onfocus

Oregon State’s online Ecampus program has seen a substantial increase — 14% this fall on top of an 18% increase last year.

Nice to see this positive news. I’ve been very fortunate to work at Oregon State Ecampus for the last five years. Ecampus is a dedicated group of people working hard to support remote students and help OSU faculty deliver existing programs online. I’m obviously biased but it feels like a unique part of the online education world that I’m glad I can contribute to.

"For weeks Oregon health officials have warned that COVID-19 cases, fueled by the highly transmissible delta variant, would fill hospitals by September if infection rates didn't slow significantly. Now, a little more than halfway through the month of August, 94% of the state’s hospital beds for adults and 93% of ICU beds are full."

Vaccination rates are high in many counties. 65% of 18+ have received both doses in Oregon but it’s not enough.

“Oregon is facing a spike in COVID-19 hospitalizations––consisting overwhelmingly of unvaccinated individuals––that is quickly exceeding the darkest days of our winter surge,” Brown said in a written statement Wednesday. “When our hospitals are full, there will be no room for additional patients needing care––whether for COVID-19, a heart attack or stroke, a car collision, or a variety of other emergency situations. If our hospitals run out of staffed beds, all Oregonians will be at risk.”

This was also avoidable.

"For decades, one of the most striking and predictable patterns of human behavior in the western U.S. has been people accidentally starting fires on the Fourth of July. From 1992 to 2015, more than 7,000 wildfires started in the U.S. on July 4 – the most wildfires ignited on any day during the year. And most of these are near homes."

With wildfires already burning in California and Oregon, this is a good year to get creative and find other ways to celebrate on the 4th.

"I’m seeing probably the worst combination of conditions in my lifetime,” said Derrick DeGroot, a county commissioner in southern Oregon’s Klamath County. “We have an enormous fuel load in the forests, and we are looking at a drought unlike we’ve seen probably in the last 115 years.” Asked how worried he is about the 2021 fire season, DeGroot said: “On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m a 12. Nothing looks good."

Yikes.

"The way I’ve framed the thought experiment in recent conversations is this: Imagine, tomorrow, an alien craft crashed down in Oregon. There are no life-forms in it. It’s effectively a drone. But it’s undeniably extraterrestrial in origin. So we are faced with the knowledge that we’re not alone, that we are perhaps being watched, and we have no way to make contact. How does that change human culture and society?"

This scenario is a little too specific. I'm in Oregon and now I'm worried. What does Ezra Klein know?