PENDLETON — What was long a fear among Umatilla County’s health care workers appears to be coming true — COVID-19 cases are rising because of the Pendleton Round-Up.

In recent days, local governments and their public health authorities began acknowledging the rodeo was having an effect on the spread of COVID-19. The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Board of Trustees on Monday, Sept. 27, ratified a public health emergency declaration made Sept. 24, which was quickly followed by new gathering restrictions.

In a statement, a tribal health official cited Round-Up specifically when talking about a new surge of cases on the reservation.

In an interview, Joe Fiumara, the director of Umatilla County Public Health, said his department has traced nearly 50 cases to Round-Up before admitting a lack of contact tracing cooperation from COVID-19 patients meant the outbreak likely was much larger. The cases stem from venues across the event from Sept. 11 through Sept. 22 and include people who came to the Round-Up already having COVID-19.

“We were dropping ahead of the state,” Fiumara said. “I believe they are still dropping. And if we’re not now, it doesn’t take a whole lot of thought to come up with some reasons why.”

Saying the Pendleton Round-Up Association has not seen the case numbers from the tribes or the county, Round-Up General Manager Erika Patton declined to comment.

{p dir=”ltr”}Rudy Owens, a spokesperson with the Oregon Health Authority, said in an email that the state is offering “assistance to local and tribal health authorities with outbreak investigation, case investigation, testing, and contact tracing.”

Last week, Oregon saw a decline in COVID-19 cases for the third straight week. Umatilla County’s cases had followed that trend, dropping below 400 weekly cases for the first time in more than a month. But by the end of last week, the county’s cases began to tick upward, topping out with the second-highest weekly total since the pandemic began — 505.

‘Cases have spiked quickly’

Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center recorded 72 new cases last week. In a statement, interim Yellowhawk CEO Aaron Hines mentioned Round-Up when talking about the surge in new cases.

“This emergency declaration is needed to help protect our community,” he said. “We knew that a surge in positive COVID-19 cases was possible following the Pendleton Round-Up. What we’ve seen from this past week is that the cases have spiked quickly.”

While the tribes have largely aligned their COVID-19 rules with the state in recent months, they’re hearkening to the early days of the pandemic by going further in their restrictions. On the same day the tribal trustees declared a public health emergency, the incident command team prohibited social gatherings of six people or more from two different households and capped attendance at Nixyaawii Community School events at 75.

The CTUIR has organized several mass vaccination events and engaged with tribal members directly about getting the vaccine, but the tribes’ 47% vaccination rate remains below its 70% goal.

The board on Sept. 2 announced it was requiring all COVID-19 screeners and staff at Yellowhawk, the Umatilla Tribal Fire Department and the CTUIR Education Department to get vaccinated by Sept. 30. But at the meeting Sept. 27, the board of trustees unanimously voted to extend that deadline to Oct. 31. Unvaccinated staff in those departments will be required to get tested for COVID-19 on a weekly basis and wear a face mask during work hours until then.

Yellowhawk has reported a total of 569 cases and four deaths over the course of the pandemic. Although the agency is seeing a significant number of breakthrough cases, 80% of cases are attributed to non-vaccinated patients.

Lack of cooperation means inaccurate count

Joe Fiumara, the county’s public health director, said the county has traced 49 COVID-19 cases back to Round-Up events so far.

“What’s disheartening is that people who had symptoms chose to partake,” he said. “That’s something people don’t seem to understand — if you have symptoms, please stay home.”

The Pendleton Round-Up and Happy Canyon took several measures to heed state and local health guidelines and mandates. Contractors and staff were “subject to wear a mask when not actively engaged in the events,” and guests over the age of 5 were “requested to wear a mask” if they were not having food or beverages, the organizers said in a Facebook post. The event had hand sanitizer, hand washing stations, medical personnel, ambulance coverage and “increased” medical room size and coverage.

Signs recommending masks were posted throughout the event. They reminded attendees of the potential risks of COVID-19: “By your participation in the event, you are accepting the potential risk of COVID-19 exposure,” the signs said.

But masks were few and far between at the event. And there was no proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 tests required to enter the Round-Up Grounds.

“I was disappointed in the lack of support from the Round-Up staff, volunteers, in showcasing the masking and encouraging the mask-wearing,” Fiumara added. “And I’m worried we may be looking at the price we’re going to pay for that.”

The 49 cases are surely an undercount, Fiumara added. Many attendees who have fallen ill and know others who have are not cooperating with health officials. That means, for now, it is almost impossible for the county to determine how large the outbreak is.

Hines and Fiumara said they were expecting to see a case spike following the Round-Up. But the latest spike is quicker and steeper than they anticipated.

“My concern is that we will end up with more deaths out of this,” Fiumara said. “And many of them likely could have been avoided. We don’t know how vaccinated the crowd was.”

For months, Umatilla County’s vaccination rate has remained among the lowest statewide. Because of that, county officials have voiced concerns about the Round-Up’s potential as a super-spreader event for months — particularly after the the Pendleton Whisky Music Festival outbreak, which kicked off a delta variant crisis that has seen more residents hospitalized and die with COVID-19 than any other pandemic surge.

August became Umatilla County’s deadliest month since the pandemic began, with 22 residents dying COVID-19.

But no officials took any action to stop the Round-Up from happening. Instead, county officials noted again and again the economic benefits of the event, which brings millions of dollars to the local business economy that has struggled without large events over the past year.

The latest surge has prompted the county health department to retool staff from other roles to track the rapid spread of infection. Aside from that, Fiumara said he is not planning to propose any public health recommendation to the board of commissioners. Still, he said this situation was avoidable.

“It’s hard to want to put economic restrictions in place when part of what’s driving it is people who knowingly had symptoms and attended a social event like this, Fiumara said. “I don’t know how you stop that, short of putting a guard at the door. It’s just not who we are.”