Just as Oregon health officials were announcing Saturday morning that the number of coronavirus cases in Oregon had more than doubled to seven, the Multnomah County Health Department tweeted a photo of a crowded music concert and the caption: “If you are feeling well, feel free to go out and have a good time this weekend.”

The tweet continued: “At this time, there are NO public health recommendations to cancel or postpone events due to #coronavirus.”

By 10:30 a.m. Sunday, the county had taken down the tweet, saying it “regrets” that it was sent out.

That’s about the time state public health officials announced seven new diagnosed cases of novel coronavirus in Oregon for a total of 14 so far and Gov. Kate Brown declared a state of emergency.

The tweet prompted anger from some flabbergasted members of the public, including responses on Twitter that read “This is screamingly irresponsible, it’s staggering," “This tweet will go down in history" and “This tweet is just negligent."

Earlier Sunday, county spokeswoman Julie Sullivan-Springhetti said the county was removing the tweet after it was brought to her attention by The Oregonian/OregonLive.

“In no uncertain terms, the health department regrets any information that was confusing or upsetting to people,” Sullivan-Springhetti said.

A nearly identical post, however, remained up on the health department’s Facebook page. Sullivan-Springhetti said the department couldn’t remove the post Sunday because a third party “preloaded” the post and the department was unable to get the access necessary to take it down. The post had been updated Saturday night urging caution for the elderly and people with “severe chronic medical conditions.”

This post remained on the Multnomah County Health Department's Facebook page on Sunday, March 8, 2020. (Facebook screenshot)

Public health officials currently are assessing whether and how they should change their guidance to the public about social distancing measures, given the rapidly evolving situation, she said. Some of that new advice is to ask people at risk -- such as elderly people or people with underlying health conditions -- to keep their distance from large groups.

“We’ve added a new layer of vetting that all social media has to now go through basically the emergency operations center, our team," Sullivan-Springhetti said. "... We need to make sure this won’t happen again.”

Some critics of the tweet said it fueled their belief that Oregon’s public health officials haven’t been doing enough to aggressively fight the spread of the virus, given the knowledge of how the disease is advancing in other parts of the world and how swiftly it’s taking root in some parts of the United States.

Most notably, Washington state saw its number of confirmed cases soar from one to 102 cases and 16 deaths over the span of eight days as of Saturday. Washington has implemented much more dramatic measures than Oregon.

Oregon’s first case was diagnosed Feb. 28.

Chris Kearney, a Lake Oswego resident who spoke to The Oregonian/OregonLive before the county removed the tweet, said he found the message “shocking.”

“It’s not a neutral stance,” Kearney said. “It’s not like, ‘We’re not going to say anything. It goes as far as to say, ‘No, we want you to go out.’ That’s where I was like, 'This is too much.’"

The Oregonian/OregonLive also spoke to Kearney after health officials announced the new cases and the state of emergency Sunday. He said he was happy the governor had taken that serious step and hopes serious efforts continue.

He said that includes pushing hard for more tests and increasing Oregon’s testing capacity so people can identify the prevalence of the virus and work to contain it.

Northeast Portland resident Peter Bray said he, too, wants Oregon to do more testing and boost its fight against the virus.

“In Italy, they’re closing down and quarantining millions of people,” Bray said. “If we could just read the tea leaves, eventually that’s going to come here, in terms of the scale and pandemic. And for the health department at the largest county in Oregon ... to tweet a picture of a concert and say ‘Oh, go out and have fun’ seems just really irresponsible.”

-- Aimee Green; agreen@oregonian.com; @o_aimee

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