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NEWS Opening the Vaccine Floodgates

Deschutes County expands eligibility requirements and speeds ahead with vaccinations, while Oregon still lags behind other states

By Hanna Merzbach

On April 5, frontline workers and their families, people over 16 with underlying health conditions and people living in multigenerational homes become eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine in Oregon. Deschutes County was one of 23 counties, including Crook and Jefferson, that expanded eligible groups ahead of the state.

After gaining approval from the Oregon Health Authority, St. Charles Health System began sending invitations on March 31 to newly eligible Central Oregonians who pre-registered at centraloregoncovidvaccine.com. Last week, 3,000 members of this group—deemed “Phase 1B Group 7” in the state’s vaccine rollout—received their first shot at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center.

In order to start vaccinating this group early, counties had to have available appointment slots and have made sufficient attempts to invite already eligible groups to get the vaccine. According to Morgan Emerson, a Deschutes County spokesperson, the county had sent invitations to all 8,844 people who were pre-registered from the previous group, Phase 1B Group 6. When they still had available appointment slots, they expanded to vaccinate Group 7.

“We’d felt we’d done quite a bit of communication out to our community, encouraging people to pre-register over the past two weeks, to make sure that everyone who is interested is able to have that opportunity,” Emerson said.

Group 6 became eligible for the vaccine in Deschutes County March 22, a week before they were eligible statewide. This group includes adults ages 45 to 64 with underlying health conditions, individuals experiencing houselessness, people living in low-income senior housing, pregnant people over 16 and some frontline workers, including migrant and seasonal farm workers, wildland firefighters and food processing workers.

Now, all frontline workers, defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are eligible to get the vaccine, along with any family members living in the same household. The state also expanded what is considered an underlying condition, in line with CDC recommendations, including current and former smokers, people who are overweight instead of obese and Type 1 diabetics.

Central Oregon will still prioritize giving vaccines to previous groups if they pre-register online. Emerson said, for example, if an 80-year-old registers, they will be prioritized over frontline workers.

“It’s been an effective way to make sure that community members have an easy place to go and aren’t needing to scramble to grab a spot online at a certain time,” she said.

Deschutes is one of at least 10 Oregon counties that exceeded the statewide average of more than seven in 10 seniors vaccinated, said Oregon Health Authority Director Pat Allen at an April 2 press conference. As of March 31, 82% of county residents over 65 had received at least their first dose, and a total of 55,880 county residents had received at least one shot.

Oregon’s vaccination strategy

As of press time, Oregon had vaccinated over 1.25 million people, ranking 33rd in the country in the percentage of the population that has received at least one shot (31%). This is a percentage point behind the national average. Both California and Washington rank above Oregon, giving at least one dose to 34% and 32% of the population, respectively.

Oregon officials have attributed the shortcoming to inequities in the vaccine allocation process. According to Oregonian/Oregon Live reporting, Allen directed the governor’s office on March 28 to “start raising a ruckus” over the apparent inequities. Officials subsequently contacted the CDC and the Biden administration to get a better understanding about why Oregon’s doses per capita seem to be falling short, but have yet to release more information.

“Oregonians should know that we will move heaven and earth to make sure that we are getting our fair share,” Gov. Kate Brown said at last week’s press conference.

All Oregonians 16 and over will be eligible for the vaccine statewide starting April 19, Gov. Kate Brown announced on April 6.

Allen of OHA explained that since 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine were spoiled at a manufacturing plant last week, Oregon’s allocations have suffered. The state had expected to receive about 100,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccines per week in April, but with this disruption, Oregon may not start receiving those doses until May.

“We may need to temper our hopes of having enough doses to vaccinate all Oregonians over 16 by late May and bump that expectation back a couple of weeks,” Allen said.

Both California and Washington recently moved up their timelines so all residents 16 and over become eligible on April 15, four days ahead of Oregon. In Idaho, the general population became eligible on April 5. Brown explained that Oregon is waiting longer to make vaccines available for the general population in order to first prioritize vulnerable groups and center equity in the state’s vaccine strategy. The state is relying on work by its COVID Vaccine Advisory Committee, which advised OHA on its vaccine sequencing plans and aimed to ensure the communities most affected by COVID are included.

“We know that communities of color have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic,” Brown told reporters. “(Group 7) is more diverse, and we want to make sure that these vulnerable Oregonians get access to the vaccinations and are prioritized in our vaccination strategy because they’re more vulnerable to the disease.”

