April 26th AM COVID-19 Update

April 26, 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 watch the National Academy of Sciences panel on COVID-19 yesterday morning. Much of it was illuminating.  Some of it (especially the explanation of the way that the virus actually does its work) was highly technical.  It was well worth watching.  It ended with a plea to us all to allow scientists to forget about politics, forget about national boundaries, and allow them to work cooperatively to come up with treatment and vaccines that can be developed and shared wherever they are needed.  Made a lot of good sense.

If you were unable to watch it yesterday, you can still watch it here.

In watching it, I was also struck by a statement from Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the leading voices for the federal response to the pandemic.  He has been among those responsible for coming up with the careful, multi-phase approach to reopening the economy, essentially via a gradual series of baby-steps, which Oregon is adopting.  Dr. Fauci understands the powerful desire to get things back to normal.  He correctly fears that there will be an impulse on the part of the public (and by government leaders) to speed things up and assume that as jurisdictions are coming off of their peaks in intensity, that decline will continue in and of itself.  He provided this warning:  Any attempt to leapfrog over the prescribed, phased course of reopening will almost certainly result in a rebound, and then we will set ourselves back. 

In other words, patience and scrupulous care will be required, never more so than when we begin the reopening process.  But here’s another reality: it would be easier to ask people to be patient if they were already receiving their unemployment benefits or their small business grants and loans. Many thousands are not, and until they do, it’s hard to ask for patience.  And yet we must.  This is not easy.

This morning's newsletter consists largely of the latest numbers.  As you’ll see from today’s numbers and graphs, for now we remain in the “plateau” phase of this disease’s trajectory here in Oregon. 

TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE

***Please notice that I’m now using an exponential scale for the Y axis on this graph.  Doing it this way allows for a more realistic sense of the upward curves of these three data points (positive cases, hospitalizations, and deaths).

• Positive Cases: OHA has reported that 76 additional Oregonians tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday, putting the total at 2,253.
• Total Tests: The problem with this metric has been completed. The total number of tests in Oregon now stands at 47,377. That’s an increase of 1,885 tests.
• Ratio: The percentage of positive results still remains just under 5% (4.76% to be exact!).  That’s much lower than the national average (coming down a bit, but still just over 18%).
• Deaths: I’m afraid I have to report that 1 additional Oregonian has died from the disease, so the total number of deaths in Oregon is now 87.
• Hospitalized: The number of Oregonians who have been hospitalized with symptoms, and who have also tested positive for the disease, is now at 536. This is an increase of 16 from yesterday.
• Other Hospital Information:
  • Available ICU Beds: 277 (a decrease of 47 from yesterday)
  • Other Available Beds: 2,071 (a decrease of 79 from yesterday)
  • Patients Currently w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 261 (an increase of 3 from yesterday). Of those, 132 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): 60 (4 more than yesterday)
  • COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 29 (same as yesterday).
  • Available Ventilators: 789 (22 fewer than yesterday)
• Today’s National Numbers:
  • Total Tests: 5,184,635 (up 300,833 from yesterday).
  • Positive Tests: 931,698 (up 40,882 from yesterday).
  • Deaths: 47,980 (up 2,194 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.
• PPE:
  • The Emergency Coordination Center received 430,000 surgical masks, 200,000 N95 respirator masks, and 10,000 face shields in the last 24 hours.
• Other State Updates:
  • OHA and Brink communications have been working on a new communications program for the new version of Stay Home, Stay Safe as we move into the gradual reopening process. It’s called “Safe + Strong.” The outreach campaign has launched in 12 languages.  Find information and materials here.
  • The other day I reported on the Governor’s “Reopening Oregon Framework” presentation to legislators. For more clarity about it, here is most recent PowerPoint presentation on the framework for you.

Additional Daily Graphs:

*** Remember that the hospitalization numbers being used here are those currently in the hospital with symptoms, but who may or may not have received a positive test result yet.

Want to See Past Newsletters?

If there was COVID-related information in a past newsletter that you want to go back to, but find you’ve deleted it, you can always go to my legislative website (www.senatordembrow.com), click on “News and Information,” and you’ll find them all there.

AND FINALLY,

Here again are some resources that you will find useful:

• Here is the OHA’s coronavirus page, with links to a number of resources. 
• Oregon's Office of Emergency Management now has a website for information about COVID-19.
• You can sign up here for regular coronavirus updates from OHA.
• Multnomah County has an excellent website with lots of really important advice and guidance.
• Here’s one from the Governor’s Office
• The Employment Department has put together a webpage with Q&A’s on a number of employment issues related to COVID-19 (e.g., eligibility for Unemployment Insurance benefits).
• The Oregon Education Department has a new site for COVID-19 updates.

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