June 18th COVID-19 Update

June 18, 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 know that many of you out there share my euphoria over today’s Supreme Court decision allowing the DACA program to continue. As many of you know, many of my former students were Dreamers, and I’ve come to know them and their peers, appreciate them and their enormous potential, and support them with legislation whenever I can.  I serve on a national bipartisan task force of legislators focused on Immigration and the States, all of whom are trying to get us to a more sensible and comprehensive immigration policy.  I can safely say that no one on that task force, Democrat or Republican, believes that forcing young people with so much potential to leave this country in which they were raised makes any sense at all.  So this 5-4 decision comes as a real relief.  This decision by the Supreme Court does not provide us with a road map for the comprehensive immigration reform that we need, but it does at least provide ongoing temporary shelter for our Dreamers.

Nothing too noteworthy to report on COVID today. Today’s numbers are overall not bad. Statewide hospitalizations are down.  The number of new cases remains high, but so does testing, and the percentage of positive test results is low.

The Governor held a press conference this morning to go over the new directives regarding face coverings and reopening that I mentioned in last night’s newsletter.  You probably won’t be surprised to hear that her directive regarding expanded face covering requirements in seven counties (which comprise 55% of the state’s population) has received a fair amount of pushback in some quarters. You can watch the Governor’s and OHA’s explanation of her reasoning in the archived YouTube video.

For the reasons laid out in the letter we sent to Multnomah County, I do think that requiring face coverings in indoor public spaces makes sense and will help prevent the spread of the virus until we have effective treatment and a vaccine.  We should have the detailed guidance and FAQs available any day. The requirement goes into effect next Wednesday.

I have some additional information to share on next week’s special session of the Legislature.  You’ll see that below.

We now have a sign-up address for next week’s pre-Special Session Zoom town hall that I’m doing with Reps Keny-Guyer and Smith Warner.  Again, it’s Tuesday evening, June 23, 5-6:30 p.m.  Register in advance for the meeting at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIoceGrpzkvGtYCFDIlQEJLsdefrn8XUAAo.  After registering, you’ll receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE

• Positive Cases: OHA reports that 133 additional Oregonians have tested positive for COVID-19.  The cumulative total is now 6,140.
• Total Tests: The cumulative total number tests in Oregon now stands at 188,910 That’s an increase of 4,771.
• Ratio: The percentage of positive results for today is 2.8%. Today’s national percentage is 5.8%. See below for a graph showing Oregon’s daily percentage changes over the last 14 days.
• Deaths: I’m afraid I have to report 4 additional deaths due to the coronavirus today.  The total number of deaths in Oregon is now at 187.   
• Hospitalized: OHA reported 4 new hospitalizations today. The cumulative total of those who’ve been hospitalized for COVID-19 is now 933.
• 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. The number of new presumed cases has increased by 15, and the total number of those presumed positive is 226.
• Other Hospital Information:
  • Patients Currently w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 141 (17 fewer than yesterday, 33 more than the day before). Of those, 89 have already received a positive test back.
  • Available ICU Beds: 184 (16 more than yesterday).
  • Other Available Beds: 827 (33 more than yesterday).
  • ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 46 (8 fewer than yesterday).
  • COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 28 (2 more than yesterday).
  • Available Ventilators: 794 (13 more than yesterday).
• Dashboards:
  • Oregon (OHA)
  • Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, & Yamhill Counties
• Today’s National Numbers:
  • Total Tests: 25,403,498 (up 465,621 from yesterday).
  • Positive Tests: 2,177,888 (up 26,956 from yesterday).
  • Deaths: 112,172 (up 695 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 one million surgical masks. You can track the history of incoming and outgoing PPE shipments here.
• Additional Brief Updates:
  • California instituted a face-covering requirement for indoor public spaces today. It applies to the entire state.
  • The Governor’s Office clarified today that overnight cruises are not allowed even under Phase Two. It’s just too dangerous.  However, non-overnight cruises can occur under Phase One under the same guidance that restaurants are under.  Under Phase Two, they are governed by the indoor/outdoor entertainment guidance.
  • I’m happy to report that I’ll be getting a COVID antibody test this weekend. Why?  Because of my special status as a legislator?  No, it’s because of my special status as a blood donor!  This Saturday I’m scheduled to donate platelets and plasma, as I try to do every couple of weeks, and I’ve just learned that all Red Cross donations will be screened for COVID antibodies. Check out this letter I received from Red Cross.  As you’ll see , YOU TOO can have your blood tested for COVID antibodies, letting you know if you’ve ever (probably) had the disease. To be honest, I’m expecting a negative result, but who knows?  I’ll let you know.

