Last night’s City Council meeting opened with a proclamation recognizing the month of October as Domestic violence Awareness month. SOS director Bob Teter spoke to the council about the growing incidents of domestic violence in the Florence area over the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Adding the stresses of the pandemic has kind of created the perfect storm, our numbers for domestic violence has increased over 65% over this last year.”
Teter says there has also been an increase in sexual assault and human trafficking as well as incidents of attempted suicide associated with domestic violence. Teter says the problem, unfortunately, is only getting worse in the community. He says domestic violence is all about control and often increases are brought about when individuals fell a loss of control in their lives.
“The pandemic has just increased that need for control more than ever and so it is a huge problem.”
To commemorate domestic violence awareness there will be a march on October 3rd and will begin at Veterans Park and end at the Boardwalk. Gathering for the event will begin at 12:45 and the march will begin at 1pm.
No New COVID Case Reported for Florence Yesterday
Yesterday was the first day in more than a week where there were no new cases of COVID-19 reported for the 97439 zip code. The two week reporting of cases has dropped below 100 for the first time in more than 10 days as new cases continue to go down. Lane County is also reporting a decrease in cases overall. Yesterday Lane County reported 154 new cases. The state reported 1,707 new cases. There were 30 new deaths reported, consequently hospitalizations have also decreased and have fallen below the 1,000 mark for the first time in several weeks. Both hospitalization rates and ICU rates are decreasing. Vaccination rates are still steady with the OHA reporting an average of 7,754 daily vaccinations on average. About 5.2 million Oregonians are now vaccinated.
Gas Prices
While gasoline prices overall have dropped slightly after the Labor Day weekend they have not decreased much according to Marie Dodds with AAA Oregon. Dodds says that results from hurricane Ida have slowed the drop in prices due to decreased production and refining. She says that has not had a huge effect on west coast pricing but has kept the averages lower. Oregon has seen just a penny decrease over the past week with Florence averaging $3.71 a gallon for regular. Dodds says expect prices to fluctuate over the next month as weather conditions continue to be a factor.
