ronde Hospital in La Grande was “not full by any means.”
Mardi Ford, a spokesperson at Grande Ronde Hospital, said the hospital can care for 40 patients in-house, with an additional off-site location that has a capacity for 200 patients.
“We’re feeling very confident that we can handle this and anything that comes out of this,” Ford said. “This is what we’ve trained for.”
Scarfo said neighboring Umatilla County has offered its resources to help with the outbreak. Carrie Brogoitti, the public health administrator for the Center for Human Development, said Union County has at least five individuals to help with contact tracing.
Union County moved into Phase 2 of reopening on June 5. The second phase of reopening loosens restrictions on bars and restaurants and allows for venues such as churches to reconvene, following public health guidelines including a requirement to separate people from different households by at least six feet.
Union County has a population of nearly 27,000 according to the U.S. Census. The city of La Grande holds more than half the county’s population.
Rising COVID-19 cases across the state last week led Gov. Kate Brown to pause all applications for further reopenings last Friday.
Union County has not recorded any deaths from the virus. Its current rate of positive tests for coronavirus, 14%, is the highest in Oregon.
— Celina Tebor
@CelinaTebor
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