Oregon Health Authority to File Permanent School Mask Mandate and COVID-19 Inoculation Rules

If you’re a parent reading from Oregon, it’s time to remove your kids from school or fight like never before.

The Oregon Health Authority announced its plans to file a permanent mask mandate for K-12 students on Friday.

The state will also file requirements for school and school-based program staff to be vaccinated.

While state officials are developing measures to determine a timeframe to lift the mask rule, there’s no telling how long they’ll push the hysteria.

That’s why parents must take action to show the Oregon Health Authority they won’t back down from this disgusting child abuse.

OHA can lift or cancel a permanent rule when public health experts believe it’s no longer necessary to stop #COVID19 from spreading and putting vulnerable people at risk of hospitalization or death.https://t.co/S5kLMJYSaM

— OR Health Authority (@OHAOregon) January 29, 2022

OHA Files Permanent School Mask and Vaccination Rules https://t.co/76e43xhB4u

— MedfordAlert.com (@MedfordALERT) January 29, 2022

As stated by the Oregon Health Authority:

Oregon administrative rules expected to be filed today with the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office:

• OAR 333-019-1015 – Masking Requirements in Schools.
• OAR 333-019-1030 – COVID-19 Vaccination Requirements for Teachers and School Staff.

Rules expected to be filed on Jan. 31 include:

• OAR 333-019-1010 – COVID-19 Vaccination Requirement for Healthcare Providers and Healthcare Staff in Healthcare Settings.
• OAR 333-019-1011 – Masking Requirements to Control COVID-19 in Health Care Settings.

Medford Alert reported:

The permanent rules replace temporary rules, which are only valid for 180 days, that are set to expire today.

Also expected to be filed Monday are permanent rules requiring health care workers to wear masks, and for health care workers in most health care settings to be fully vaccinated.

State health officials continue to review public comments on a proposed permanent rule that would continue, for now, the requirement that masks be worn in indoor public places. That temporary rule expires Feb. 8.

At a news conference today, Dean Sidelinger, M.D., M.S.Ed., state health officer and state epidemiologist, said that while the rules are permanent, OHA can loosen or rescind them as conditions with the pandemic change, particularly with hospitalizations.

“We need to look at the number of COVID-19-positive folks in the hospital who are receiving care and the impact on the ability of the hospitals to provide care,” he said. “What we know right now is that those numbers are still increasing but are anticipated to peak soon – within the next week to week and a half – and then are anticipated to come down rather quickly.”

Sidelinger added that the drop in hospitalizations is likely to happen quicker than during the Delta surge in fall 2021, as the length of stay and the amount of critical care needed for patients is less.

“So I would anticipate, in the coming weeks to month and a half, that we will see a significant decrease in the number of people with COVID in the hospital,” he said, “and at that time it’ll be a time to start talking about ‘Can we move from a requirement for masks in indoor public spaces to a recommendation for certain populations or in certain communities where rates are higher?’”

Sidelinger also said that actions people in Oregon take over the next several weeks will be critical to ensuring the state’s hospitals have enough capacity to meet the needs of all patients needing care. That means getting primary and booster vaccines, continuing to wear masks indoors and in crowded outdoor spaces, keeping gatherings small and staying home if you are sick or if you test positive.

“It also means extending protective measures that were enacted earlier in the pandemic requiring mask wearing in schools and health care settings, and requiring vaccinations for school employees and health care workers and wearing masks in indoor settings,” he said.

Some Oregonians expressed their outrage over the tyrannical rules passed by the Oregon Health Authority.

Oregon parents who are upset with the OHA ruling. There is only one way out. If you want them to take you seriously you must disenroll your children from public school system. They will lose the money allocated to them. Hit them where it hurts!

— Harlem (@Harlem) January 29, 2022

For all of you that believe "we'll go back to normal when it's safe," it's time to wake up now. @OHAOregon just made the mask mandate permanent on school kids, dispite OVERWHELMING public testimony against mask mandates. It will be up to school boards to ignore OHA rules.

— Ben Edtl (@benedtl) January 29, 2022

All the while Oregon is pursuing a permanent mask mandate. Well we’ve done it. We’re officially crazier than San Francisco. I don’t care how crazy this policy is. We had an outdoor mask mandate until the end of November 2021. We’re crazier. https://t.co/XO09TatSNA

— Rational in Portland (@rationalinpdx) January 28, 2022

Earlier this week, one school district pushed back against the state by dropping the mask mandate.

However, the Oregon Department of Education withheld federal COVID-19 relief funds from the Alsea School District in Benton County.

Oregon school district blackmailed after lifting mask mandate https://t.co/yKqmqH2Gzh https://t.co/CLVhBev3My #Coronavirus #Covid19 #Cov19

— Brady Parker (@bradyparker) January 29, 2022

OregonLive wrote:

The federal funding, ODE Director Colt Gill wrote to Alsea School District Superintendent Marc Thielman and board chairman Ron Koetz, “requires school districts to comply with all state laws and regulations.” In August, Oregon reinstated mask requirements for schools.

“ODE does not support the decision in Alsea School District,” the department said in a statement to The Oregonian/OregonLive, adding that by abandoning required face coverings, the district “should expect rapid transmission of COVID-19 that will prevent students from participating in in-person learning.”

That rapid transmission already is happening in Alsea. The district’s schools are closed this week because of staff shortages related to a local surge in coronavirus cases.

But Thielman, a Republican who’s running for governor of Oregon, says the district will stick with its new voluntary mask policy, which will be implemented when the schools reopen on Monday.

“The decision comes from the overwhelming quantitative and qualitative data and scientific evidence that masking has had little to no significant effect at slowing the spread of (the omicron variant of COVID-19),” he told The Oregonian/OregonLive in an email. “Our current omicron wave that created our staff shortage occurred when we were still enforcing masking. This reality only adds to the wisdom of our school board to take back local control and let each individual make their own decisions regarding masking.”