Todd Riley

Exemptions to Oregon’s COVID-19 mandate for health care workers were granted to 13% of employees at Bend Fire & Rescue and at Redmond Fire Department, where officials in both cities had already struggled to keep them fully staffed.

The two departments are among a number of Central Oregon first responders reporting they were able to avoid losing personnel to the vaccine mandate by granting exemptions prior to Gov. Kate Brown’s Oct. 18 deadline.

Bend Fire and Redmond Fire Department also now require additional personal protective equipment for unvaccinated employees, who must be tested weekly for COVID-19 and wear N95 masks around the station.

At both departments, vaccinated employees are permitted to wear cloth face masks around the station, and all personnel must wear N95 masks on emergency calls.

Bend Fire Chief Todd Riley said with staffing already an issue at his department, he was grateful Bend City Manager Eric King allowed exemptions.

Riley said he might otherwise have lost the 12 firefighter-paramedics and five ambulance operators who received exemptions for medical or religious reasons.

“This was distressing. There were folks who thought they were going to lose their career over this,” Riley said.

Bend Fire, which employs around 130 people identified as health care workers, granted exemptions for everyone who applied.

Riley characterized his emergency personnel in general as “smart and proud,” and familiar with the idea of risk.

“It’s a personal choice for them,” he said. “It’s about being told what to put in their bodies. It’s about being told to do something by someone else.”

Beginning in August, as the delta variant was overwhelming hospitals, the governor issued a series of orders mandating a COVID-19 vaccination for most workers in the health care and education fields.

Also included were the nearly 700 troopers with Oregon State Police, who are considered members of the governor’s executive staff. Fourteen troopers work out of the Bend field office.

Municipal police officers and sheriff’s deputies in Oregon, however, are not currently required to be vaccinated.

The exception at the Bend Police Department are its five school resource officers, who must either be vaccinated or receive regularly testing for COVID-19.

At the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, the mandate affected 14 employees. They work as school resource deputies or in the jail’s medical and behavioral health units. Ten are vaccinated and four received exemptions, according to sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Jayson Janes.

Nearby Redmond Fire Department is in roughly a similar position to Bend Fire. Eight of its 60 employees received religious or medical exemptions by the deadline.

Call volume is up considerably this year in Redmond, with department personnel on track to respond to around 6,300 emergency calls. Last year, the department responded to around 6,000 calls.

“We’re behind on staffing, but fortunately, we were able to maintain all of our employees,” said Jeff Puller, Redmond’s deputy chief.