Watch: Oregon Public Health Official Announced Daily COVID Death Toll Dressed as a Clown
By Jennifer Jean Miller
Published November 1, 2020 at 12:00pm
An Oregon health official wasn’t clowning around when she announced recent coronavirus statistics for the state, including the death toll.
However, her wardrobe choice told a different story, with Dr. Claire Poche — a physician with the Oregon Health Authority — attired as a clown.
Poche shared the grim figures in her costume in an Oct. 14 Oregon Public Health Division broadcast, leaving some perplexed about the charade.
With a white and red smile painted onto her face, crimson-dotted cheeks and elevated black eyebrows, Poche, first wearing a surgical mask, removed it to air that day’s COVID report, which preceded a segment about safe ways to celebrate Halloween during the pandemic.
Having traded her white coat and stethoscope for a blue shirt with white polka dots, thin red tie, flowery pin and sunny yellow pants, Poche made the somber announcement with a subtle smile, partially her own and partially drawn on.
After introducing her off-camera colleague, Dr. Shimi Sharief, Poche said, “We thought we’d start by giving you a quick update on where we are as a state with COVID-19.”
“As of today, there have been 38,160 cases of COVID-19 in Oregon, with 390 new cases being reported today,” Poche began on Oct. 14.
"Sadly, we are also reporting three deaths today, bringing the statewide total for COVID-19-related deaths to 608,” she added.
Before the scene flashed to Sharief, Poche quietly covered her clown-plastered face again with a surgical mask, then sat with her hands folded.
Sharief next broadcast to viewers “safe Halloween tips” while slouched in a chair opposite Poche in a snuggly onesie that she told Poche was from the Japanese animation “My Neighbor Totoro.”
Attired in her Totoro costume, Sharief prided herself on coordinating her cloth face mask with her Totoro outfit.
Poster Comment:
She is nutty as a fruitcake.