'Extreme and urgent situation': Lane County extends local emergency for pandemic to Dec. 31

Lane County on Tuesday extended a local emergency until the end of the year.

The Lane County Board of Commissioners first passed a local emergency due to the public health response to the coronavirus pandemic on March 17, 2020.

The commissioners have extended that a handful of times before Tuesday and unanimously approved another extension while also convening as the county's Board of Public Health.

A local emergency as a result of the pandemic is now in place until Dec. 31, 2021. The declaration helps set the county up for federal reimbursement and allows for cutting of red tape on items such as getting emergency supplies.

The situation as presented by Steve Adams, who serves as incident commander for the county's efforts to address the pandemic, is worse than it's been at any point .

As many as nearly 389 people per 100,000 residents in Lane County have tested positive for the virus in recent weeks, Adams said. The highest level of transmission on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scale is 100 per 100,000, he said.

In Lane County, he said, August has accounted for 27% of the cases of the virus since the pandemic started.

Adams and his team are "keen to be done with August," he said, while presenting graphics that make the winter surge of cases — once the "dominant peak" of the virus — look "more like the foothills of the Cascades."

There are hopeful signs, Adams said, such as a possible plateau in cases and increased vaccination numbers.

As of Tuesday, he said, a little more than 70% of Lane County residents who could receive the vaccine are fully vaccinated.

The case rate, as well as the National Guard being on the ground, the strain on local resources and the hospitalization rates are all reasons county staff recommend officials "continue to push this declaration forward," said Patence Winningham-Melcher, the county's emergency manager.

Without the extension, the emergency would have expired Wednesday, she said.

As the county is in what Commissioner Laurie Trieger described as an "extreme and urgent situation," board members encouraged people to get vaccinated.

People seem to be trying to find reasons not to take measures and "are latching onto data to confirm their biases in some way," Commissioner Jay Bozievich said.

But people need to be willing to look at all the data, he said.

And what the data shows, Commissioner Joe Berney said, is that while masks mitigate the spread, vaccines are the way out.

Where to get the vaccine: Ways to get the COVID vaccine in Lane County, several options available for the free shot

The pandemic and the virus are "incredibly expensive" for communities and individuals, he said, and "we know what works" to mitigate and stop things from getting or staying worse.

"To get back to normal, which is what I, for one, aspire to and thought I was experiencing for a fleeting moment this summer, we really have to redouble on vaccination efforts," Berney said.

Contact city government watchdog Megan Banta at mbanta@registerguard.com. Follow her on Twitter @MeganBanta_1.