EAGAN, Minn. — USA Curling says CEO Jeff Plush “acted in accordance with prioritizing the safety of athletes” during his tenure as leader of the National Women’s Soccer League, where an investigation uncovered years of systemic emotional abuse and sexual misconduct.
The curling board met Monday after a report on the independent investigation into the abuses in women’s soccer.
The soccer investigation found Plush, who was commissioner of the NWSL from 2014 to 2017, was aware of allegations of sexual harassment and coercion against Portland Thorns coach Paul Riley, but did not do anything to prevent Riley from continuing to coach in the league. Former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates, who led the soccer investigation, said Plush did not respond to requests for an interview.
In a news release, the curling board said it would “navigate forward in a way that reviews fact and prioritizes safety for all.”
U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland sent a letter to staff that said the federation was in contact with USA Curling about the investigations.
“We understand they are reviewing the findings of this investigation as well as the findings of their own investigation conducted previously” about Plush’s role at NWSL, Hirshland wrote.
The USOPC was forced into sweeping reforms in the wake of sexual abuse scandals, including that former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, who sexually abused hundreds of female gymnasts.
“Our resolve to make Olympic and Paralympic sport participation safe for everyone guides our work every day,” Hirshland said. “And yet we know, this work is never done.”
The report on the soccer investigation said Thorns player Mana Shim informed Plush in 2015 about Riley’s advances, as well as his retaliation when she asked him to stop. Plush forwarded Shim’s email to U.S. Soccer, but the league took no action against Riley.
In a tech world still hindered by component shortages, choices have to be made. And in the world of laptops, it seems that choice is Windows-based devices over those running Chrome OS.
IDC on Monday released early data from its latest Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. It pointed to a sharp 63.6 percent decline in Chromebook shipments, which the IDC defines as “shipments to distribution channels or end users, in Q4 2021 (4.8 million shipments) compared to Q4 2020 with (13.1 million shipments).”
In addition to market saturation, supply issues also hurt Chromebook shipments, as the industry still struggles with a deficit of PC components, from CPUs to integrated circuits for Wi-Fi modules and power management.
“Supply has also been unusually tight for Chromebooks as component shortages have led vendors to prioritize Windows machines due to their higher price tags, further suppressing Chromebook shipments on a global scale,” Jitesh Ubrani, research manager with IDC’s Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers, said in a statement accompanying Monday’s announcement.
Ubrani told Ars Technica that IDC doesn’t know for sure if it’s specifically Windows 10 or Windows 11-based machines getting priority over Chrome OS devices. Windows 11 debuted in 2021, giving PC makers excuse to refresh lines with “Windows 11-ready” systems.
But with PC availability still scant, it’s likely that Windows 11 has had a smaller impact on PC sales.
“Generally, the launch of a new OS has driven demand, though this time around the demand is already quite high and supply is low, so buyers aren’t making their purchase decision based on the version of the OS,” Ubrani told Ars Technica. “As a result, we don’t believe Windows 11 specifically has had an impact on [Chrome OS device shipments] or the PC market in general.”
Ubrani also pointed to market saturation in the US and Europe, which were extra hungry for Chromebooks as remote learning and work grew, as slowing global growth. According to Ubrani, “Chromebook demand in emerging markets has seen continued growth in the past year.”
But Chromebooks were actually more popular in 2021 than in 2020, with 4.4 million more machines sold. Lenovo saw the biggest growth, moving from 6.7 million Chromebook sales in 2020 to 8.3 million in 2021.
At 10.2 million devices, HP sold more Chromebooks last year than any other vendor.
When retired four-star Gen. Pete Chiarelli tested positive for COVID-19, getting a treatment prescribed wasn’t the problem. Filling it, and finding the therapies, was.
At 71, and having already been treated for high blood pressure and atrial fibrillation, though fully vaccinated, Chiarelli is at higher risk of severe COVID-19, and is eligible for the few treatments that have been shown to work against the omicron variant: one of the antiviral pills from Pfizer or Merck or the monoclonal antibody treatment sotrovimab, from Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline.
Chiarelli was prescribed Paxlovid, Pfizer’s antiviral pill, but he couldn’t find a place to fill the prescription near his home in Oregon. He turned to Madigan Army Medical Center in Washington, which didn’t have Paxlovid either — but they had sotrovimab.
There, Chiarelli says he was told the precious little supply of that infusion was being saved for those considered even higher risk than him, including the unvaccinated.
“It felt like kind of a defeat for me, because I tried to do everything right,” Chiarelli said. “And because I did, you’re saying, I’m not going to have the chance in the pecking order?”