The push for vaccine equity

So far, the state has failed to proportionately vaccinate Latino Oregonians in particular, compared to white residents. Six percent of the state’s shots have gone to the Latino population, which makes up 13% of the population and over 25% of COVID cases statewide. This is an improvement from March 10, when only 4% of the state’s shots had gone to Latino communities.

Oregon health officials hope to combat these inequities through federally qualified health centers, often connected with communities of color. On March 5, the state granted these health centers the flexibility to vaccinate all of their patients, regardless of age.

One of these health centers, Mosaic Medical, serves patients across Central Oregon and has gone beyond state eligibility requirements to vaccinate people with limited English proficiency, people who are low income and people identifying as a member of a minority population. Their vaccine supply is limited to a couple hundred doses a week, so only their patients and people signed up through partner organizations are given slots.

But they could see more doses soon. As a part of the federal government’s equity strategy, Mosaic Medical was invited to receive more shots and is set to receive over $4 million from the recently passed American Rescue Plan to support vaccination efforts.

“It’s a very specific, targeted effort at people of color, and most people of color in Central Oregon are Latino immigrants,” said Brad Porterfield, executive director of the Latino Community Association, one of Mosaic’s partners.

Porterfield attributes the low vaccination rates among Latinos to the age requirements in the first eligible groups, with the majority of Latinos tending to be younger in Central Oregon and nationwide. He said with fewer age restrictions and more targeted outreach efforts, he hopes vaccination rates among Latinos will continue to rise.

Central Oregonians can pre-register to get the vaccine at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center in both English and Spanish. Spanish interpreters are available on site, and remote interpreters are provided virtually for all other languages.

Hanna Merzbach

Luke Foster gets the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center on April 2. As of April 5, over 62,000 shots had been administered at that location, county officials said.

How to get the vaccine

Find out if you’re eligible at

getvaccinated.oregon.gov

Pre-register at

centraloregoncovidvaccine.com

Find pharmacy appointments at

vaccinefinder.org

Noticias en Español El Condado de Deschutes amplía los requisitos de elegibilidad y apresura las vacunaciones mientras que Oregon todavía se encuentra por detrás de otros estados

Por Hanna Merzbach Traducido por Jéssica Sánchez-Millar

El 5 de abril, los trabajadores de primera línea y sus familias, personas mayores de 16 años con condiciones de salud preexistentes y personas que viven en hogares multigeneracionales serán elegibles para recibir la vacuna contra la COVID-19 en Oregon. El Condado de Deschutes fue uno de 23 condados, incluyendo los condados de Crook y Jefferson que ampliaron la elegibilidad de grupos con antelación del estado.

Después de adquirir la aprobación de parte de la Autoridad de Salud de Oregon, St. Charles Health System, comenzó a enviar invitaciones el 31 de marzo a los habitantes de la zona centro de Oregon recién elegibles que se registraron previamente por medio de centraloregoncovidvaccine.com. La semana pasada, 3,000 miembros de este grupo - considerados en la “Fase 1B Grupo 7,” en la implantación de vacunas del estado – recibieron su primer vacuna en los terrenos de la feria y expo del Condado de Deschutes.

El Grupo 6 llegó a ser elegible para recibir la vacuna en el Condado de Deschutes el 22 de marzo, una semana antes de que fueran elegibles a nivel estatal. Este grupo incluye a adultos de 45 a 64 años de edad con condiciones de salud preexistentes, personas desamparadas, personas que viven en viviendas para personas de la tercera edad de bajos ingresos, personas embarazadas mayores de 16 años y algunos trabajadores de primera línea, incluyendo a trabajadores agrícolas migrantes y de temporada, bomberos que combaten los incendios forestales y trabajadores de la elaboración de alimentos. Ahora, todos los trabajadores de primera línea, definidos por los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades (CDC por sus siglas en inglés), son elegibles para recibir la vacuna, junto con cualquier familiar que viva en el mismo hogar. El estado también amplio lo que se considera una condición preexistente, de acuerdo con las recomendaciones de la CDC, incluyendo a las personas que fuman o que fumaban antes, personas con sobrepeso en lugar de obesas y personas diabéticas que sufren Diabetes Tipo 1. El Condado de Deschutes es uno de por lo menos 10 condados en Oregon que excede el promedio a nivel estatal de tener más de 7 de cada 10 personas de la tercera edad ya vacunados, dijo el Director de las Autoridades de Salud de Oregon, Pat Allen, durante una conferencia de prensa el 2 de abril. Al 31 de marzo, 82% de los residentes del condado mayores de 65 años habían recibido por lo menos su primer dosis y un total de 55,880 residentes del condado habían recibido por lo menos una vacuna.

