UMATILLA COUNTY — While the governor’s office reviews Umatilla County’s and the other 32 applications to enter the first phase of reopening on Friday, more details emerged Tuesday about how it plans to meet the state’s criteria.

The first phase of Gov. Kate Brown’s plan allows restaurants, bars, personal service providers and retailers to reopen with modified accommodations specific to each business sector. Counties were able to begin applying to enter this phase last week, but must show the ability to meet conditions outlined by the state.

But after submitting its plan to meet those conditions on May 8, Umatilla County and the rest of the state were still waiting Wednesday for a decision from the state.

“The latest we’ve heard is (Thursday) morning,” Umatilla County Commissioner George Murdock said Wednesday of the state’s decision on reopening. “The entire business community is on hold. We’re going to follow the regulations either way, but we can’t leave people hanging.”

The governor’s office announced later on Wednesday that Brown will hold a press conference Thursday at 10 a.m. to announce the counties that meet the state’s standards to being reopening Friday.

Those conditions include declining levels of COVID-19 hospital admissions over a 14-day period, minimum levels of testing and contact tracing capacity, hospital surge capacity, outbreak contingencies and personal protection equipment.

According to an email Murdock sent to public officials Tuesday, the decline in hospitalizations standard isn’t anticipated to be a problem after Umatilla County reported just two active hospitalizations among its 87 total cases as of Wednesday.

“Hospitalizations have remained about one or two and would likely be at or below that number on May 15,” the email stated. “It is hard to measure declines when hospitalizations have been negligible.”

There have been 1,097 total COVID-19 tests done in the county in the 10 weeks since the Umatilla County Public Health Department began tracking the virus locally March 2, which is an average of just over 100 tests per week. The county needs to more than double that rate to a capacity of 240 per week to meet the state’s standards, and there’s some options in place with local testing expanding in recent weeks.

Interpath Labs in Pendleton can test six times per week at a rate of 300 individuals per day, Murdock’s email stated, while St. Anthony Hospital in Pendleton and Good Shepherd Medical Center in Hermiston can each test 30 individuals per day. St. Anthony also has a clinic that can conduct an additional 30 tests per day, according to Tuesday’s message.

The county also considers both its hospitals to have “significant capacity at this time” along with stocks of personal protective equipment that “exceed” the state’s requirement of either 14- or 30-day supply, Murdock wrote in the message.

The county opened its new contact tracing center on the third floor of the Umatilla County Courthouse in Pendleton on Sunday, and Murdock said it’s fully operational; six new contact tracers are being hired and trained so they can ideally begin to help as early as Friday.

While Umatilla County would be required to have 12 tracers on staff by the state’s metric of 15 tracers per 100,000 people, Murdock wrote Tuesday that the county hopes to employ additional tracers and “is prepared to trace 95% of all new cases within 24 hours.”

In the event of an outbreak — especially in a congregate setting like a long-term care facility or the county jail — the county has developed plans for mass testing and tracking. According to Tuesday’s update, the Umatilla County Public Health Department has 150 test kits on hand to be given to a facility and sent to the Oregon State Public Health Lab if mass testing were needed, and has locations in mind for drive-thru testing as well.

“There are already identified possible locations for (drive-thru) screening capacity in Hermiston, Pendleton and Milton-Freewater,” Murdock wrote in the message. “These locations have been used in previous hospital or UCo Health sponsored (drive-thru) vaccination clinics.”

St. Anthony Hospital and Good Shepherd Medical Center are both already offering some drive-thru testing as well, according to the update.

The county’s plan includes personal protective equipment stocks that would be needed for a mass testing event, which would require support from a stockpile owned by Umatilla County Emergency Management.

Murdock said the county is also in the process of finalizing contracts with local hotels in Pendleton and Hermiston in the event that an outbreak spreads among homeless individuals or those who don’t have the means to isolate themselves.

But as the county’s plan for a Friday reopening becomes clearer, it still has to wait on the official word from Salem.

“We really need to get this information soon,” Mudock said. “It’s not like you can call up a restaurant on Thursday night and say, ‘OK, be ready for breakfast Friday morning.’”