As the omicron variant gathered steam, the National Institutes of Health COVID-19 treatment guidelines panel put out interim guidelines that health care providers should prioritize patients “at highest risk of clinical progression.” They defined these individuals using four key elements: age, vaccination status, immune status and clinical risk factors. Unvaccinated and immunocompromised individuals – who are at higher risk of getting sicker – come before vaccinated groups, according to the guidelines.
A Madigan official confirmed to ABC News that, like many other health systems, they are adhering to that NIH guidance, and saving their limited supply for those who meet that risk threshold. Patients not in the first two NIH-specified tiers would be “deferred for treatment,” Col. Dr. Tomas Ferguson, chief of infectious disease services at Madigan Army Medical Center, told ABC News over email.
Omicron’s spread has squeezed what was already a finite arsenal of COVID medicines. The ones in stock have been shown to fail against the new variant, while the ones that work against omicron remain scarce.
The nation’s sparse COVID-19 medicine cabinet is compelling health officials and patients alike to contend with the thorny moral question: Who should get treated first?
Reserving what they have for the patients who have the poorest prior defense against the virus now means people who have gotten the shot find themselves getting bumped in line behind those who have not gotten vaccinated.
“To allocate among competing patients in times of scarcity, you have to go by need and benefit,” Jennifer Miller, a bioethicist and assistant professor at Yale University School of Medicine, told ABC News. “You have to steward your scarce resources.”
With low reserves of functional omicron defenses, state and local health systems are now forced to implement a range of systems to decide which patients get what treatments.
Utah’s health officials have sharpened state eligibility for omicron treatments given the “extreme scarcity.” A person must score 10 points in risk factors for a vaccinated person, but 7.5 points for an unvaccinated person, in order to qualify for treatment.
A large-font banner at the top of Utah’s therapies page warns that because the medications are in “short supply” across the country, “you may not be able to find an appointment, even if you qualify.”
States like New York and Indiana use a tiered guidance system when resources are scarce, which puts unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated people, along with immunocompromised groups, before vaccinated groups.
North Carolina is limiting the low supply of omicron therapeutics to “to high-risk people first – those who are unvaccinated or immunocompromised patients who are at high risk for severe disease, hospitalization or death,” a state Health and Human Services spokesperson said.
Clinical judgment should be untethered from the weight of other social contexts, bioethics experts said.
“This is, as you know, the twisted irony of being unvaccinated and still getting first access to these therapies,” Dr. Christian Ramers of the Family Health Centers of San Diego, said. His clinic is relying on NIH’s guidance. “That’s just really a cold, callous decision about who’s most at risk of dying. And clearly, if you’re unvaccinated, you’re at higher risk of dying.”
“Doctors’ ethic is – we treat saints and sinners alike, and we don’t distinguish,” Dr. Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics and the founding head of New York University School of Medicine’s medical ethics division, told ABC News.
Health experts note that the circumstances forcing tough decisions about how to ration precious lifesaving resources is not a new one: what is new is having to make these tough decisions in the middle of a pandemic.
“It’s frustrating for the patients; it’s also challenging for us,” Dr. Sue Paik, Chiarelli’s doctor, said.
Chiarelli has been recovering, thankful his infection didn’t get more severe.
“Thank God it didn’t get any worse,” Chiarelli said, which he credits to being vaccinated.
“You hear numerous anecdotes about different areas of the country saving their monoclonals for the unvaccinated, which causes resentment about those people who chose not to get vaccinated,” Dr. Nicole Lurie, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services under President Barack Obama, told ABC News. “Almost regardless of how you try to distribute it, while they’re in scarce supply, you’ve got a rubber-hits-the-road conundrum here.”
ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, Eric M. Strauss, Anne Flaherty and Sony Salzman contributed to this report.
The Facebook Papers are a set of internal documents that were provided to Congress in redacted form by Frances Haugen’s legal counsel. The redacted versions were reviewed by a consortium of news organizations, including The Washington Post.
The trove of documents show how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has, at times, contradicted, downplayed or failed to disclose company findings on the impact of its products and platforms.
The documents also provided new details of the social media platform’s role in fomenting the storming of the U.S. Capitol.
Read more from The Post’s investigation:
Key takeaways from the Facebook Papers
How Facebook neglected the rest of the world, fueling hate speech and violence in India
Have a question about the Facebook Papers? Ask The Post.
The 37-year-old former Facebook product manager who worked on civic integrity issues at the company says the documents show that Facebook knows its platforms are used to spread hate, violence and misinformation, and that the company has tried to hide that evidence.
