Oregon has no timeline, no metrics for ending mask mandate
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/oregon-timeline-metrics-end-mask-mandate/283-70a6f505-66a7-4030-b44c-6a3404466ada
PORTLAND, Oregon — In June, Gov. Kate Brown declared Oregon open for business. The
announcement ended most COVID-19 restrictions as the state came very close to hitting
a key metric: 70% of eligible adults getting vaccinated. That metric gave a clear target
for the public to focus on reaching — and knowing when they reached it, restrictions would
end.
Unfortunately, that didn't last. The delta variant soon took hold and turned the state's
declining COVID cases and hospitalizations upside down.
Just over a month later, Gov. Brown reinstated mask mandates for both indoor spaces and
large outdoor events. But this time, the state did not say what it would take to drop
those rules — and months later, still hasn't. Outside experts disagree with that strategy.
“I think it is a mistake that Oregon doesn’t have metrics,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an
infectious disease doctor and professor of medicine at the University of California, San
Francisco.
She specializes in HIV. She has seen how missteps and a loss of trust hurt the effort to
fight the disease in the early days.
Dr. Gandhi said a lack of metrics now with COVID-19 mandates threatens the public's trust.
“It is imperative that we retain, as a populous, trust in public health officials. When
mandates are put into place for public health emergencies they have to be accompanied by
metrics of when they come off and what constitutes a reason to come off. Otherwise I am
worried that it looks like restrictions without clean, data-based metrics,” she said.
moar at url
To late we lost trust long ago