SALEM — Gov. Kate Brown said Tuesday, Sept. 28, she was “gravely concerned” about an alarming spike in COVID-19 cases across Eastern Oregon with a common factor — the Pendleton Round-Up.

During a morning press call, Brown and state health officials gave an upbeat update on the state’s efforts against the highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19. Statewide, the COVID-19 surge of late summer and early fall “appears to have reached its peak,” said deputy state epidemiologist Dr. Tom Jeanne.

Brown hailed the state’s efforts in curbing new infections and hospitalizations as the state appeared to descend from a two-month spike in cases that set new pandemic records in Oregon.

It was only during a question and answer period at the end of the presentation that the Pendleton Round-Up spike was addressed as a sour point in the state’s progress.

County and tribal health officials reported Sept. 27 the spike in COVID-19 cases in Umatilla County had been tied to the annual rodeo event held Sept. 15-18.

At least 95 COVID-19 cases have been traced back to the event and all its venues, up from 49 Sept. 27 and 68 Sept. 28, according to Umatilla County Public Health Director Joe Fiumara. And health officials across Eastern Oregon are reporting a surge in cases.

“That was a very large outdoor event,” Jeanne said of the Round-Up. “And there may not have been great compliance with masking there. We do expect to see some impact on cases from that, but it’s still too early to know the full extent of that.”

Umatilla County reported 167 COVID-19 cases on Sept. 28, more than any other county in Oregon. The county’s total set a new pandemic record for cases reported in a single day and brought average daily cases to the highest levels since the pandemic started.

CHI St. Anthony in Pendleton and Good Shepherd Medical Center in Hermiston reported they are seeing more patients hospitalized with COVID-19.

A spokesperson with Good Shepherd said in an email that nine people had been admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 over the past week, a “slight increase” from the previous week. A spokesperson with St. Anthony said six people were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Sept. 28, adding “we are pretty full, but not to the brim from what I understand.”

When pressed for her level of alarm amid the outbreak, Brown said in the news conference first and foremost that she did not attend the Round-Up because she was concerned about community spread.

Brown said she was well aware of the regional case spike “as a result of the Pendleton Round-Up,” but she still said “it’s a little early,” noting the Round-Up only ended a few weeks ago.

Deadly month

But the state’s own numbers, along with those from federal and non-government groups, painted a darker picture.

There were 424 COVID-19 deaths in Oregon in September as of Sept. 27, making September the third deadliest month of the pandemic.

September surpassed August’s death toll and could exceed the January total of 476 by the end of the month.

Oregon’s Hospital Capacity Web System, which tracks availability of hospital beds in the state, reported Sept. 27 that only six of 89 staffed adult intensive care unit beds east of the Cascades were available.

The Pendleton Round-Up was canceled in 2020 amid COVID-19 concerns, but plans moved forward in early summer as Brown dropped many restrictions on activities when COVID-19 cases appeared to bottom out at the end of June.

The event went off as scheduled despite a steep wave of cases linked to the the highly contagious delta variant that swept across Oregon and filled state hospitals to capacity.

It’s still too early to say if cases foreshadow a new spike statewide and health officials are watching closely for that possibility, Jeanne said.

Brown did not voice any regret in not overriding local officials’ decision to go ahead with the event. The Round-Up brought tens of thousands of people into an area with high infection rates and where just 51% of eligible adults were vaccinated. Many of the visitors came from areas in neighboring states where vaccination rates were also low.

Brown said the state had pressed officials across Oregon to encourage safety protocols, including mask mandates. She pointed to other states where people are gathering en masse without a mandate.

“If you watch an Ohio (State) football game in Ohio, those stadiums filled with 100,000 people, there is hardly a mask there,” Brown said. “That is very different here in Oregon.”

Prior to the mid-September event in Pendleton, Brown said it was up to local officials to ensure the safety of the crowd. As for those who attended, she said they should mask up, follow social distancing guidelines, but otherwise “Let ‘er Buck,” per the Round-Up’s slogan.

But masks were few and far between throughout the Round-Up, even though organizers were offering thousands of them and had posted signs encouraging masking and distancing.

‘It is inevitable’

Fiumara, Umatilla County Public Heath boss, has said the number of COVID-19 cases tied to the Round-Up is an undercount, as many people who have tested positive are aware of others who have and are not cooperating with health officials. The reported cases include people who had COVID-19 symptoms prior to the event and yet still chose to come, officials have said.

“When so many people come together in one location, it is inevitable,” Umatilla County Commissioner George Murdock said in an email. “The same thing has happened each time restrictions in Oregon have been lifted.”

No county or state officials voiced any interest publicly in stopping the Pendleton Round-Up from happening.

Until this past week, COVID-19 cases had declined statewide for three consecutive weeks.

But state officials acknowledged in the press conference that cases had flat-lined over the previous week. They cited the Pendleton Round-Up outbreak specifically as one of several factors contributing to this trend.

Last week, Umatilla County reported 505 new COVID-19 cases, the county’s second-highest total since the pandemic started.

On Sept. 28, the county’s average daily cases reached a new pandemic high, topping its previous record set in August, a month when more county residents died with COVID-19 than any other month — 22.

But public health directors for Umatilla County and the Umatilla Indian Reservation voiced alarm in recent days about the speed with which the outbreak has unfolded.

County officials have said they are preparing for the surge to continue for several weeks. In response, tribal officials reinstated pandemic restrictions that hearken back to those from the pandemic’s early stages, including limited social gatherings.

Hospital strain

Brown said she was “very, very concerned” with what this means for hospitals, adding that rural communities generally have less access to health care than counties in Western Oregon.

“Honestly, I’m very concerned about the capacity of health care workers themselves,” she said. “They have been working day in and day out for the last several weeks providing incredibly valuable patient care, life-saving care. And to have an additional surge on top of it is incredibly frustrating, I’m sure, for them after they have worked so hard.”

Brown in August announced a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for teachers and health care workers with an Oct. 18 deadline, citing the alarming rise in cases driven by the delta variant.

Besides Wheeler County, more than a quarter of health care workers in every county in Eastern Oregon county are unvaccinated, according to state data. All would be fired or forced to resign under Brown’s current mandate.

Last week, Dr. Jon Hitzman, Umatilla County’s public health officer, said if a COVID-19 surge were to follow the Pendleton Round-Up, its peak would occur right around the mandate’s deadline, placing a greater strain on hospitals that already are short-staffed.

In the press conference, Brown said she was “pushing forward on our vaccine requirement for health care workers because we have a really stark choice right now: a vaccinated workforce that can continue to work through our COVID surges like the one we’re likely to see again from the Pendleton Round-Up, or an unvaccinated workforce that’s depleted by quarantines and illness.”

Much of the briefing was taken up with mostly upbeat news of overall drop of statewide cases, approval of booster shots for some Pfizer vaccine recipients, and the usual requests for continued voluntary masking and social distancing.

The rising numbers in Umatilla County led the independent pandemic monitoring group COVID Act Now to raise the county’s risk rating to its highest level: Extreme.

Since first appearing in Wuhan, China, at the very end of 2019, COVID-19 has infected 232.6 million people worldwide and killed 4.76 million, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. In the United States, 43.2 million cases have been reported and 692,058 have died.