“The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook, and Facebook over and over again chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money,” Haugen told “60 Minutes.”
“60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelly quoted one internal Facebook(FB) document as saying: “We have evidence from a variety of sources that hate speech, divisive political speech and misinformation on Facebook and the family of apps are affecting societies around the world.”
About a month ago, Haugen filed at least eight complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that the company is hiding research about its shortcomings from investors and the public. She also shared the documents with the Wall Street Journal, which published a multi-part investigation showing that Facebook was aware of problems with its apps, including the negative effects of misinformation and the harm caused, especially to young girls, by Instagram.
Haugen, who started at Facebook in 2019 after previously working for other tech giants like Google(GOOGL GOOGLE) and Pinterest(PINS), is set to testify on Tuesday before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security.
“I’ve seen a bunch of social networks, and it was substantially worse at Facebook than anything I’ve seen before,” Haugen said. “At some point in 2021, I realized I’m going to have to do this in a systemic way, that I’m going to have to get out enough [documents] that no one can question that this is real.”
Facebook has aggressively pushed back against the reports, calling many of the claims “misleading” and arguing that its apps do more good than harm.
“Every day our teams have to balance protecting the ability of billions of people to express themselves openly with the need to keep our platform a safe and positive place,” Facebook spokesperson Lena Pietsch said in a statement to CNN Business immediately following the “60 Minutes” interview. “We continue to make significant improvements to tackle the spread of misinformation and harmful content. To suggest we encourage bad content and do nothing is just not true.”
Several hours after the interview aired, Pietsch released a more than 700-word statement laying out what it called “missing facts” from the segment, and saying the interview “used select company materials to tell a misleading story about the research we do to improve our products.”
A spokesperson for “60 Minutes” did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN Business on Facebook’s claims.
On Sunday morning ahead of the “60 Minutes” interview, Facebook Vice President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg told CNN’s Brian Stelter that “there is no perfection on social media as much as in any other walk of life.”
“We do a huge amount of research, we share it with external researchers as much as we can, but do remember there is … a world of difference between doing a peer-reviewed exercise in cooperation with other academics and preparing papers internally to provoke and inform internal discussion,” Clegg said.
Haugen said she believes Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg “never set out to make a hateful platform, but he has allowed choices to be made where the side effects of those choices are that hateful and polarizing content gets more distribution and more reach.”
Whistleblower revealed
Haugen said she was recruited by Facebook in 2019 and took the job to work on addressing misinformation. But after the company decided to dissolve its civic integrity team shortly after the 2020 Presidential Election, her feelings about the company started to change.
She suggested that this decision — and moves by the company to turn off other election protection measures such as misinformation prevention tools — allowed the platform to be used to help organize the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill.
“They basically said, ‘Oh good, we made it through the election, there weren’t riots, we can get rid of civic integrity now,'” she said. “Fast forward a couple of months, and we had the Insurrection. When they got rid of civic integrity, it was the moment where I was like, ‘I don’t trust that they’re willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous.'”
Facebook says the civic integrity team’s work was distributed to other units when it was dissolved. Facebook Vice President of Integrity Guy Rosen said on Twitter Sunday night that the group was integrated into other teams so the “work pioneered for elections could be applied even further.”
The social media company’s algorithm that’s designed to show users content that they’re most likely to engage with is responsible for many of its problems, Haugen said.
“One of the consequences of how Facebook is picking out that content today is that it is optimizing for content that gets engagement, a reaction, but its own research is showing that content that is hateful, that is divisive, that is polarizing, it’s easier to inspire people to anger than it is to other emotions,” she said. She added that the company recognizes that “if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they’ll click on less ads, they’ll make less money.”
Facebook’s Pietsch said in her Sunday night statement that the platform depends on “being used in ways that bring people closer together” to attract advertisers, adding, “protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits.”
In an internal memo obtained by the New York Times earlier Sunday, Clegg disputed claims that Facebook contributed to the January 6 riot.
“Social media has had a big impact on society in recent years, and Facebook is often a place where much of this debate plays out,” Clegg said in the memo. “So it’s natural for people to ask whether it is part of the problem. But the idea that Facebook is the chief cause of polarization isn’t supported by the facts.”
Haugen said that while “no one at Facebook is malevolent … the incentives are misaligned.”
“Facebook makes more money when you consume more content. People enjoy engaging with things that elicit an emotional reaction,” she said. “And the more anger that they get exposed to, the more they interact and the more they consume.”
