News & Stories for Oregonians
Tracie Koepplin is clinical manager at Physicians’ Medical Center, PC, in McMinnville. Shortly before her second birthday, Tracie Koepplin was rushed to the hospital because she couldn’t breathe. Turns out she had a rare chronic disease called juvenile-onset recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (JORRP), aka laryngeal papilloma—caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). This condition causes benign tumors […]
Sallie Dean doesn’t remember the first time she heard it, but years ago someone dubbed her “Sallie Dean the Vaccine Queen,” and it stuck. After more than three decades vaccinating Oregonians of all ages against some of the world’s most contagious diseases, her title is well-deserved. The Association of Immunization Managers (AIM) agreed, naming Dean […]
Updated 4/4/2023 – This post was updated with a link to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s website for the current schedule of COVID-19 vaccinations. Available in Spanish A lot of people want to know the answer to this question. For example, will federal health officials authorize a second dose of the bivalent booster? […]
Available in Spanish The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have released two reports showing the bivalent COVID-19 booster provides significant protection against COVID-19-related hospitalization, especially for people age 65 and older. These new reports follow a recent study showing that symptomatic people who received the bivalent vaccine were less likely to test positive […]
COVID-19 reinfections have been one of the largest unknowns during the pandemic. Can you get sick again? If so, when? How serious would a second or third infection be? Does being vaccinated reduce the likelihood of being reinfected? New data compiled by Oregon Health Authority (OHA) help answer these questions. Let’s start with some […]
Available in Spanish Here is the truth: COVID-19 vaccines and boosters are safe, and they work. They are highly effective at helping prevent hospitalizations and severe COVID-19 illness. Being vaccinated and boosted allows people to move through life with a semblance of normalcy. Unfortunately, there is a lot of false information out there about COVID-19 […]
Available in Spanish Children as young as 5 years old are now eligible to receive an updated COVID-19 booster. The bivalent boosters, developed by Pfizer and Moderna, are designed to protect people from the currently predominant Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, as well as from the original COVID-19 strain. It’s a single dose that can […]
Available in Spanish Talking to kids about COVID-19 can be hard, especially when the messages surrounding the pandemic change often. But the importance of COVID-19 vaccines hasn’t changed. They slow the spread of the virus and help keep people safe. Vaccines are the best protection we have against severe COVID-19 illness , hospitalization and death. […]
El hecho de que tengamos una dosis de refuerzo actualizada que combate las variantes predominantes que circulan en la actualidad es una maravilla de la ciencia, pero ¿cómo sabemos que es segura y efectiva? A finales de junio, la Administración de Alimentos y Medicamentos de los Estados Unidos (FDA, por sus siglas en inglés) consideró […]
Available in Spanish The fact that we have an updated bivalent booster dose that targets the predominant variants circulating today is a wonder of science, but how do we know it’s safe and effective? In late June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) weighed administering the original COVID-19 vaccine as the next round of […]
