Oregon will no longer allow visitors at nursing homes and other group care facilities in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus among people most at risk from the disease, Gov. Kate Brown announced Tuesday.

People will still be allowed to visit their loved ones who are near the end of life, the governor said.

The virus attacks older people and people with underlying health conditions with the most virulence. The epicenter of Oregon’s COVID-19 outbreak is a veterans home in Lebanon where there are now 14 presumptive positive coronavirus cases among 13 residents and one staff member.

The new visitation ban also applies to adult foster homes and group homes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the governor said in her daily telephone call with reporters Tuesday morning.

A week ago, the state opted to continue allowing people to visit long-term care homes so long as only two people at a time visited a resident and visitors were screened for symptoms of respiratory illness.

Brown defended her decision to allow day cares to remain open even as she has imposed increasingly strict social distancing measures including closing schools statewide through the end of March, banning gatherings of more than 25 people and ordering bars and restaurants to cease all operations with the exception of takeout and delivery meals.

“The information we know is that children are, of all of our population, the most minimally impacted by the coronavirus," Brown said. "Like all of these decisions it’s a balancing” act, she said. Key reasons to keep childcare centers open include the need for many workers in public safety, health care and other essential fields such as the grocery supply chain to continue reporting for work, the governor said.

“I would argue that it’s better for children to be in a childcare facility than to be home with their elderly aunt or their elderly grandpa because need to protect our elderly and our most vulnerable,” Brown said.

She did not address what older childcare workers and others at higher risk of coronavirus complications should do. But the state’s Early Learning Division said those people should not work and that it’s fine for certain day cares to close as a result. Many day cares in Oregon have already closed voluntarily, following the closure of public schools.

The governor said she does not plan to issue a statewide ban on evictions when people cannot pay their rent due to coronavirus related issues, as Multnomah County and Portland officials did locally Tuesday morning.

"We are not considering that option at this point in time but obviously, again, we are in a global pandemic and all options are on the table,” Brown said. "As you know, we have a housing crisis already in the state and I want to make sure that doesn’t get worse.”

In response to a reporter’s question about rural Oregon’s capacity to respond to a growing number of coronavirus cases, Brown said it has been challenging to convince people outside metropolitan areas to adopt social distancing necessary to slow the virus’ spread.

"I do know that it doesn’t feel real in eastern Oregon and that we are struggling to communicate the importance of social distancing measures there,” Brown said.

Rural mayors and county commissioners provided some of the strongest pushback to the idea of closing bars and restaurants, saying elderly and vulnerable people in their communities depended on those businesses. “So that’s why I was extremely hesitant to make the call I did yesterday,” the governor said.

But rural hospitals simply do not have the capacity to care for a large number of people who might become sick due to COVID-19, so Brown said the state is relying on people to take responsibility for slowing its spread.

“We just don’t have the personnel … that we will need for a huge surge,” she said. "I know this is causing a grave hardship and extreme challenges for Oregonians across the state. I know in rural Oregon it is particularly challenging. But honestly we have to minimize the impacts as much as possible and that’s why I’m talking to folks all over the state and asking people to take these measures very, very seriously.”

-- Hillary Borrud; hborrud@oregonian.com; @hborrud

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