It is prescribed burn season in the Blue Mountains. Springtime conditions allow land managers to use fire safely to reduce fuels, improve habitat and make our forests healthier. Over the course of my career with the Forest Service, I loved prescribed burn season, as it was tremendously fulfilling to see fire returned to its place in the ecosystem.
I retired from that career several years ago, and since April 2020 I have been working with Umatilla County Public Health to limit the spread of COVID-19 through contact tracing and vaccination clinics. It occurred to me recently that the relationship between prescribed burning and wildfire is in some ways like the relationship between the pandemics and vaccinations. I love torturing analogies to see if they can help me think and learn about complex problems, so bear with me here.
May 5, 2021 11:35 AM By Lucy Kafanov, Julia Jones and Ray Sanchez, CNN
Posted:
Updated:
May 5, 2021 1:51 PM
This mountainous frontier city on the Columbia River plateau romanticizes the pioneer personality of the Old West and celebrates its rugged past with one of the world’s oldest rodeos.
In rural Umatilla County, where Pendleton is located, locals take pride in the region’s deep sense of freedom, toughness and self-reliance.
It’s not entirely surprising then that residents are avoiding vaccination sites in droves, even as Oregon leads the nation in the rate of Covid-19 cases over the last two weeks and this remote northeastern county ranks at the bottom in vaccines administered per capita.
PENDLETON â As Umatilla County is likely headed back into the âhigh riskâ category for COVID-19, the county is turning away vaccine allocations from the state because supply has outpaced demand.
Umatilla County Public Health Director Joe Fiumara said the county told the state it could send last weekâs allocation for Umatilla County to a county with higher demand, and will likely do so again this week.
âOur demand level is dropping dramatically,â he said.
Fiumara said Umatilla County Public Health currently has about 6,000 vaccine doses on hand, but is hearing from partners in the county that they donât need more doses yet. Last week, the county itself administered less than 500 doses total, and most of those were second doses. At some points during their most recent free clinic, Fiumara said, staff were just sitting and waiting around for anyone to arrive â a stark difference from the long lines a few weeks ago.
Demand for COVID-19 vaccine dropping dramatically in Umatilla County eastoregonian.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eastoregonian.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.