Writing 310 Blog Post 2

Purpose statement: This blog post will discuss the issue of lack of access to COVID tests in the city of Newberg in order to show my professor that I'm brainstorming for my final project, a white paper that will attempt to help with a problem in the Newberg community.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I probably spent an hour scrolling through Newberg Facebook groups and essentially only saw arguments about the recall election. All that aside, however, I eventually settled on another issue: lack of COVID tests.

George Fox University announced in an email sent on 11 January that they would only test people with COVID symptoms, a change in their policy from the previous semester. About a week later, on 19 January, they updated this to a policy of only testing "people with moderate/severe illness or people with high risk for complications." This time, they clarified that this guidance came from Yamhill County and the Oregon Health Authority, due to a shortage of tests that spans far beyond Newberg.

This issue is in part caused by the Omicron variant's ability to evade the protection of vaccines. On a local level, it's clear that, though unvaccinated people still make up a disproportionate number of cases, their share has shrunk as the pandemic has entered the new wave. 

This issue will hopefully be resolved by a drop in cases as the omicron spike passes, but the WHO has warned that omicron will not be the last variant of concern.

Though Newberg can't do much to solve this national issue, one piece of the puzzle is prioritization of tests. George Fox provides an interesting example of this: the university has stuck with in-person classes, and though its COVID protocols are not exactly exemplary, I have personally had two teachers have to miss class because of confirmed or suspected COVID. The first was able to get a test, but the second—whose illness came on after the most recent guidance on testing—couldn't, despite being sick. 

As always in the pandemic, we're balancing between safety and normalcy. However, if the goal is to keep as much safe normalcy as possible, it seems that this professor should have been able to get a test, as their absence due to illness left their students missing class, but the plan seems to be to come back as soon as possible rather than wait for them to quarantine. This kind of situation shows that there are possible exceptions to the rules around COVID testing, as some people's inability to test affects a greater number of other people. Though this example is specific to George Fox, I'm sure examples of this exist in the community at large. 

COVID testing—and knowing whether you've been exposed to someone who was infected—is vital if we want to even try to contain the pandemic. And though it is of course most important to know how to treat those who are harder hit by illness, other factors should affect test prioritization.