Info About the Special Session

As I mentioned in an earlier newsletter, the Governor has called the Legislature into a special session beginning on June 24 to deal with certain policy issues.  You can read her proclamation here.

Legislative Counsel is in the process of drafting the concepts that will be introduced in the session.  We’re expecting them to be finished by tomorrow evening.  I’ll share them with you as soon as I can. 

Unlike the way we usually do things in a regular session, in a special session the committee work that gets bills debated and sent to the floor for a vote will all done by a single “Joint Committee on the First Special Session of 2020.” (As you can see, we expect more sessions to come.)  This is typical in special sessions.

The members of the Joint Committee were just announced this afternoon.  On the House side, they are Democrats Tina Kotek, Janelle Bynum, Paul Holvey, and Andrea Salinas, and Republicans Christine Drazan, Rick Lewis, and Duane Stark.  Speaker Kotek will co-chair the committee for the House.

On the Senate side, they are Democrats Peter Courtney, Lew Frederick, and Floyd Prozanski, along with Republicans Tim Knopp and Kim Thatcher.  President Courtney will co-chair the committee for the Senate.

It was just announced that the joint committee will meet ahead of the session in order to organize itself and take public testimony on the bills that will be under consideration.  For more information, and to find out how you can yourself provide written or oral testimony, here is the online agenda for this meeting.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the session or the Joint Committee.

Multnomah County Reopens on Friday

Since most counties have now moved to Phase Two, you may have forgotten exactly what it means for a county to enter Phase One.  So here is a graphic from OHA that gives you a quick view.  For more information, go to the OHA website.

Where Are Today’s New Cases?

If we put together the positive test results and new “presumptive” cases reported today, the overall number of new cases is 148.  Here is the breakdown by county for today:

Clackamas (12)

Columbia (4)

Hood River (3)

Jefferson (4)

Klamath (4)

Lincoln (4)

Linn (1)

Malheur (4)

Marion (26)

Morrow (4)

Multnomah (33)

Polk (3)

Umatilla (13)

Union (5)

Washington (25)

Yamhill (3).

And the Deaths:

The OHA had this to say about the person we most recently lost to COVID-19:

Oregon’s 184th COVID-19 death is an 82-year-old woman in Marion County, who tested positive on June 4 and died June 14. Her place of death is being confirmed. She had underlying medical conditions.

Oregon’s 185th COVID-19 death is a 78-year-old man in Marion County who tested positive on June 11 and died June 15 in his residence. He had underlying medical conditions.

Oregon’s 186th COVID-19 death is an 89-year-old man in Clackamas County who tested positive on June 6 and died June 16. His place of death is being confirmed. He had underlying medical conditions.

Oregon’s 187th COVID-19 death is an 87-year-old man in Clackamas County who became symptomatic May 13, after close contact with a confirmed case, and died May 23. His place of death is being confirmed. He had underlying medical conditions.

Additional Graphs:

And Here’s a New Graph That I’ll Be Featuring

My very helpful associate Tom Powers has provided me with an additional graph that I’ll be featuring regularly.  It shows where our testing positivity rate has been on a weekly basis since the beginning of the pandemic in Oregon. The yellow line shows the percentage changes, while the green line smooths out the daily anomalies by showing 7-day averages.

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