By TIFFANY ECKERT/KLCC News — As of Friday, the Oregon Health Authority moved Lane County from the high-risk to moderate-risk level for COVID-19 transmission. This change will affect restaurants and retail, along with other businesses.
The county made it to moderate with drops in case and positivity rates. Lane County’s current case rate is 92.4 per 100,000 residents. The positivity rate is around 1.8%. What this means to businesses is increased capacity.
Indoor and outdoor dining may increase to 50 percent. And restaurants can stay open until 11 p.m. Indoor entertainment and recreation can see half the
Lane County’s Jason Davis said residents should be pleased with the move to moderate, but not complacent. He reminded that the goal is to go lower.
“In order for us to move to that low-risk category, we need to achieve 50 cases per 100,000 or less. Positivity rate under 1 percent. So we cannot achieve that low-risk category with our current numbers.”
Davis said the county’s case total has plateaued and a dip in the numbers is necessary to make another move down in risk.