COACHELLA, Calif. — The sun-baked desert valley tucked behind the San Jacinto Mountains is best known for an annual music festival that draws 100,000 fans a day and a series of lush, oasis resort towns where well-heeled snowbirds go to golf, sunbathe and party. But just beyond the turquoise swimming pools of Palm Springs, more than 10,000 farmworkers harvest some of the country’s largest crops of date palms, vegetables and fruits.
Mainly undocumented immigrants, they have borne the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic in California: In some areas, up to 40 percent of the workers tested for the virus had positive results. The Rev. Francisco Gómez at Our Lady of Soledad church in Coachella said his parish had been averaging 10 burials a week. “You’re talking about an apocalyptic situation,” he said.
Ending the virus’s rampage through farm country has been one of the nation’s biggest challenges. Undocumented immigrants are notoriously wary of registering for government programs or flocking to public vaccination sites, and the idea of offering the Covid-19 vaccine to immigrants who are in the country illegally ahead of other Americans has spurred debate among some Republican members of Congress.
But a landmark effort is underway across the Coachella Valley to bring the vaccine directly into the fields. Thousands of farm workers are being pulled into pop-up vaccination clinics hosted by growers and run by the county Health Department.
Riverside County is the first in the nation to prioritize farm workers for vaccination, regardless of their age and health conditions, on a large scale. But epidemiologists say such programs will need to expand significantly to have any chance of ending one of the biggest threats to the stability of the country’s food supply.
Hundreds of coronavirus outbreaks have crippled the work force on farms and in food processing centers across the country. Researchers from Purdue University estimate that about 500,000 agricultural workers have tested positive for the virus and at least 9,000 have died from it.
In the Coachella Valley, the vaccination program, which began in January, is the culmination of a monthslong effort to educate farmworkers about Covid-19, bringing testing close to their workplaces and encouraging them to stay home if they contract the virus.
On breaks from bunching scallions, harvesting artichokes and pruning grapevines, the workers on a recent morning trickled into an open-air warehouse to receive the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
They were spared the frustrating online registration process that most Californians must navigate and the hourslong waits that were typical at mass vaccination sites. Once they agreed to be immunized, an employer or organizer scheduled their appointments. Then, all they had to do was show up.
Rosa Torres, who packs dates, said she never imagined it could be so simple. “God answered my prayers,” said Ms. Torres, 49, an immigrant from Mexico, who was resplendent in matching lime-green shirt, wool cap and mask to mark the occasion.
A single mother, she said she could not afford to get sick and miss work.
“As soon as we got word vaccines were going to be available, we were making plans,” said Janell Percy, executive director of Growing Coachella Valley, a farmer group that is working with the Health Department. Ms. Percy spends frenetic days juggling calls between the county about vaccine availability and growers who inform her of the number of vaccines needed to cover their crews.
On a recent morning, she thought all 350 vaccine slots for the next day had been filled, only to hear from a grower that he had nine extra shots from his allotment.
“I got to find a grower who wants these so they don’t go to waste,” Ms. Percy said as she updated the sheet where she keeps track of distributions with a pencil and an eraser.
The challenges to getting farmworkers vaccinated go well beyond worries about their immigration status. The odds of being able to sign up for a vaccine online are low in a population that often lacks broadband access and faces language barriers. Many cannot easily reach vaccination sites in urban areas because they do not have reliable transportation or the ability to leave work in the middle of the day.
“Farmworkers are living in a reality that is foreign to most of us, and they are invisible to most of us, but they produce billions of dollars in food distributed across the United States,” said Conrado Bárzaga, chief executive of the Desert Healthcare District.
In March 2020, the federal government designated farmworkers as essential — a status that enabled them to continue working under stay-at-home orders but also put them at heightened risk of getting the virus.
Policymakers have struggled with how to protect them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised giving agricultural workers early access to the vaccine, but states have taken a range of approaches.
Most have not yet started vaccinating agricultural workers, though many have identified them as a priority population.Most have prioritized people age 65 or older, and the average age of farmworkers is 39, with more than half under 44.
In California, several counties hope in March to expand eligibility to the entire agricultural work force. Colorado, Idaho, Michigan and Wisconsin are among states that have said they intend to start vaccinating farmworkers in the coming weeks.
But other states have taken steps that could discourage workers from coming forward.
In Florida, a citrus powerhouse, people must prove residency to get a vaccine, a requirement that tends to deter unauthorized immigrants. Some pharmacies in Georgia, where people older than 65 are currently eligible for vaccines, have turned away immigrants unable to show a Social Security number. In Nebraska, where immigrants are the backbone of the large meatpacking industry, people without legal status will be vaccinated last, officials said.
