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April 11, 2020
Dear Neighbors and Friends:
I hope that you and your loved ones are doing well, staying healthy, and looking out for your neighbors and friends.
I was able to break quarantine for a few hours today to donate platelets at the local Red Cross. I will say that things have changed pretty dramatically from two weeks ago. All donors had to be masked, along with all staff. Half the number of donor beds were occupied, which I’m sure is reducing the amount they’re able to collect. But right now these are correct and necessary precautions.
Along with today’s update to the tracking numbers, you’ll find an update to the model that OHA is using to plan for what’s needed to respond to the trajectory of the virus. You’ll also find a report on what some other nations are considering as they are starting to plan for an easing up of the restrictions on work and social gathering.
Hope you’re able to enjoy the lovely weekend, even if you do have to stay close to home. (Yes, you do have to!)
TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE
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Positive Cases: OHA has reported that 76 additional Oregonians tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday, putting the total at 1,447.
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Total Tests: Today’s reported testing numbers reflect an increase of 1414 test results from yesterday, bringing the total test results so far to 28,638.
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Ratio: Though the overall numbers are increasing, our ratio of positive results still remains right at 5%. That’s much lower than the national average (still over 19%).
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Deaths: I’m sorry to report that 3 more Oregonians died from the disease yesterday, bringing the total number of deaths in Oregon to 51. More than one-third of those deceased were Oregonians living in nursing homes or other senior congregate care settings.
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Hospitalized: The number of Oregonians who have been hospitalized with symptoms, and who have also tested positive for the disease, is now at 345. This is an increase of 7 from yesterday.
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Other Hospital Information:
- Available ICU Beds: 295 (a decrease of 1 from yesterday)
- Other Available Beds: 2,203 2215 (an increase of 12 from yesterday)
- Patients Currently w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 334 (a decrease of 19 from yesterday). Of those, 142 have already received a positive test back.
- ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 101 (8 more than yesterday)
- COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 54 (a decrease of 2 from yesterday).
- Available Ventilators: 768 (a decrease of 29 from yesterday)
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Today’s National Numbers:
- Total Tests: 2,666,022 (up 137,297 from yesterday)
- Positive Tests: 523,199 (up 30,521 from yesterday)
- Hospitalizations: The national tracking project has put this item on “pending” for now.
- Deaths: 20,339 (up 1,878 from yesterday)
- These national numbers come from the COVID Tracking Project. You can follow their updated numbers for each state and the nation as a whole here.
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PPE:
- The Emergency Coordination Center is now posting daily shipments of PPE out to the County Emergency Centers, where they are then distributed to local hospitals and providers. You can follow these distributions here. The postings may not always be current to today, but they should be close.
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Other State Updates:
- The Employment Department is wrapping up the computer re-programming needed to begin sending out the $600 supplemental weekly checks. They will then move on to do the needed re-programming that will allow the newly eligible workers (self-employed, independent contractors) to file successfully.
- The Governor’s website now includes a list of agency and commission rules that have been temporarily suspended in response to the pandemic. You can view them here.
Oregon COVID Model Updated – 4/10/2020
The Institute for Disease Modeling, which OHA uses to create the model that is the basis for state planning, has just released an update to its Oregon model, based on current infection and hospitalization rates. You can read it here.
You’ll find the following conclusion from the modelers:
The interventions until March 22, 2020 appear to have kept current numbers of active infections growing relatively slowly. Additional aggressive measures were implemented on March 23rd (i.e., shelter-in-place), which appear to have reversed the growth of the epidemic. These interventions are estimated to have reduced cumulative infections as of April 10th to approximately 7,000 from almost 25,000 in the absence of interventions. Health care systems would likely have become overburdened by late April in the absence of these sustained interventions to keep the number of infections under control.
Along with 18,000 fewer infections so far, the steps that we’ve taken to prevent transmission have averted 500 hospitalizations so far. This is great news. However, they caution us that “current aggressive interventions will need to be maintained in order to decrease the number of active infections.” At this point, they don’t specify how long these interventions will need to be maintained.
As you’ll see, the number of people needing care in the hospital will remain fairly flat to slowly decreasing going forward (figure 4, top graph representing adult acute care and middle graph representing intensive care).
So the bottom line remains the same: the sacrifices we are all making to Stay Home, Save Lives are working, and as a result our hospitals should be able to handle the numbers we can expect. However, these efforts need to be maintained in order to prevent a resurgence in the spread of the virus. For now, at least. (See below.)
Easing Up?
In a briefing with legislators yesterday, OHA Director Pat Allen spoke a little more about the timeline for the eventual easing-up of restrictions on work and social gatherings. OHA will be making recommendations to the Governor and her Medical Advisory Panel next week for a roadmap of reopenings.
One of the big parameters they’ll be looking at will be the number of deaths. They will want to see a decline in the number of deaths for at least two weeks. We are currently still seeing a relatively significant increase in the number of deaths in the state. Deaths are considered a lagging indicator for infection. Those passing away now are likely individuals who were first infected about a month ago.
The other big indicator will be testing availability. They will want to see that we have the capacity to do close to 15,000 tests a week, ideally the rapid variety. We are currently close to 10,000, with few of the rapid tests yet available. Ideally, we’ll also be able to do general testing to show immunity, which will allow us to be more selective in quarantine measures.
Director Allen shared a document that shows some of the strategies on easing of protection measures that are being contemplated by other countries: Austria, Denmark, Czech Republic, Norway, Singapore, Taiwan, China, France, and Italy. It’s interesting. Most of these countries had restrictions in place that were more extreme, in some cases much more extreme, than those that we’ve had to impose here in Oregon.
AND FINALLY,
Here again are some resources that you will find useful:
If the above links are not providing you with answers to your questions or directing you to the help that you need, please consider me and my office to be a resource. We’ll do our best to assist you or steer you in the right direction.
Best,
 Senator Michael Dembrow
District 23
email: Sen.MichaelDembrow@oregonlegislature.gov
web: www.senatordembrow.com
phone: 503-986-1723
mail: 900 Court St NE, S-407, Salem, OR, 97301
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