Washington County COVID-19 Risk Level Decreasing

By Ethan Tsai

Sunset High School is located in Washington county, a county that used to be one of two counties in Oregon with the highest COVID-19 count in the state. However, recently, Washington County was redesignated as being “high” risk instead of “extreme” as new case numbers continue to decrease.

According to Patch News, around 60% of Washington county citizens have gotten at least one COVID-19 vaccine as of May 17, and as of late April about 38% of adults had been fully vaccinated.

Willamette Education Service District reports that Washington County was able to reach their set goal of having less than 1 case per 500 people by May 17th. This drop in cases has led to the redesignation of Washington county to “high” risk instead of “extreme.”

Data from Washington County’s own research sources corroborate this line of thinking as well, with the most recent case data in May being a significant decrease from the largest spike experienced by the state in early winter.

However, recently, COVID-19 cases have fluctuated. Case numbers reached up to 148 on May 4, and are only now beginning to drop again.

Yet, likely as a result more people getting vaccinated, the average case numbers in the past two weeks have been around 80–90 cases per day, a significant decrease.

Sunset High School has also experienced a limited number of COVID-19, with only one student case and no staff cases being reported. The Scroll does not know whether or not the student case was a CDL or in-person student.

The latest data, at the time of writing, shows an average of about 50 cases per day between 5/16 and 5/20, perhaps signalling that the virus is slowing down. On the other hand, we could see a rise in cases as people emerge from their homes this summer.

With this knowledge, BSD officials are currently planning for Sunset High School and other schools in Washington County to reopen in the fall.