In Riverside County, farmworker advocates and growers have been fielding calls from across the country about the vaccination effort, which is considered a model for how to administer vaccines to this population.
“It’s not just that they prioritized farmworkers — they developed a comprehensive, innovative strategy to ensure vaccine access and acceptance in farmworker communities,” said Alexis Guild, director of health policy at Farmworker Justice, a national advocacy organization.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, after a visit to a Coachella pop-up site on Feb. 17, announced that California would make 34,000 vaccines available to farmworkers in the Central Valley, the state’s agricultural heartland. “What this county has done no other county in the state had done,” he said. “We need to replicate this program all up and down the state of California.”
But some in Riverside County, which stretches from working-class Los Angeles exurbs to the Salton Sea, have questioned whether farmworkers should be at the front of the line.
On a recent evening in Beaumont, about a 30-minute drive from the Coachella Valley, people who had snagged appointments for vaccines through the process available to most California residents — mainly over 65 — idled in their cars for hours in the parking lot of a local middle school.
David Huetten, 73, said those confined to wheelchairs in his retirement community had been unable to reach vaccination events like this one. “When you have seniors and teachers who haven’t been vaccinated, I wouldn’t put farmworkers at the top of the list,” he said.
In the nearby town of Banning, Olga Rausch, a 73-year-old retired waitress who had still not been able to sign up for a vaccine, questioned why farmworkers should go before other blue-collar workers who also cannot afford to stay home from work. “There are a lot of people living in crowded conditions,” she said. “Why aren’t busboys, dishwashers and people working at the 99-cent store getting the vaccine?”
Most people, however, felt it made sense to prioritize farmworkers. “They’re handling our food,” said Don Tandy, a 66-year-old Vietnam veteran.
Health officials everywhere are grappling with how to achieve equitable vaccine distribution. President Biden has repeatedly said that delivering the vaccine is core to his coronavirus response, but early data shows that doses have been slower to reach some Black and Latino communities with an elevated risk of infection.
In Riverside County, Hispanics represent nearly half of the population but have so far received only 20 percent of doses. Vaccinating farmworkers is a first step toward addressing the equity problem, said U.S. Representative Raul Ruiz, a physician who grew up in Riverside County.
“We have a moral responsibility to make sure that we do not leave people behind simply because they lack resources or live in certain ZIP codes,” said Mr. Ruiz, a Democrat, who has been visiting rural communities to encourage residents to get vaccinated.
It has not been easy.
Like many Americans, some farmworkers worry the vaccine is not safe, because disinformation has proliferated on social media. Others fear that being vaccinated could expose them to immigration enforcement.
Prime Time International, the nation’s largest grower of bell peppers, invited workers to register for the vaccine last month, and “the first question was, ‘Is immigration going to be there?’” recalled Garrett Cardilino, director of field operations for the company.
To assuage those fears, Riverside County enlisted grass roots organizations to reach out to farmworkers and reassure them.
“There is no chip to track you; there is no negative effect; you don’t lose your fertility,” Montserrat Gomez, an educator with TODEC, a legal-aid nonprofit organization that serves immigrants, told a group of about 30 workers in masks gathered by a spinach field in the town of Winchester.
“The vaccine is now available for you,” she said. “Many people wish they had this opportunity.”
Asked whether they knew anyone who had been stricken by the virus, most of the workers raised their hands. Several knew someone who had died.
Rose Perez, a 36-year-old worker at Full Farms, a vegetable farm in the city of Hemet, said she remained suspicious of the vaccine, even though her sister had become gravely ill with the coronavirus. “I read that nurses died after taking the vaccine,” she said. “No one in my family is taking it.”
Domingo Juan, a Guatemalan, also said he did not trust the vaccine: “This sickness has been around for a long time. Suddenly there’s a cure?”
But after the talk, several workers returned to the fields to harvest bok choy and said they were ready to sign up.
Among them was Luis Valdivia, 48, who recently recovered from the virus but had to go without pay during his illness. “I suffered too much, lost 37 pounds,” said Mr. Valdivia, his voice still hoarse after weeks of intense coughing. “I’ll take the vaccine; that way, I’ll be able to keep working.”
Two rows over, America Aguilera, 46, said she could not remember undocumented immigrants getting preferential treatment for anything in her 21 years in the United States. “With all due respect,” she said, “it’s about time we got the opportunity to be first at something.”
A judge on Tuesday ordered all inmates in the Oregon prison system to be prioritized for COVID-19 vaccinations — a move that should make prisoners immediately eligible for inoculation.
