Today's News and Links 

  • Missing money?
  • Missing the mark
  • Finding recovery
  • Finding new stimulus package?
  • Finding help for unemployment
  • Finding vaccination recipients
  • Where Oregon finds itself today
  • Finding PPE
Missing a grant award? You’ve got mail!

Grant awards for Round 4 Emergency Small Business Development Grants have all been made. If you received a grant, you have also received an email notifying you. Yet forty-one (41) small businesses and non-profits have not claimed their grants and returned their confirmation documents. CHECK YOUR EMAIL, CHECK YOUR JUNK FOLDER. This ain’t junk, it’s the next step to get your check. Complete and sign the documents and send them back ASAP. We have just a few days before we have to send the money back to the state. CHECK TODAY, and return to grants@columbiacountyoregon.com!
Effective 12/3: Oregon’s Risk and Protection Framework

The new framework tells us where we stand each week, and where we can help ourselves be – going forward. We have the ability to manage our numbers ourselves. Reducing our risk category is good for our businesses, services, eases our restrictions, and means we’re staying safer and healthier. – CCET

This new health and safety framework uses four different risk levels for counties based on their level of COVID-19 spread—Extreme Risk, High Risk, Moderate Risk, and Lower Risk—effective December 3.

“On Monday, November 30, the Oregon Health Authority will reexamine county data to determine which counties qualify for each risk level on December 3, following the end of the 2-Week Freeze. In each subsequent two-week period, the Oregon Health Authority will examine and publish county data weekly, but county risk levels will not change until the end of the second week. In the first week, counties will be given Warning Week data to prepare for potential risk level changes. In the second week, county risk levels will be updated based on that week’s data. More detailed information will be posted before December 3.

Take a look at the chart, or here’s a map.
Crisis Recovery: 5 Strategies for Consumer Firms

Senior executives at U.S.-based consumer companies say changes made as a result of the pandemic may prove beneficial for their businesses in the long run. More… 
On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers unveiled a new federal stimulus plan for small businesses. Here’s what that entails.
Wyden, Merkley Urge Extension of Pandemic Unemployment Programs in COVID-19 Relief Package.

Letter comes as lifeline unemployment benefits set to expire Dec. 26 for nearly 12 million workers. Read the entire letter here . Read full press release here.
CDC Panel recommends giving medical workers, long-term care residents 1st vaccine doses

A federal panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines voted Tuesday to recommend that health-care workers and residents of long-term care facilities receive the first doses of coronavirus vaccines. When the first vaccines become available, possibly later this month, supplies will be limited… More…
U.K. approves Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for emergency use
Britain on Wednesday approved a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, for emergency use. The British government plans to roll out the vaccine starting next week. More…
Oregon hits grim milestone: record 24 deaths
Oregon reports 1,233 new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases, 24 new deaths

COVID-19 has claimed 24 more lives in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 936, the Oregon Health Authority reported at 12:01 a.m. Monday. Monday’s reported deaths are the highest for a single day since the pandemic. OHA extends its condolences to all who have lost a loved one to COVID-19. Today’s grim milestone is another reminder of the severity and spread of the disease and the importance for all Oregonians wear masks, keep physical distance and to keep gatherings small.

Oregon Health Authority reported 1,233 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 as of 12:01 a.m. today, bringing the state total to 76,654.

The new cases are in the following counties: Baker (3), Benton (19), Clackamas (148), Clatsop (7), Columbia (6), Coos (14), Crook (4), Curry (6), Deschutes (60), Douglas (8), Grant (3), Harney (2), Hood River (12), Jackson (72), Jefferson (19), Josephine (11), Klamath (37), Lake (5), Lane (75), Lincoln (21), Linn (27), Malheur (11), Marion (146), Morrow (5), Multnomah (270), Polk (24), Tillamook (6), Umatilla (23), Union (9), Wasco (6), Washington (158), Wheeler (2) and Yamhill (14).
PPE for your small business or non-profit
Still available, new location each Friday

Email info@columbiacountyoregon.com to make arrangements for pick up Friday 10:00 – 3:00 at the CCET offices in the Library building in St. Helens.

FREE disposable face-coverings for customers, washable & re-usable (up to 70 times) face-coverings for employees, sanitizer, gloves, and gowns are back. (1 package of these washable, re-chargeable BioSmart masks will last you a full year. Which calculates to a nickel per mask use…) Order forms can be downloaded here: or right here Order forms . Send your order to us by email
Columbia County Economic Team (CCET) and Keep It Local are working to assist businesses navigate through the Coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic disruption….and plan for recovery. Business survival and retention is a top priority. We all want to emerge from the other side of this able to restore our businesses, livelihoods and economy. Reaching out countywide, Columbia County Economic Team will be communicating with you regularly.
 
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Paul Vogel
Executive Director
Columbia County Economic Team