https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-oregon-6f7f919d27644d02c330da5a8648af95Quote:
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) As states around the country lift COVID-19 restrictions, Oregon is poised to go the opposite direction and many residents are fuming about it.
A top health official is considering indefinitely extending rules requiring masks and social distancing in all businesses in the state.
The proposal would keep the rules in place until they are "no longer necessary to address the effects of the pandemic in the workplace."
Michael Wood, administrator of the state's department of Occupational Safety and Health, said the move is necessary to address a technicality in state law that requires a "permanent" rule to keep current restrictions from expiring.
"We are not out of the woods yet," he said.
But the idea has prompted a flood of angry responses, with everyone from parents to teachers to business owners and employees crying government overreach.
Wood's agency received a record number of public comments, mostly critical, and nearly 60,000 residents signed a petition against the proposal.
Opponents also are upset government officials won't say how low Oregon's COVID-19 case numbers must go, or how many people would have to be vaccinated, to get the requirements lifted in a state that's already had some of the nation's strictest safety measures.
Who didn't see this coming?
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." - Sir Winston Churchill