March 31, 2021
Today, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) announced that 20 Oregon counties have submitted attestation letters, signaling their intention to immediately offer COVID-19 vaccinations to expanded eligibility groups.
The counties are Benton, Coos, Crook, Deschutes, Douglas, Grant, Harney, Jefferson, Josephine, Klamath, Lake, Lane, Lincoln, Malheur, Marion, Morrow, Sherman, Umatilla, Union and Wheeler.
By attesting, these counties can now begin vaccinating all individuals listed in Phase 1B, Group 7, ahead of the previously designated statewide start date of April 5.
“Moving up vaccination in these counties will enable us to vaccinate our frontline workers more quickly while enabling counties with adequate supply to fully utilize their allotment of COVID-19 vaccine,” said OHA Director Patrick Allen.
Group 7 is composed of:
- Frontline workers as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
- People living in multi-generational households.
- People aged 16-44 with one or more health conditions with increased risk.
As of Monday, people in Phase 1B, Group 6 became eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccine.
 
Last week, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) and Morrow County Public Health co-hosted a pilot vaccination event in Boardman for agricultural workers. Migrant and seasonal farmworkers became eligible for vaccination in 22 counties on March 22 and across all of Oregon on March 29.
“This event helped save lives,” said Jorge Martinez Zapata, OHA’s Regional Outreach Coordinator for Northeast Oregon. “Over 1,000 people from all walks of life, including some of the most underserved groups, received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.”
The four-day event at the Sage Center featured live radio broadcasts in Spanish by local station La Raza. Multilingual staff and volunteers assisted participants through the process.
Agricultural workers, including farm, seafood and food processing facility workers, ensure that Oregon has a reliable food supply and play a vital role in the state’s economy. Their working and living conditions mean that they are at high risk of getting COVID-19.
Maria Vargas, another Regional Outreach Coordinator, who volunteered at the event, spoke with people who told her their reasons for being vaccinated.
“It was important to me to get the vaccine to do my part to put an end to this pandemic,” Sebastian, pictured below, told her. For others, it was important to protect their communities, their families, and themselves.
“It was wonderful and incredibly rewarding to help so many people who seemed grateful for this opportunity,” Vargas said. “Although the event helped vaccinate over 1,000 individuals, it would have been great to see more farmworkers and Latinx people there,” she added.
“What we learned, for the future,” Zapata said, “is that in order to reach more migrant and seasonal farmworkers with vaccine services, we’ll need to take the vaccines directly to employers and to where people live and socialize.”
Operationally, the event will serve as a model for future events. “It was a seamless process for participants,” he said.
Melissa Lindsay, a commissioner of the Morrow County Board of Commissioners, was pleased with the event.
“It has been the biggest pleasure of my short County service career to have been a part of this team and watched everyone of you bring lifesaving support in such a professional and graceful/kind way,” she wrote to the team who worked on the event.
All 1,066 people who were vaccinated received appointments to return in three weeks for their second dose.
It’s spring, which means the days are getting lighter, flowers are starting to bloom, and people in Oregon are heading outside. This year, also, hope is in the air with more people in Oregon getting vaccinated. This is also a time when many celebrate springtime holidays.
If you are fully vaccinated and plan on gathering, remember many in our communities are still vulnerable to COVID-19. The safest choice is to continue practicing preventive measures like wearing a face covering and gathering outdoors. If you are fully vaccinated, you may consider gathering inside in a private setting like a home without wearing a face covering if you gather with:
- Others who are fully vaccinated.
- Unvaccinated people from one household only. In other words, if you live with people who are unvaccinated, they will need to stay home if you visit another household with unvaccinated people.
People who entered their primary or preferred contact as a landline in the Get Vaccinated Oregon tool could receive a call as early as today from staff at 211info.
Approximately 500 people registered with GVO with a landline as their primary or preferred contact. Some of these individuals also listed a cell or email contact and may have already been contacted for vaccine appointments. 211info staff will prioritize contacting the 260 people who have not yet had any contact from OHA.
For more details, see today’s press release.
There are two new COVID-19 related deaths in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 2,383, the Oregon Health Authority reported at 12:01 a.m. today.
Oregon Health Authority reported 441 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 as of 12:01 a.m. today, bringing the state total to 165,012.
Today, OHA reported that 38,373 new doses of COVID-19 vaccinations were added to the state immunization registry. Of this total, 23,834 doses were administered on March 30 and 14,539 were administered on previous days but were entered into the vaccine registry on March 30. Cumulative daily totals can take several days to finalize.
Oregon has now administered a total of 914,067 first and second doses of Pfizer, 850,236 first and second doses of Moderna and 41,187 single doses of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines.
To date, 1,170,585 doses of Pfizer,1,086,800 doses of Moderna and 87,400 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 (7), Benton (14), Clackamas (61), Clatsop (2), Columbia (10), Coos (7), Crook (2), Curry (2), Deschutes (13), Douglas (5), Grant (6), Harney (1), Jackson (30), Josephine (17), Klamath (14), Lake (1), Lane (35), Lincoln (3), Linn (18), Malheur (1), Marion (25), Multnomah (94), Polk (10), Tillamook (4), Umatilla (3), Union (3), Wasco (1), Washington (47) and Yamhill (5).
Oregon’s 2,382nd COVID-19 death is a 63-year-old woman in Washington County who tested positive on March 19 and died on March 30 at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center. She had underlying conditions.
Oregon’s 2,383rd COVID-19 death is an 84-year-old woman in Douglas County who tested positive on March 16 and died on March 29 at Bay Area Hospital. She had underlying conditions.
COVID-19 hospitalizations
The number of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 across Oregon is 139, which is unchanged from yesterday. There are 36 COVID-19 patients in intensive care unit (ICU) beds, which is one more 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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