Gov. Kate Brown announced Tuesday that Oregonians will be required to start wearing masks in all indoor public spaces regardless of their COVID-19 vaccination status -- a move that came as Oregon set a slew of ominous records and as new projections show COVID-19 hospitalizations could nearly double in the weeks ahead.
Brown didn’t specify a date for when the mandate will take effect, but she is expected to share more details during a news conference Wednesday.
Brown also announced that starting as early as Oct. 18 she will require all state employees in the executive branch -- which excludes the state Legislature and the judicial branch -- to show proof of full vaccination status.
The governor’s announcements came on the day Oregon set new records for daily cases, at 2,329, and people hospitalized with COVID-19, at 635, including a record 164 people in intensive care.
Brown’s action marked the latest pivot in an unpredictable pandemic that as recently as Independence Day seemed to be trending down, with vaccination goals achieved and cases and hospitalizations plummeting to the lowest levels in months.
But Oregon’s reopening came just as the delta variant was rising, with it accounting for more than half of cases nationally by the first week of July and nearly 100% of cases a month after that.
Amid growing criticism from some over inaction during the sudden summer surge, the governor for the past month had repeatedly resisted reinstating the statewide mask mandate she lifted June 30, saying she was confident local leaders from Oregon’s 36 counties would take the necessary COVID-19 precautions for their individual communities.
But only one county -- Multnomah -- announced a mask mandate, starting Friday. That lack of action by Brown and across Oregon came as the delta variant flourished, with the seven-day average of new known infections increasing eight-fold and the number of hospitalized patients increasing six-fold in roughly the past month.
Brown in a statement Tuesday acknowledged she could wait no longer to reverse her position -- despite the enormous unpopularity of masks among many COVID weary residents. Citing new modeling by Oregon Health & Science University, her office said the state could be 500 staffed hospital beds short of what is needed to treat patients for any reason in September.
Brown said the masking requirement “is a measure that can save lives right now.”
“Oregon is facing a spike in COVID-19 hospitalizations –– consisting overwhelmingly of unvaccinated individuals –– that is quickly exceeding the darkest days of our winter surge,” Brown said. “When our hospitals are full, there will be no room for additional patients needing care –– whether for COVID-19, a heart attack or stroke, a car collision, or a variety of other emergency situations. If our hospitals run out of staffed beds, all Oregonians will be at risk.”
The mask mandate announced by Brown, a Democrat, was quickly panned by the Oregon House Republican caucus, which called it “oppressive.”
“I trust Oregonians even if the governor doesn’t,” said House Republican Leader Christine Drazan, a representative from Canby, in the news release. “She shouldn’t be trying to control every aspect of their lives with mask and vaccine mandates.”
After weeks of grim projections Brown ultimately was motivated to act after seeing an even more dire forecast from OHSU predicting about 1,100 hospitalized COVID-19 patients by Sept. 7 -- if a significant measure such as a mask mandate isn’t resurrected.
Peter Graven, the OHSU researcher who creates a weekly forecast, said his latest version has “terrible and bad news.” The lack of policy interventions, which could have come from Brown or county governments, “has created a real catastrophe across the state in terms of capacity,” he added.
“Essentially what you’re looking at is a wave that takes us all the way to herd immunity, but it does it in the worst possible way,” Graven said during a news conference Tuesday, less than two hours before Brown announced the statewide mask mandate.
OHSU officials estimate that it’ll take two to three weeks after the mandate goes into effect before Oregon begins to feel a big impact on new daily cases and hospitalizations – that is, if there is broad compliance.
The same holds for vaccinations. Given the lag time in obtaining immunity, it’s too late to meaningfully impact the immediate trendline by increasing inoculations.
Graven said a mask mandate and other steps by Oregonians to limit transmission could flatten the curve, pushing the surge out over a longer period of time. But he still expects to see 800 to 900 Oregonians hospitalized in the next few weeks – far higher than the previous record of 584 set in November 2020.
Although a small but increasing number of U.S. cities or counties recently have announced universal mask mandates, such requirements are even rarer among states. Oregon will join Louisiana, which instituted a statewide mask rule last week, and Nevada, where the governor has said residents in high transmission counties must cover up.
On the flip side, the idea of masks after nearly 18 months of the pandemic is offensive to some. As of last week at least nine states -- Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas — have forbidden or limited mask mandates, according to The New York Times. Arkansas’ governor recently said he regrets previously signing into law an anti-mask bill because he wants school districts to have the option of requiring masks – something Brown said in late July will be required in Oregon.
Brown on Tuesday also joined Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who a day earlier said he’ll require most state employees to show proof of vaccination. Like Inslee, Brown isn’t allowing weekly COVID-19 testing as an alternative to proof of vaccination, although both governors are permitting exceptions for religious or disability reasons.
Brown said she hopes leaders of Oregon’s legislative and judicial branches also require all their employees to get vaccinated.
One of the state’s largest public employee unions, SEIU 503, said it supports universal vaccinations but wants to bargain “over the impacts of the vaccine mandate,” including paid time off for employees to get vaccinated and recover, and exemptions “for people with a documented reason for not taking the vaccine.”
That exemption would potentially be expansive, since the governor is already allowing medical and religious exemptions.
“That doesn’t mean we want the whole thing gone,” said Ben Morris, communications director for the union. Morris said he thought the union could resolve the issues in bargaining sessions over “a couple of days, maybe a week.”
Meanwhile, the sharp reversal by Brown on Tuesday to take statewide action acknowledged the growing sense of dread facing Oregon hospitals in the coming weeks. Oregon throughout the pandemic has maintained one of the lowest case and death rates in the country, but the delta surge has walloped the state in ways previously unseen.
The state’s earlier interventions – a stay-home order, mask mandates, business closures and capacity limits – may be exacerbating the problem now, with more people lacking natural immunity from past infections. And while inoculation rates are somewhat higher than average in Oregon, a big swath of the population – some 1.7 million people, including all children 11 and younger – remain unvaccinated.
That doesn’t imply that vaccinations are less important. Professionals from OHSU and elsewhere stressed Tuesday that vaccinations are safe, effective and absolutely the best way to avoid infection or serious illness – with about 80% of July cases and 90% of July hospitalizations among the unvaccinated, according to state data. And they advised Oregonians to readopt the full suite of COVID prevention strategies: hand washing, social distancing, avoiding indoor gatherings and wearing masks.
“If we all do our part,” Brown said in her statement, “we can beat COVID-19 once and for all, keep our economy open and thriving, and return our kids to the classroom with minimal disruptions in a few weeks.”
Reporter Hillary Borrud contributed to this story.
-- Aimee Green; agreen@oregonian.com; @o_aimee
-- Ted Sickinger; tsickinger@oregonian.com; 503-221-8505; @tedsickinger