El esfuerzo para la equidad

Hasta ahora, el estado no ha vacunado de manera proporcionada a los habitantes Latinos de Oregon específicamente, comparado con los habitantes de raza blanca. El seis por ciento de las vacunas del estado han sido para la población Latina, lo cual constituye el 13% de la población y más del 25% de casos de COVID en todo el estado. Esta es una mejora con lo que respecta al 10 de marzo, cuando solo el 4% de las vacunas del estado habían sido dirigidas a las comunidades Latinas.

Funcionarios de Salud de Oregon esperan combatir estas desigualdades a tráves de centros de salud calificados a nivel federal, a menudo vinculados con comunidades de color. El 5 de marzo, el estado concedió a estos centros de salud la flexibilidad de vacunar a todos sus pacientes, sin importar su edad.

Uno de estos centros de salud, Mosaic Medical, atiende a pacientes a lo largo de la zona centro de Oregon y ha ido más allá de los requisitos estatales de elegibilidad para vacunar a las personas con dominio limitado del idioma inglés, personas de bajos ingresos y personas identificadas como miembros de una población minoritaria. Su abastecimiento de vacunas está limitado a unas doscientas vacunas por semana, así que solo sus pacientes y personas registradas por medio de organizaciones asociadas se les otorga espacio.

Pero pronto pueden tener más dosis. Como parte de la estrategia de equidad del gobierno federal, Mosaic Medical fue invitada para recibir más vacunas y está programada para recibir más de $4 millones de parte del Plan de Rescate Estadounidense, recientemente aprobado para apoyar los esfuerzos de vacunación. Vea si es elegible en getvaccinated.oregon.gov. Regístrese previamente en centraloregoncovidvaccine.com. Encuentre una farmacia para hacer cita por vaccinefinder.org

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The day after the 2021 inauguration, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut took to Twitter to declare: “Biden is making transparency cool again.”

This was a head-scratcher for many journalists and transparency advocates. Freedom of Information—the concept that government documents belong to and must be accessible to the people— has never not been cool. Using federal and local public records laws, a single individual can uncover everything from war crimes to health code violations at the local taqueria. How awesome is that? If you need more proof: there was an Australian comic book series called “Southern Squadron: Freedom of Information Act”; the classic anime Evangelion has a Freedom of Information Act cameo; and the Leeds-based post-punk Mush received 7.4 stars from Pitchfork for its latest album, “Lines Redacted.”

OK, now that we’ve put that down in writing we realize that the line between “cool” and “nerdy” might be a little blurry. But you know what definitely is not cool? Denying the public’s right to know. In fact, it suuucks.

Since 2015, The Foilies have served as an annual opportunity to name-andshame the uncoolest government agencies and officials who have stood in the way of public access. We collect the most outrageous and ridiculous stories from around the country from journalists, activists, academics and everyday folk who have filed public records and experienced retaliation, over-redactions, exorbitant fees and other transparency malpractice. We publish this rogues gallery as a faux awards program during Sunshine Week (March 14-20, 2021), the annual celebration of open government organized by the News Leaders Association.

This year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is publishing The Foilies in partnership with MuckRock News, a nonprofit dedicated to building a community of cool kids that file Freedom of Information Act and local public records requests. For previous year’s dubious winners (many of whom are repeat offenders) check out our archive at eff.org/issues/foilies.

And without further ado…

RECOGNIZING THE YEAR’S WORST IN GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY

Compiled by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock News Illustrations by Caitlyn Crites

The Most Secretive Dog’s Bollocks: Conan the Belgian Malinois

Back in 2019, what should’ve been a fluff story (or scruff story) about Conan, the Delta Force K9 that was injured while assisting in the raid that took out an Islamic State leader, became yet another instance of the Trump administration tripping over itself with the facts. Was Conan a very good boy or a very good girl? Various White House and federal officials contradicted themselves, and the mystery remained.

Transparency advocate and journalist Freddy Martinez wouldn’t let the sleeping dog lie; he filed a FOIA request with the U.S. Special Operations Command, a.k.a. SOCOM. But rather than release the records, officials claimed they could “neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records,” the much dreaded “Glomar response” usually reserved for sensitive national security secrets (the USNS Hughes Glomar Explorer was a secret CIA ship that the agency didn’t want to acknowledge existed). Never one to roll over, Martinez filed a lawsuit against SOCOM and the Defense Department in June 2020.

