August 7, 2020 10:00 a.m.

On Thursday, Oregon Governor Kate Brown updated the County Watch List.

A release from Brown said Lake County has succeeded in reducing the spread of COVID-19 sufficiently to be removed from the list. That brings the number of counties on the Watch List to nine.

Brown applauded Lake County officials and community members for their work. She said, this is “…another example of how we can control the spread of this disease by working together”.

The release said the County Watch List allows the state to prioritize resources and assistance to counties that are seeing the broadest community spread of COVID-19. When a county is placed on the list, the Oregon Health Authority increases monitoring and communication, and deploys additional technical assistance and resources, such as epidemiological support, case investigation, and contract tracing help. The release said counties remain on the Watch List for a minimum of three weeks and until their sporadic case rate drops below the lists’ thresholds. Those are sporadic case rates of 50 or more people per 100,000 people, and more than five sporadic cases, in the last two weeks.

The release said Marion County, which was added to the list last week, recently completed investigations that identified sources for cases that were reported last week as sporadic. Marion County will remain on the list, to monitor for any increase in community spread.

The current County Watch List includes Baker, Hood River, Jefferson, Malheur, Marion, Morrow, Multnomah, Umatilla and Wasco counties.