An outbreak of COVID-19 in the workplace has hit the Marion County’s division tasked with tracking and controlling the pandemic.
Marion County’s Health and Social Services, which includes the Health Department, was identified with an outbreak in the workplace by the Oregon Health Authority between July 21 and August 14. Five cases have been reported.
The county declined to provide any further details, including whether the five people were vaccinated.
“Due to the small number of cases, we do not publish any additional information that could endanger the privacy of the employees concerned. All close contacts on each case have been notified and are following the quarantine recommendations in OHA’s investigation guidelines, ”Jenna Wyatt, spokeswoman for Marion County Health and Human Services, said in an email.
Marion County’s division is the only one of its kind in the state currently identified as the location of an outbreak in the workplace.
Other employers with outbreaks include Salem Hospital, which had 299 cases in an outbreak that lasted through Jan.
District officials criticized Governor Kate Brown’s recent mask mandates, including requiring K-12 students and staff to wear masks indoors.
At a recent commission meeting held the day after the county reported a record of 464 new cases every day, Marion County’s director of public health Katrina Rothenberger said the department did not have the staff to handle all coronavirus cases follow up, as has been the case for a large part of the cases, the pandemic.
She suggested that the county should instead “be able to think about these other serious health problems,” such as an increase in sexually transmitted diseases.
According to Marion County’s statistics, the county has the highest rate of new infections with COVID-19 – a moving average of 205 per day. About 66% of people aged 18 and over in the county are vaccinated.
Bill Poehler reports on Marion County for the Statesman Journal. Contact him at [email protected] or Twitter.com/bpoehler.
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