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May 3, 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.
This week we’ll be hearing the details about what Phase One of the reopening will look like for Oregon. As I mentioned the other day, it’s likely that we’ll see that first phase introduced first in some of our more rural counties with low infection rates to date. Hopefully, that will go well, and the metrics will allow the more urban areas to follow not too long after. (Though remember, this is a “new normal” that we’re talking about, at least initially.)
There’s some misinformation going around related to the Governor’s announcement on Friday that she is extending the State of Emergency to July 6. Some people are interpreting that to mean that she is continuing Stay Home, Save Lives till July 6 and postponing Phase One until then. That’s not the case.
Extending the state of emergency by 60 days was a legal step that she had to take in order to have the necessary authorities to be able to manage the reopening through the three phases of reopening, which will likely take us into July. It will allow her to respond to emergency needs that will certainly continue to arise as a result of the pandemic over the next two months.
Obviously, we’re hoping for the best with this reopening. But what do we do if the worst happens and infections spike and we need to slow things down? The Governor also needs those emergency powers to be able to do that (based on advice from her medical team, legislators, and local leaders).
The relatively low rate of infection so far in Oregon is no accident, not a matter of luck or a function of our extraordinary toughness, nor because the disease isn’t as dangerous or easy to spread as the experts were saying it was. It is dangerous, and it spreads easily. Without the actions we’ve taken, many thousands more Oregonians would have been infected by now, many of them dangerously so, and many more would have died. Avoiding the worst scenarios would not have happened if Oregonians hadn’t stepped up and for the most part abided by the call to be prudent, stay home, stay responsible for themselves and others. I know this is painful, but we actually have a lot to feel proud of.
On that note, today marks one of the few days since the pandemic hit Oregon that we have no reported deaths from the disease. And the number of new cases reported today is low. That’s something to celebrate.
TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE
***Please notice that I’m using an exponential scale for the Y axis on this graph. Doing it this way allows me to keep all three in a single graph and allows for a more realistic sense of the upward curves of the three data points (positive cases, hospitalizations, and deaths).
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Positive Cases: OHA has reported that 45 additional Oregonians tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday, putting the total at 2,680.
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Total Tests: The total number of tests in Oregon now stands at 62,054. That’s an increase of 1,918 tests.
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Ratio: I’m going to start showing the percentage of tests that are positive for the virus each day, rather than the cumulative percentage, in order to get a clearer sense of the progression of the disease. The percentage of positive results for today is 2.3%. That remains much lower than the national percentage for today, which is 11.1%. See below for a graph showing the daily ratio changes over the last month.
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Deaths: I’m happy to report that 0 deaths due to the virus in Oregon were reported today. The total number of deaths in Oregon remains at 109.
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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 598. This is an increase of 3 from yesterday.
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Other Hospital Information:
- Patients Currently w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 205 (a decrease of 4 from yesterday). Of those, 92 have already received a positive test back.
- Available ICU Beds: 295 (an increase of 30 from yesterday)
- Other Available Beds: 1,935 (an increase of 83 from yesterday)
- ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 46 (4 fewer than yesterday)
- COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 21 (1 fewer than yesterday).
- Available Ventilators: 800 (2 more than yesterday)
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Today’s National Numbers:
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PPE:
- In the last 24 hours the Emergency Coordination Center received another 24,000 face shields and 5,000 pairs of gloves.
Additional Daily Graphs:
 More Numbers
I’ve put together the following chart, showing the overall weekly sums of the Positive Tests (w All Tests added for perspective), Hospitalizations, and Deaths over the past four weeks. You’ll see that the weekly rates of increase in Oregon continue to come down.
 Another Tracking Report from Brian Wanty
I just received another update from Brian Wanty of Eugene on the trajectory of the disease in Oregon. As you’ll see from his comments, he remains concerned that Oregon may be reopening too soon. While our infection rates continue to decline, and remain lower than our neighbors (and six times lower than the national infection rate), borders are of course very porous, nearly all Oregonians have yet to be infected, and thus the need to be careful remains.
Brian points specifically to the differences between Oregon and New Zealand. New Zealand initiated a near-total form of distancing and closures right away, followed immediately by a serious testing and tracing process. For now at least, they seem to be on top of the problem much more than we are. One key element of their regulation was an early mandatory temporary quarantine for everyone coming into the country. That’s obviously easier to do for an island nation. I can’t see that being done here in Oregon unless things get much, much worse.
Thanks again for your input, Brian.
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:
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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