Oregon was one of the first states to document community spread of the coronavirus — meaning that patients who got sick with COVID-19 illness had been going about their daily lives, without a connection to anyone known to be infected or at high risk due to travel abroad.

Yet as the virus has spread, Oregon’s approach to the disease has been a quite different from that of neighboring Washington state, which has led the nation in deaths from the illness. On Wednesday, Rolling Stone spoke with Dr. Richard Leman — a public health physician and Chief Medical Officer, Health Security, Preparedness and Response for the state of Oregon —  to talk about why the approaches…