May 22nd COVID-19 Update

May 22, 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.

Best wishes for a lovely Memorial Day Weekend.  Memorial Day is obviously going to be different for many of us this year.  But it’s always an important time to recognize those who have made sacrifices for us in many ways, remember our loved ones, and count those blessings that we can.  And that’s true now more than ever.

TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE

• Positive Cases: OHA has reported that 45 additional Oregonians tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday, putting the total at 3,770.
• Total Tests: The total number of tests in Oregon now stands at 107,745.  That’s an increase of 2,613 tests.
• Ratio: The percentage of positive results for today is 1.7%. Today’s national percentage is 7%.  See below for a graph showing Oregon’s daily percentage changes over the last 14 days.
• Deaths: I’m afraid that I must report 2 additional deaths due to the coronavirus.  The total number of deaths in Oregon is now at 147.  
• Hospitalized: The number of Oregonians who have been hospitalized with symptoms, and who have also tested positive for the disease, increased by 5, and is now at 737.
• Presumptive Cases: OHA is now including “presumptive COVID-19 cases” in its daily reports, consistent with recently amended guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A presumptive case is someone who does not yet have a positive PCR test result but is showing symptoms and has had close contact with a confirmed case. If they later test positive by PCR, those will be recategorized as confirmed cases.  Today the number of new presumptive cases is 3, and the total of presumptive cases is now at 92.
• Other Hospital Information:
  • Patients Currently w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 146 (6 fewer than yesterday). Of those, 51 have already received a positive test back.
  • Available ICU Beds: 185 (6 fewer than yesterday).
  • Other Available Beds: 1,664 (8 fewer than yesterday).
  • ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 47 (7 more than yesterday).
  • COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 16 (2 more than yesterday).
  • Available Ventilators: 785 (1 more than yesterday).
• Today’s National Numbers:
  • Total Tests: 13,398,624 (up 342,418 from yesterday).
  • Positive Tests: 1,591,475 (up 24,048 from yesterday).
  • Deaths: 90,156 (up 1,171 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:
  • In the last 24 hours the Emergency Coordination Center has received 120,000 pairs of gloves. You can track the history of incoming and outgoing PPE shipments here.
• Other Brief Updates:
  • Clackamas County has been approved for Phase One reopening starting today. For those of you interested in seeing its application, here it is. This means that three counties are beginning Phase One today (Marion, Polk, and Clackamas), and only two (Multnomah and Washington) remain non-Phase One.
  • Two new sets of Industry Sector Reopening FAQs have been posted:
    • Personal services
    • Retail stores, shopping centers and malls

You’ll find more details in them about what is expected from these industries.  You can find all the sector-specific FAQs on the OHA COVID-19 website under OHA Guidance and Signage. FAQs will be listed just below the sector-specific guidance.

• We just received an update from OSU’s TRACE study. TRACE has been randomly testing Corvallis residents for COVID-19 in order to get a sense of the prevalence of the disease among the general population, including those who might not be showing symptoms.  OSU just announced that they are expanding the study to Bend (home of OSU-Cascades) this weekend. Thirty 2-person field teams will visit 30 Bend neighborhood census blocks, knock on a random selection of doors and ask household residents if they would like to participate in the study.  In Corvallis the researchers have been having great success in getting residents to agree to participate—80% of households have participated so far.  For further information about the TRACE project, here's the project website.
• Business Oregon has a place on its website for businesses that are looking to acquire Personal Protective Equipment, called the Supply Connector. This resource is Business Oregon’s collaborative project to connect businesses and communities with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) manufacturers and suppliers to fight the spread of COVID-19 and keep employees safe.  This tool provides a searchable database of businesses we have identified that can help provide PPE. The system also serves to connect businesses up and down the supply chain from raw materials, manufacturing needs, packaging, distribution, etc.

OHA’s Dashboard for Tracking COVID Statewide and By County Is Now Live

OHA now has an online dashboard that shows a variety of public health indicators related to COVID-19, including:

• Cases
• Positivity rates
• Hospitalizations
• Contact tracing

It’s full of interesting information about where we’ve been and where we are in the pandemic.  OHA will continue to expand and improve the data on this dashboard.

The site also includes a table that summarizes the indicators OHA is monitoring for making public health recommendations at the county level. For this county-by-county information, click on the “County Indicators” tab.

You’ll see that some of the counties are not currently meeting all the requirements that are expected of Phase One counties.  They will need to be monitored closely for progress on those metrics.

We learned today that next week we’ll be hearing further details about Phase Two, and what it will take for counties to move to Phase Two reopening.

Can Businesses Require Customers to Wear Face Coverings?

I’ve received this question and others about the new guidelines for face coverings.  The answer is yes, they can, but there are conditions.  If customers or visitors will be required to wear a face covering, the business or organization must develop a policy and post clear signs about any such requirements. They cannot be discriminatory in how they apply this requirement. According to the guidance, a policy that requires customers and visitors to wear face coverings must:

• Provide exceptions to the policy to accommodate people with certain health conditions, or children under two years of age.
• Take into account that places of public accommodation must make reasonable modifications to their policy to allow people with disabilities to access their services.
• Take into account that requiring people to wear face coverings affects people differently, including people of color who may have heightened concerns about racial profiling and harassment due to wearing face coverings in public.
• Consider whether to provide face coverings for customers or visitors who do not have one.

Businesses in certain sectors MUST require their employees, contractors and volunteers to wear a face covering, unless an accommodation for people with disabilities or other exemption applies.  They are also required to provide those face coverings to their employees.

Let me add two things about face coverings.  There is increasing evidence that they really can make a difference in containing the virus.  They really should be worn when a person is outside the home in an inside area in contact with others.  Generally, the benefit is that the person wearing the mask is not spreading droplets to others. It’s something that we can all do to help one another.

I’m also hearing from people that it’s an unconstitutional infringement of individual rights for a business to require customers to wear face coverings.  I really don’t believe that’s the case.  The Supreme Court has upheld the right of states and local governments to take steps to protect the health of its communities. As one of my colleagues pointed out, we’re all used to the requirement that we wear shoes when we enter a store or restaurant for health reasons. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard from a constituent asking for those requirements to be changed.  During this pandemic, wearing a face covering seems at least as important.

Additional Graphs:

 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.  Also, if someone forwarded you this newsletter and you’d like to get it directly, you can sign up for it there.

AND FINALLY,

Here again are some resources that you will find useful:

• Multnomah County has a status report on reopening.
• You can view the reopening status of all 36 counties here.
• 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.
• The Department of Corrections has a COVID tracking website.

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