March 23, 2021
Deidre Greene of Albany shares her vaccine story:
I want to be a testimony to the safety of the vaccine to the BIPOC community. I am an African American nurse practitioner, retired for one year, and chair of the Health and Wellness Committee for NAACP Corvallis/Albany. I would not take a vaccine so early in ordinary times, but these are not ordinary times. I wanted to be part of the solution of getting children back to school and for older adults to live the remainder of their lives in a more normal way. I had confidence in the high rates of vaccine effectiveness and low side effects in at least the short-term data. Also, the U.K. was vaccinating its citizens. I saw confidence from nurses, doctors and public officials taking vaccine. I also had sympathy with ICU nurses being on the front line; I know that world, stress and risk. Research about new messenger RNA vaccine technology, how it worked and that the basic principles behind it were 30 years in the making helped me come to my decision.
 
Today, county risk levels under the state's public health framework to reduce transmission and protect Oregonians from COVID-19 were updated. The framework uses four different risk levels for counties based on COVID-19 spread — Extreme, High, Moderate and Lower — and assigns health and safety measures for each level.
Effective Friday, March 26 through April 8, there will be two counties in the Extreme Risk level, six at High Risk, 14 at Moderate Risk, and 14 at Lower Risk. Two counties have been given a two-week caution. A complete list of counties and their associated risk levels is available here.
The recently announced two-week caution period applies to counties facing backward movement. Counties that reduce their COVID-19 spread enough to move down in risk level in the previous two-week period but see their numbers go back up in the next two-week period will be given a two-week caution period to bring COVID-19 case rates back down again.
Read the full news release here.
Today, OHA announced that 20 Oregon counties have now submitted attestation letters signaling their intention to immediately offer COVID-19 vaccinations to expanded eligibility groups. This marks an increase of seven counties from yesterday.
The counties are: Baker, Benton, Deschutes, Douglas, Grant, Harney, Jefferson, Josephine, Klamath, Lake, Lincoln, Linn, Malheur, Marion, Morrow, Polk, Sherman, Umatilla, Union and Yamhill.
By attesting, these counties can now begin vaccinating all individuals listed in Phase 1B, Group 6, ahead of the previously designated statewide start date of March 29.
The Oregon Health Authority has expanded who can administer COVID-19 vaccines, as permitted under the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act.
The federal PREP Act amended declaration, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, increases the pool of vaccinators who may not be currently authorized to vaccinate under state law. Individuals contained in this new pool of potential vaccinators must complete training and display a proven ability to administer vaccines.
OHA Director Patrick Allen signed the authorization on March 22, making it immediately effective.
The newly eligible groups who can now administer COVID-19 vaccines include health professionals and health allied professionals who are currently licensed, certified or registered or had an active license, certification or registration within the past five years.
A list of the requirements for each of the new eligible categories is outlined in the authorization. See the news release for more details.
There are two new COVID-19 related deaths in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 2,367, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) reported at 12:01 a.m. today.
OHA reported 316 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 as of 12:01 a.m. today, bringing the state total to 162,016.
Vaccinations in Oregon
Today, OHA reported that 18,241 new doses of COVID-19 vaccinations were added to the state immunization registry. Of this total, 10,845 doses were administered on March 22 and 7,396 were administered on previous days but were entered into the vaccine registry on March 22.
Oregon has now administered a total of 768,927 first and second doses of Pfizer, 746,354 first and second doses of Moderna and 32,803 single doses of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines. Cumulative daily totals can take several days to finalize.
To date, 971,685 doses of Pfizer, 978,400 doses of Moderna and 60,100 doses of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines have been delivered to sites across Oregon.
These data are preliminary and subject to change. OHA's dashboards provide regularly updated vaccination data, and Oregon’s dashboard has been updated today.
Cases and deaths
The new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases reported today are in the following counties: Baker (3), Benton (2), Clackamas (30), Columbia (2), Coos (4), Crook (2), Curry (4), Deschutes (24), Douglas (7), Grant (1), Hood River (3), Jackson (28), Jefferson (1), Josephine (17), Klamath (11), Lane (17), Lincoln (5), Linn (4), Malheur (1), Marion (21), Multnomah (44), Polk (6), Tillamook (3), Umatilla (10), Union (3), Wasco (1), Washington (56) and Yamhill (6).
Oregon’s 2,366th COVID-19 death is an 85-year-old man in Coos County who tested positive on March 16 and died on March 21 at Bay Area Hospital. He had underlying conditions.
Oregon’s 2,367th COVID-19 death is a 67-year-old woman in Coos County who tested positive on March 2 and died on March 13 at Mercy Medical Center. She had underlying conditions.
COVID-19 hospitalizations
The number of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 across Oregon is 109, which is seven fewer than yesterday. There are 16 COVID-19 patients in intensive care unit (ICU) beds, which is two fewer than yesterday.
The total number of patients in hospital beds may fluctuate between report times. The numbers do not reflect admissions per day, nor the length of hospital stay. Staffing limitations are not captured in this data and may further limit bed capacity.
More information about hospital capacity can be found here.
Learn more about COVID-19 vaccinations
To learn more about the COVID-19 vaccine situation in Oregon, visit our webpage (English or Spanish), which has a breakdown of distribution and other information.
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