PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced Wednesday that Multnomah County can enter Phase 1 reopening on Friday.
“I am allowing Multnomah County to move to Phase 1 starting Friday, June 19. While Multnomah County has seen an increase in new cases recently, the county has not experienced an uptrend in new hospital admissions, and overall hospitalizations remain well within capacity,” Brown said in a statement.
Brown will hold a press conference at 11 a.m. Thursday on these decisions.
Six days after pushing the pause button on all county applications to move into the various phases of reopening, Brown OK’d the plan for Multnomah County — the only county not open at all in the state — to reopen on Friday.
She placed a connection between Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties for any future decisions on reopening.
The tri-county region, Brown said, “will remain in Phase 1 for at least 21 days after June 19 before the three counties together will become eligible for Phase 2. I know this impacts communities and businesses in Clackamas and Washington counties but, as we reopen our state, we must recognize how interconnected the metro area is.”
Facemasks required in certain areas
The governor is also requiring facemasks be worn in indoor public spaces, like stores and other businesses, for Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, Hood River, Marion, Polk, and Lincoln counties, effective June 24.
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Other counties to Phase 2
Also on Friday, Brown said Marion, Polk and Hood River counties can go to Phase 2.
“Marion and Polk counties are seeing a decline in hospitalizations, and Hood River has had only one new hospital admission in the past two weeks,” Brown said in a statement. “All three counties have implemented timely follow up on cases in the past week.”
Marion and Polk counties are connected in a similar way to the tri-county region, she said.
“Marion and Polk counties, which each include parts of the City of Salem, will also be treated as a unit going forward. Both of these regions include a highly-connected urban area, making it difficult to monitor the disease based solely on the contours of county jurisdictional lines.”
All future decisions based on data
Gov. Brown said she and health officials will be monitoring the data and basing future decisions on the facts they see.
When she announced the pause on reopening applications last week, she said it was to give the Oregon Health Authority more time to analyze the data, hospitalizations, contact tracing and other metrics.
“We are much better prepared than we were in early March. We have increased PPE, much more widespread testing, and many more contact tracers<” she said. “However, if hospitalizations spike too rapidly, if the capacity of our health care system is threatened, we will be forced to revert to stricter rules.”
Brown’s decisions come on the same day Union County in eastern Oregon voluntarily returned to Phase 1 after an outbreak of more than 200 cases in 2 days. Union County was approved to enter Phase 2 on June 4 along with 25 other Oregon counties.