October 10, 2020 8:00 a.m.

On Friday, Governor Kate Brown announced that Umatilla County has been put back on the County Watch List.

A release said the addition comes after that county was removed from the Watch List on September 18th. Umatilla remains in Phase 2 of reopening.

Brown said this is the first time a county has been added back onto the Watch List. She said combined with Thursday’s record high statewide case count, “…this is a sign that we must tread cautiously or we risk losing the gains we’ve made in slowing the spread of COVID-19”. Brown said her priority is getting kids in every county safely back in school, but that will become more and more difficult if COVID-19 case numbers spike.

Counties are placed on the Watch List when COVID-19 is spreading quickly and public health officials cannot trace that spread to specific sources – creating a potentially dangerous dynamic. Specific markers of rapid community spread include when there is a sporadic case rate of 50 or more per 100,000 people in the last two weeks and the county has had more than five sporadic cases in the last two weeks. Communities remain on the watch list for a minimum of three weeks and until their sporadic case rates drop below these thresholds.

The release said the County Watch List allows the state to prioritize resources and assistance to counties that are seeing the broadest spread of COVID-19.

The complete County Watch List now includes Benton, Clatsop, Malheur and Umatilla.