KWSO News for Mon., Jun. 20, 2022

In Warm Springs the COVID-19 report shows that June 7^th samples from the WS Agency lagoon show a strong concentration of COVID in the lagoon sample. There was no sample from Sunnyside. Health officials still recommend to take safety precautions while out in public spaces. Wear masks in heavily populated areas and continue to sanitize frequently. You can get home test kits at Emergency management during the week during normal business hours and at fire and safety after hours and on the weekends. If you do test positive they ask that you report a positive test to the Health & Wellness Center.

Yellowstone National Park will partially reopen at 8 a.m. Wednesday, after catastrophic flooding destroyed bridges and roads and drove out tourists. The Park Service announced Saturday that visitors will once again be allowed on the park’s southern loop, under a license plate system designed to manage the crowds: Those with even-numbered plates will be allowed on even-numbered days, and those with odd-numbered plates on odd-numbered days. Commercial tours will be allowed whatever their plate number. Visitors had been flocking to Yellowstone during its 150th anniversary celebration. The southern half of the park includes Old Faithful, the rainbow-colored Grand Prismatic Spring, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and its majestic waterfall.

Vaccines for children as young as six months old are expected to become available in Oregon THIS WEEK. OPB’s April Ehrlich reports that some parents are wondering why it took this long to get a vaccine for young children. “The Food and Drug Administration first authorized a COVID vaccine for adults in August last year. It took another 10 months for it to authorize vaccines for infants and toddlers. Oregon Health and Science University researcher Dr. Dawn Nolt says that’s not unusual. NOLT: “Research usually starts with healthy adults and this is to establish that the vaccine is safe and works in that group before it starts to expand to other more vulnerable groups. And usually children are the last of those groups.” Nolt says children are smaller, so researchers have to be careful about finding the right dose. And it’s hard to find enough children to participate in clinical trials. Nolt suggests parents contact their doctors to schedule their childrens’ first vaccination appointment.”

The U.S. is adding $103 million this year for wildfire risk reduction and burned-area rehabilitation throughout the country as well as establishing an interagency wildland firefighter well-being program. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland made the announcement Friday while touring the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. About $80 million will be used to speed up work removing potential wildfire hazards on more than 3,000 square miles of Interior Department lands. The firefighter well-being program that includes the Forest Service will address mental health needs of seasonal and year-round wildland firefighters. More than 30,000 wildfires have scorched 4,600 square miles this year, well above the 10-year average.