The preliminary injunction orders all Oregon Department of Corrections inmates be offered a vaccine as part of phase 1A, group 2, of Oregon’s COVID-19 vaccination plan — putting prison inmates in the same category as people living in nursing homes and other congregate care settings.
The order should make prisoners eligible for vaccines now, but it’s not clear if they’ll move ahead of teachers or the elderly. But given that the Oregon Health Authority dictates where vaccines are shipped, the state has the ability to redirect doses for prisons.
“This will save an incredible amount of lives,” said Juan Chavez, an Oregon Justice Resource Center attorney who is representing a group of seven inmates.
The order will allow adults in custody to “stand in the same line” as others in congregate living facilities with a high risk of COVID-19 infection, Chavez said.
“As far as jumping the line ahead of anybody, they should’ve been vaccinated already,” he said.
The decision comes after seven inmates at Oregon correctional facilities filed motions Jan. 21 for the federal government to intervene and immediately compel the state to vaccinate all prison inmates against COVID-19. The same inmates first filed a class action lawsuit in federal court last April seeking protection against the spread of COVID-19.
Inmates across the state have described horrid conditions in the state’s correctional facilities as 3,392 cases of COVID-19 and 42 deaths have been confirmed in prisons to date.
In her ruling, U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie Beckerman noted state officials had prioritized residents of other types of congregate care settings, such as nursing homes, but bypassed inmates, despite widespread COVID-19 outbreaks in the state’s prisons.
The decision to exclude the state’s prison population from high-tier priority lists demonstrated “deliberate indifference to the serious risk of harm” prisoners face from COVID-19, the judge concluded.
Beckerman was unswayed by the state’s argument that the public interest called for teachers to be vaccinated first, so children could return to school. The judge pointed out the prisoners’ attorneys weren’t asking for inmates to be vaccinated first, just that they be vaccinated at the same time as teachers.
Chavez pointed out that Oregon’s current rate of vaccination is about 12,000 a day — roughly the same size of the state prison population. Any diversion of vaccines would be equivalent to a day’s worth of vaccines administered, compared to the previous plan, which put prisoners behind 900,000 others, he said.
To date, the state has used 65% of its vaccine allotment, according to Oregon Health Authority numbers.
MULTNOMAH COUNTY JAIL VACCINATIONS
The first vaccinations of Multnomah County Jail inmates began Tuesday, as the county administered vaccines to 108 adults at the Inverness Jail. More inmates will be vaccinated once more doses are available, according to Julie Sullivan-Springhetti, a county spokeswoman.
Sullivan-Springhetti said the county has always planned to treat jails as part of the high-risk congregate settings category for vaccinations.
These vaccinations began as two more outbreaks have been reported in Multnomah County and Josephine County jails in recent days.
There have been 107 cases of COVID-19 and no deaths during the Inverness Jail’s current outbreak, which began Jan. 15, Sullivan-Springhetti said. That’s equivalent to 21% of the current population of 512 inmates.
An ongoing outbreak at the Multnomah County Detention Center also has affected 26 staff and 10 inmates since October.
To prevent further spread at the Inverness Jail, at least two dormitories have been placed in isolation and three others on quarantine, according to the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office.
All inmates who tested positive for COVID-19 have been moved into an isolation dorm for about two weeks. Those who have been exposed to the coronavirus but tested negative are in quarantine for the same amount of time.
Those in quarantine are being tested every few days and anyone with symptoms is offered COVID-19 testing, Sullivan-Springhetti said.
The outbreak has caused delays in court hearings for those in the affected dorms, according to Multnomah Public Defender Michael Rees.
A release hearing for one of his clients was abruptly canceled last week, Rees said, and a remote hearing via video was not rescheduled until Tuesday morning. Rees said he was told the hearing was canceled because his client was in a locked down dorm.
“I think the jail should’ve started taking this seriously ages ago,” Rees said. “People sitting in there are at risk of serious illness and death.”
The Inverness Jail is at about 77% capacity, according to the most recent figures from Sullivan-Springhetti. The county reduced its jail population by 30% near the start of the pandemic due to fewer arrests, early releases of sentenced inmates and stepped-up pretrial releases.
The Josephine County Sheriff’s Office reported 30 inmates have tested positive for COVID-19 using rapid testing since Jan. 26. All inmates and staff will be tested again Feb. 8 to verify the results using PCR testing, which uses genetic material.
The OHA, meanwhile, reported 619 new confirmed or presumptive coronavirus cases and 23 more deaths Tuesday.
