On Monday, March 23, just before noon, Oregon Governor Kate Brown issued statewide Executive Order 20-12, effective immediately until further notice. This is a statewide order. Failure to comply with the order will be considered an immediate danger to public health.
Governor Kate Brown today issued Executive Order 20-12, directing everyone in Oregon to stay at home to the maximum extent possible and adding to the list of businesses that will be temporarily closed to stem the spread of COVID-19 in Oregon.
The order is effective immediately, and remains in effect until ended by the Governor. “We are learning more about this virus and how people react to it every day. Not just from a medical standpoint, but from a social and behavioral standpoint. “I started by asking Oregonians to stay home and practice social distancing. Then I urged the public to follow these recommendations. Instead, thousands crowded the beaches of our coastal communities, our trails, our parks, and our city streets, potentially spreading COVID-19 and endangering the lives of others across the state.
Now, I’m ordering it.., to save lives and protect our community. “Today, I am issuing a new executive order further requiring social distancing measures because we know this is the most effective way to flatten the curve and slow the spread of this virus. I hope everyone in Oregon abides by its core message: stay home unless absolutely necessary.” Governor Brown said.
Staying home both keeps you safe from infection, and ensures you do not unknowingly infect others. “We’ve already put a number of measures forward specifically aimed at increasing hospital capacity, such as cutting down on non-emergency care so we conserve masks, gloves,and gowns to save the lives of the health care workers who are working so hard to save others.
All of these things add up, and by slowing the infection rate, we preserve hospital beds so that there will be one available if and when you need it.”None of us have ever been through this before, and that means there is no way to know exactly what lies ahead. We don’t know yet when this outbreak will end, or what changes this will bring for our state and for our country. But I want to make sure that we’ve done all we can to end it as quickly as possible.
The order addresses all non-essential social and recreational gatherings of individuals are prohibited immediately, regardless of size, if a distance of at least six feet between individuals cannot be maintained. Gatherings of members of the same residential household are permitted.
It closes and prohibits shopping at specific categories of retail businesses, for which close personal contact is difficult to avoid, such as arcades, barber shops, hair salons, gyms and fitness studios, skating rinks, theaters, and yoga studios. It requires businesses not closed by the order to implement social distancing policies in order to remain open, and requires workplaces to implement teleworking and work-at-home options when possible.