Just in time for Sunshine Week, Martinez got his records—a single page of a veterinary examination, almost completely redacted except for the dog’s name and the single letter “M” for gender. Conan’s breed and color were even blacked out, despite the fact that photos of the dog had already been tweeted by Trump.

The Pharaoh Prize for Deadline Extensions: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Illinois

With COVID-19 affecting all levels of government operations, many transparency advocates and journalists were willing to accept some delays in responding to public records requests. However, some government officials were quick to use the pandemic as an excuse to ignore transparency laws altogether. Taking the prize this year is Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, who invoked the Old Testament in an effort to lobby the Illinois attorney general to suspend FOIA deadlines altogether.

“I want to ask the average Chicagoan: Would you like them to do their job or would you like them to be pulled off to do FOIA requests?” Lightfoot said in April 2020, according to the Chicago Tribune, implying that epidemiologists and physicians are also the same people processing public records (they’re not).

She continued: “I think for those people who are scared to death about this virus, who are worried every single day that it’s going to come to their doorstep, and I’m mindful of the fact that we’re in the Pesach season, the angel of death that we all talk about is the Passover story, that angel of death is right here in our midst every single day.”

We’d just note that transparency is crucial to ensuring that the government’s response to COVID is both effective and equitable. And if ancient Egyptians had the power to FOIA the Pharaoh for communications with Moses and Aaron, perhaps they probably would have avoided all 10 plagues—blood, frogs, and all.

The Doxxer Prize: Forensic Examiner Colin Fagan

In July 2020, surveillance researcher and Princeton Ph.D. student Shreyas Gandlur sued the Chicago Police Department to get copies of an electronic guide on police technology regularly received via email by law enforcement officers around the country. The author of the guide, Colin Fagan, a retired cop from Oregon, did not agree that the public has a right to know how cops are being trained, and he decided to make it personal. In a final message to his subscribers announcing he was discontinuing the “Law Enforcement Technology Investigations Resource Guide,” Fagan ranted about Gandlur for, “attacking the best efforts of Federal, state, and local law enforcement to use effective

legal processes to save innocent victims of horrible crimes and hold their perpetrators accountable.”

Fagan included a photo of Gandlur, his email addresses, and urged his readers to recruit crime victims to contact him, “and let him know how he could better apply his talents”—one of the most blatant cases of retaliation we’ve seen in the history of the Foilies. Fagan has since rebounded, turning his email newsletter into a “law enforcement restricted site.”

The Redaction Most Likely to Make Your Bubbe Weep: Federal Aviation Administration

When General Atomics proposed flying a new class of drone over the San Diego region to demonstrate its domestic surveillance capabilities, Voice of San Diego Reporter Jesse Marx obviously wanted to learn how it possibly could have been approved. So he filed a FOIA request with the Federal Aviation Administration, and ultimately a lawsuit to liberate documentation. Among the records he received was an email containing a “little vent” from an FAA worker that began with “Oy vey” and then virtually everything else, including the employee’s four bullet-pointed “genuinely constructive thoughts,” were redacted.

The Government Retribution Award: City of Portland, Oregon

People seeking public records all too often have to sue the government to get a response to their records requests. But in an unusual turnaround, when attorney and activist Alan Kessler requested records from the City of Portland related to text messages on government phones, the government retaliated by suing him and demanding that he turn over copies of his own phone messages.

The Most Expensive Cover-Up Award: Small Business Administration

In the early weeks of the pandemic, the Small Business Administration awarded millions of dollars to small businesses through new COVID-related relief programs—but didn’t make the names of recipients public. When major news organizations including ProPublica, The Washington Post, and The New York Times filed public records requests to learn exactly where that money had gone, the SBA dragged its feet, and then—after the news organizations sued—tried to withhold the information under FOIA Exemptions 4 and 6, for confidential and private information. A court rejected both claims, and also forced the government to cough up more than $120,000 in fees to the news organizations’ lawyers.

The Secret COVID Statistics Award: North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services

Seeking a better understanding of the toll of COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic, journalists in North Carolina requested copies of death certificates from local county health departments. Within days, officials from the state Department of Health and Human Services reached out to county offices with guidance not to provide the requested records—without citing any legal justification whatsoever. DHHS did not respond to reporters’ questions about why it issued that guidance or how it was justified.

