PORTLAND, Ore — Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced Monday that Baker, Clackamas, Union and Washington counties would join the list of counties that would take a two-week pause on social activities to help stop the spread of coronavirus in the state.
The four counties, along with Jackson, Malheur, Marion, Multnomah and Umatilla counties, are all places where community spread is on the rise.
Oregon has seen a string of record-setting days of coronavirus cases in the past week. On Sunday, the state surpassed 50,000 COVID cases since the start of the pandemic. Gov. Brown called it a "wake-up call" for Oregonians.
On Friday, Brown announced a two-week pause on social activities in counties where COVID-19 transmission is on the rise. The new measures will be in effect from Nov. 11-25.
They include the following:
- Urging all businesses to mandate work from home to the greatest extent possible.
- Pausing long-term care facility visits to protect staff and residents.
- Reducing maximum restaurant capacity to 50 people (including customers and staff) for indoor dining, with a maximum party size of six. Continuing to encourage outdoor dining and take out.
- Reducing other indoor activity maximum capacity to 50 people (for example: gyms, fitness organizations/studios, bowling alleys, ice rinks, indoor sports, pools, museums).
- Limiting social gatherings to your household, or no more than six people if the gathering includes those from outside your household, reducing the frequency of those social gatherings (significantly in a two-week period), and keeping the same six people in your social gathering circle.
“We all must continue to do our part to stop this virus from spreading, particularly limiting our social gatherings and interactions, or we risk further closures and restrictions," Gov. Brown said in an email Monday.
