On May 7, Oregon Governor Kate Brown laid out her plan for a phased reopening of the Oregon economy in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The foundation of Oregon’s approach to opening up economic and recreational actives is a 3-phased expansion of permissible business activities, applied at the county level. Counties may move from the current stay-at-home requirement to Phase I by fulfilling certain objective criteria, such as COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, testing, contact tracing and healthcare infrastructure capacity. Each county must stay in each phase for at least 21 days, and then satisfy more criteria before progressing into a subsequent phase. The phased approach will be implemented as of May 15.
Such a phased roll-out serves two important purposes. First, it provides a medically-informed approach to restarting the Oregon economy, with a goal of protecting the health of our state’s population. Second, it reduces a level of uncertainty about the future, thus helping the business community plan for the re-start of operations.
We look forward to Oregon making it through the 3 phases, with population health determining the pace at which phase-to-phase progress is made. As the state advances through each phase, it is Hokusei North America’s hope that our local business partners are positioned to return to operational and financial success.
For more on the State of Oregon’s reopening plan, please visit: https://govstatus.egov.com/or-covid-19