Here are today’s coronavirus numbers:
Where the new cases are by county: Baker (2), Benton (16), Clackamas (59), Clatsop (8), Columbia (2), Coos (10), Crook (3), Curry (2), Deschutes (18), Douglas (15), Harney (3), Hood River (7), Jackson (54), Jefferson (5), Josephine (23), Klamath (18), Lake (3), Lane (32), Lincoln (5), Linn (10), Malheur (5), Marion (42), Morrow (1), Multnomah (135), Polk (21), Sherman (3), Tillamook (2), Umatilla (25), Union (9), Wallowa (3), Wasco (4), Washington (64) and Yamhill (10).
Deaths:
The 1,905th death is a 72-year-old Clackamas County man who tested positive Jan. 12 and died Jan. 23 at Legacy Meridian Park Medical Center.
The 1,906th death is a 90-year-old Clackamas County woman who tested positive Jan. 3 and died Jan. 16 at her residence.
The 1,907th death is an 88-year-old Clackamas County woman who tested positive Dec. 29 and died Jan. 24 at her residence.
The 1,908th death is a 90-year-old Deschutes County woman who tested positive Jan. 22 and died Jan. 26 at her residence.
The 1,909th death is an 82-year-old Deschutes County woman who tested positive Jan. 4 and died Jan. 19 at her residence.
The 1,910th death is a 79-year-old Deschutes County woman who tested positive Jan. 8 and died Jan. 19 at St. Charles Bend Hospital.
The 1,911th death is a 68-year-old Deschutes County woman who tested positive Jan. 4 and died Jan. 5 at her residence.
The 1,912th death is a 70-year-old Douglas County man who tested positive Jan. 6 and died Jan. 26 at Mercy Medical Center.
The 1,913th death is an 81-year-old Hood River County woman who tested positive Jan. 12 and died Jan. 27 at her residence.
The 1,914th death is a 93-year-old Jackson County woman who tested positive Jan. 28 and died Jan. 29 at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center.
The 1,915th death is an 86-year-old Jackson County woman who tested positive Dec. 24 and died Jan. 1 at her residence.
The 1,916th death is a 91-year-old Jackson County man who tested positive Dec. 27 and died Jan. 17 at his residence.
The 1,917th death is an 88-year-old Columbia County man who became symptomatic Dec. 26 after contact with a confirmed case and died Jan. 25 at his residence.
The 1,918th death is an 81-year-old Jackson County man who tested positive Jan. 23 and died Jan. 29 at his residence.
The 1,919th death is an 83-year-old Klamath County woman who tested positive Jan. 20 and died Jan. 28 at her residence.
The 1,920th death is an 89-year-old Klamath County woman who tested positive Jan. 20 and died Jan. 26 at Sky Lakes Medical Center.
The 1,921st death is a 74-year-old Klamath County man who tested positive Jan. 11 and died Jan. 23 at his residence.
The 1,922nd death is an 86-year-old Klamath County woman who tested positive Jan. 4 and died Jan. 21 at her residence.
The 1,923rd death is an 87-year-old Lake County woman who tested positive Jan. 27 and died Jan. 29 at Lake District Hospital.
The 1,924th death is a 71-year-old Lincoln County woman who tested positive Jan. 9 and died Jan. 27 at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center.
The 1,925th death is an 85-year-old Malheur County woman who tested positive Jan. 13 and died Jan. 26 at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho.
The 1,926th death is a 75-year-old Marion County man who tested positive Jan. 16 and died Jan. 28 at Salem Hospital.
The 1,927th death is a 43-year-old man in Marion County who tested positive Dec. 31 and died Jan. 25 at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center.
The 1,928th death is a 69-year-old Marion County man who tested positive Dec. 31 and died Jan. 26 at Salem Hospital.
The 1,929th death is a 64-year-old Marion County woman who tested positive Dec. 26 and died Jan. 28 at Salem Hospital.
The 1,930th death is a 76-year-old Marion County woman who tested positive Dec. 21 and died Jan. 26 at Salem Hospital.
The 1,931st death is an 88-year-old Marion County man who tested positive Nov. 19 and died Dec. 12 at his residence.
The 1,932nd death is an 84-year-old Marion County woman who tested positive Nov. 8 and died Nov. 29 at her residence.
The 1,933rd death is a 90-year-old Marion County man who tested positive Jan. 26 and died Jan. 29 at Legacy Meridian Park Medical Center.
The 1,934th death is an 86-year-old Marion County man who tested positive Jan. 17 and died Jan. 26 at his residence.
