By ANYSSA BOHANAN
CENTRAL OREGON DAILY NEWS
Jefferson County Health says that the county’s recent spike in COVID-19 cases came from a gathering on the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation.
“We’re up to 44 cases, and with those cases, we’ve got 22 that have recovered,” Jefferson County Public Health’s Tami Kepa’a said.
Thirty-five of those cases were confirmed on the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation.
Ten more positive cases have been traced back to a gathering that also took place on the reservation.
“The ones from Warm Springs, they are not sure that all the cases are a single family, but were a single cohort or group with tracing efforts that are underway,” Kepa’a said.
With the spike in cases, Jefferson County has become one of the state’s county’s with the highest number of COVID-19 cases per capita.
Kepa’a says they’re continuing to educate the public through PSA’s and educating businesses in the area.
“As Phase I reopens, we’ve created some posters and some education and distributed those to all the businesses that are slowly reopening, and try to continue to give them some guidance,” Kepa’a said.
Jefferson County applied for Phase II reopening on Monday, and Kepa’a says that, though any spike in cases following Phase I could jeopardize moving into Phase II, they’ll just have to wait to see how the governor responds hopefully by the end of the week.