Some local agencies followed the guidance and withheld records, some responded speedily, and some turned them over begrudgingly—emphasis on the grudge.

“I will be making everyone in Iredell County aware through various means available; that you are wanting all these

death records with their loved ones private information!” one county official wrote to The News and Observer reporters in an email. “As an elected official, it is relevant the public be aware of how you are trying to bully the county into just giving you info from private citizens because you think you deserve it.”

When attorney and activist Alan Kessler requested records from the City of Portland related to text messages on government phones, the government retaliated by suing him and demanding that he turn over copies of his own phone messages.

Among other things, the City specifically demanded that Kessler hand over all Signal, WhatsApp, email, and text messages having to do with Portland police violence, the Portland police in general, and the Portland protests.

Runner up: Reporter CJ Ciaramella requested records from the Washington State Department of Corrections about Michael Forest Reinoehl, who was killed by a joint U.S. Marshals task force. The Washington DOC apparently planned to produce the records – but before it could, the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department sued Ciaramella and the agency to stop the records from being disclosed.

The It’s So Secret, Even the Bullet Points Are Classified Award: Minnesota Fusion Center

harm national security. But officials with the Minnesota Fusion Center took this paranoia to new heights when they claimed a state law protecting “security information” required them to redact everything— including bullet points—in documents they provided to journalist Ken Klippenstein. And we quite literally mean the bullets themselves.

Fusion centers are part of a controversial program coordinated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to facilitate the flow of homeland security intelligence among agencies. Each fusion center is maintained by a state or regional agency; in this case, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Klippenstein tweeted that the agency wouldn’t provide document titles or any other information, all the while adding the dreaded black redaction bars to bulleted lists throughout the records. But if officials redacted the bullet points in earnest, we wonder: what is the security risk if the public learns whether Minnesota homeland security officials use the default bullet points or some more exotic style or font? Will the terrorists win if we know they used Wingdings?

So top secret that even the bullet points were redacted. majors become colonels.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention seems to love to juke its FOIA stats. As the nonprofit advocacy organization American Oversight alleged in a lawsuit last year, the CDC has been systematically rejecting FOIA requests by claiming they are overly broad or burdensome, despite years of court decisions requiring agencies to work in good faith with requesters to try to help them find records or narrow their request. The CDC then categorizes those supposedly The Cat Face Filter Award: overbroad requests as “withdrawn” by Federal Bureau of Prisons the requester and closes the file without having to provide any records. So those

Kids these days—overlaying cat faces FOIAs disappear, much like the violent on their videos and showing the Bereau crime reports in “The Wire.” of Prisons how it should redact media The CDC’s annual FOIA reports show sought by FOIA requesters. That was that the agency’s two-step juke move is the message from an incredulous feder- a favorite. According to American Overal appeals court in March 2020 after the sight, between 2016 and 2019, CDC BOP claimed it lacked the ability to blur closed between 21 to 31% of all FOIA out or otherwise redact faces (such as requests it received as “withdrawn.” those of prisoners and guards) from sur- CDC’s closure rate during that period veillance videos sought through FOIA was roughly three times that of its parby an inmate who was stabbed with a ent agency, the Department of Health screwdriver in a prison dining hall. and Human Services, which on average

The court wrote: “The same teenag- only closed 6 to 10% of its FOIAs as withers who regale each other with screen- drawn. After American Oversight sued, shots are commonly known to revise the CDC began releasing documents. those missives by such techniques as inserting cat faces over the visages of The Save the Children (in a Hidden humans.” The judge made clear that Folder) Award: although “we do not necessarily advo- Louisville Metropolitan Police cate that specific technique,” the BOP’s Department, Kentuckylearned helplessness to redact video footage is completely ������. The Louisville Metropolitan Police Department’s Explorer Scouts proThe Juking the FOIA Stats Award: gram was supposed to give teenagers a Centers for Disease Control chance to learn more about careers in law enforcement. For two LMPD officers,

“The Wire,” the classic HBO police though, it became an opportunity for drama, laid bare how police depart- sexual abuse. When reporters asked for ments across the country manipulate more information on the perpetrators, data to present trends about crime the city chose to respond with further being down. As ex-detective Roland absurdity—by destroying its records. The Pryzbylewski put it: “Juking the stats ... case against the city and the Boy Scouts Making robberies into larcenies. Making of America is scheduled to begin in April. rapes disappear. You juke the stats, and Continued on p. 11