Gov. Brown adds four more counties to ‘Two-Week Pause’ over COVID-19 spread

Total is now nine counties around the state, starting Wednesday

SALEM, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Gov. Kate Brown announced Monday the addition of four counties — Baker, Clackamas, Union and Washington — to the Two-Week Pause on social activities that begins Wednesday, to help stop the rapid spread of COVID-19 where community transmission is on the rise.

The four counties join five others -- Jackson, Malheur, Marion, Multnomah and Umatilla -- in the pause, announced Friday. The pause measures will be in effect for two weeks, from Nov. 11 through Nov. 25.

“As we continue to see alarmingly high case rates reflective of sporadic community spread, now is the time to implement measures to further reduce gatherings and curb human contact," Brown said.

"The Two-Week Pause measures are designed to reduce the amount of people we interact with and the frequency of those encounters. We all must continue to do our part to stop this virus from spreading, particularly limiting our social gatherings and interactions, or we risk further closures and restrictions."

The Two-Week Pause measures include:

• Urging all businesses to mandate work from home to the greatest extent possible.
• Pausing long-term care facility visits that take place indoors to protect staff and residents.
• Reducing maximum restaurant capacity to 50 people (including customers and staff) for indoor dining, with a maximum party size of six. Continuing to encourage outdoor dining and take out.
• Reducing the maximum capacity of other indoor activities to 50 people (includes gyms, fitness organizations/studios, bowling alleys, ice rinks, indoor sports, pools, and museums).
• Limiting social gatherings to your household, or no more than six people if the gathering includes those from outside your household, reducing the frequency of those social gatherings (significantly in a two-week period), and keeping the same six people in your social gathering circle. 

The Two-Week Pause is being instituted in counties with a case rate above 200 per 100,000 people over a two-week period, or more than 60 cases over a two-week period for counties with less than 30,000 people.

Clackamas and Washington counties are being added to the Two-Week Pause due to their case rates being just under the threshold, and both counties registering significant daily case counts in the last several days.

These measures replace the County Watch List process that Governor Brown instituted in July.

The complete Two-Week Pause list — effective Nov. 11 through Nov. 25 — now includes the following nine counties: Baker, Clackamas, Jackson, Malheur, Marion, Multnomah, Umatilla, Union, and Washington.