The 1,935th death is an 82-year-old Morrow County man who tested positive Jan. 5 and died Jan. 24 at St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center in Idaho. He had no underlying conditions.
The 1,936th death is a 72-year-old Washington County man who died Jan. 5 at Portland VA Medical Center. His death certificate listed disease or SARS-CoV-2 as a cause of death or a significant condition contributing to death.
The 1,937th death is a 67-year-old Washington County woman who tested positive Dec. 13 and died Jan. 1 at her residence.
The 1,938th death is a 53-year-old Washington County man who died Dec. 6 at his residence. His death certificate listed disease or SARS-CoV-2 as a cause of death or a significant condition contributing to death.
The 1,939th death is a 97-year-old Washington County woman who tested positive Dec. 9 and died Jan. 17 at her residence.
The 1,940th death is a 74-year-old Washington County man who died Jan. 5 at his residence. His death certificate listed disease or SARS-CoV-2 as a cause of death or a significant condition contributing to death.
The 1,941st death is an 84-year-old Union County woman who tested positive Jan. 20 and died Jan. 29 at Grande Ronde Hospital.
The 1,942nd death is a 79-year-old Polk County man who tested positive Jan. 13 and died Jan. 25 at Salem Hospital.
The 1,943rd death is a 69-year-old Multnomah County man who tested positive Jan. 5 and died Jan. 23 at Oregon Health & Science University.
The 1,944th death is a 53-year-old Multnomah County woman who tested positive Dec. 26 and died Jan. 6 at Adventist Hospital.
The 1,945th death is a 59-year-old woman in Multnomah County who tested positive Dec. 8 and died Jan. 8 at Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center.
The 1,946th death is a 75-year-old Multnomah County man who tested positive Dec. 3 and died Jan. 4 at his residence.
The 1,947th death is a 78-year-old Multnomah County man who tested positive Nov. 30 and died Dec. 14 at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center.
The 1,948th death is an 85-year-old Multnomah County woman who tested positive Nov. 23 and died Nov. 28 at her residence.
The 1,949th death is a 93-year-old Multnomah County woman who tested positive Nov. 11 and died Nov. 21 at her residence.
The 1,950th death is a 93-year-old Multnomah County woman who died Dec. 6 at her residence. Her death certificate listed disease or SARS-CoV-2 as a cause of death or a significant condition contributing to death.
The 1,951st death is a 95-year-old Washington County woman who tested positive Jan. 4 and died Jan. 28 at her residence. She had no underlying conditions.
The 1,952nd death is a 73-year-old Washington County woman who tested positive Jan. 11 and died Jan. 18 at OHSU Health Hillsboro Medical Center.
The 1,953rd death is a 95-year-old Washington County woman who died Jan. 22 at her residence. Her death certificate listed disease or SARS-CoV-2 as a cause of death or a significant condition contributing to death.
The 1,954th death is a 67-year-old Yamhill County woman who tested positive Jan. 8 and died Jan. 26 at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center.
The 1,955th death is a 66-year-old Yamhill County man who tested positive Jan. 12 and died Jan. 22 at his residence.
The 1,956th death is a 98-year-old Yamhill County woman who tested positive Jan. 19 and died Jan. 22 at her residence.
The 1,957th death is an 85-year-old Yamhill County woman who tested positive Jan. 21 and died Jan. 22 at her residence.
The 1,958th death is an 81-year-old Crook County man who tested positive Jan. 1 and died Jan. 23 at St. Charles Bend Hospital.
Unless noted above, each person who died had underlying health conditions or state officials were working to determine if the person had underlying medical conditions.
The prevalence of infections: The state reported 699 new positive tests out of 16,540 tests performed, equaling a 4.2% positivity rate.
Who got infected: New confirmed or presumed infections grew among the following age groups: 0-9 (37); 10-19 (67); 20-29 (101); 30-39 (109); 40-49 (93); 50-59 (76); 60-69 (62); 70-79 (43); 80 and older (20).
Who’s in the hospital: The state reported 262 Oregonians with confirmed coronavirus infections in the hospital Tuesday, nine fewer than Monday. Of those, 61 coronavirus patients were in intensive care units, three fewer than Monday.
Vaccines: Oregon reported 454,246 doses of vaccine have been administered, or about 65% of the doses received. Oregon reported 15,967 newly administered doses, which includes 10,712 on Monday and the remainder from previous days.
Since it began: Oregon has reported 143,978 confirmed or presumed infections and 1,981 deaths, among the lowest per capita numbers in the nation. To date, the state has reported 3,218,747 lab reports from tests.
