June 22nd COVID-19 Update

June 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.

In today’s newsletter I’m providing a snapshot of where we are today with the virus, based on the cumulative reporting for the last three days.  We did not have an OHA briefing today, so I can’t yet explain the big increase in numbers from Multnomah County yesterday, nor the big increase in Marion County today.  I expect they’re both due to outbreaks.  I’m hoping to have an explanation tomorrow.

As are most of my legislative colleagues, I’m quite focused right now on the special session that is coming on Wednesday.  As you can imagine, we’re looking hard at the bills being proposed, hearing a lot from advocates who want bills killed, supported, or modified.  Lots going on, some of which you can read about below.  Other details you’re just going to have to sign up for Tuesday evening’s Zoom Town Hall to hear more about!

Until then, stay careful and stay safe.

TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE

• Positive Cases: OHA reports that 492 additional Oregonians have tested positive over the last three days, or an average of 164 per day.  The cumulative total for those testing positive is now 6,836.
• Total Tests: The cumulative total number tests in Oregon now stands at 206,381. That’s an increase of 3,770 tests.  
• Ratio: The percentage of positive results for the last three days is 4.4%. The three-day national percentage is 5.5%. See below for a graph showing Oregon’s daily percentage changes over the last 14 days. 
• Deaths: I’m afraid I have to report 2 additional deaths due to the coronavirus today.  The total number of deaths in Oregon is now at 192.   
• Hospitalized: OHA reported 23 new COVID hospitalizations since Friday, an average of 7.7 hospitalizations per day. The cumulative total of those who’ve been hospitalized for COVID-19 is now 969.
• 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 total number of presumptive cases is 247.
• Other Hospital Information:
  • Patients Currently w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 145 (9 fewer than Friday). Of those, 93 have already received a positive test back.
  • Available ICU Beds: 153 (6 fewer than Friday).
  • Other Available Beds: 858 (18 more than Friday).
  • ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 48 (2 fewer than Friday).
  • COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 27 (2 fewer than Friday).
  • Available Ventilators: 789 (3 fewer than Friday).
• Dashboards:
  • Oregon (OHA)
  • Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, & Yamhill Counties
• Today’s National Numbers:
  • Total Tests: 27,559,492 (up 474,592 from yesterday).
  • Positive Tests: 2,297,383 (up 27,928 from yesterday).
  • Deaths: 114,034 (up 285 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 72,800 protective gowns. You can track the history of incoming and outgoing PPE shipments here.

ZOOM Town Hall Tomorrow: June 23

A reminder that Alissa, Barbara, and I will be holding a pre-Special Session Zoom town tomorrow evening, June 23, 5-6:30 p.m.  Register in advance for the meeting here.  After registering, you’ll receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Legislative Concept Changes

As I’ve mentioned, the list of bill concepts under consideration for this week’s special session is a moving target.  Some are being added, some are being deleted outright, others are being deleted as stand-alone bills and incorporated in whole or in part in another.

Here are two additional concepts that I haven’t already included for you.  They are included in their proper place in the comprehensive bill list below:

LC 45: This is the House version of the Senate’s LC 84. LC 45 is also an Omnibus COVID response bill.  Includes a number of response elements, including some that are included in stand-alone bills.

LC 52: Clarifies the rights of those with disabilities to receive equitable medical care, including the right of a person with a disability to have a support person present.

Those that have been dropped include LC 33 (related to evictions, covered elsewhere), LC 56 (expansion of scope of practice for dental hygienists, will come back in the 2021 session), LC 68 (setting workplace COVID standards, which I hear will be addressed in an executive order).   It also appears that LC 76, which would have increased the percentage of students who can be enrolled in an online charter school run by an entity outside their district, is not moving forward.

I suspect that there are others being drafted.  We’ll see if they are ultimately introduced or not. 

More On Special Session and Potential Bills

The Special Session Joint Committee had its first meeting this afternoon in order to organize itself and take testimony on all the proposed LCs other than the police accountability measures, which will be taken up Tuesday morning, starting at 9:30.  Today’s hearing included oral testimony on a number of bills from a number of people.  Some of those who had signed up had difficulty getting in at first, but at the end of the day it turned out to be a remarkable example of ingenuity and transparency in the face of many challenges.  Again, I hope that we can learn from this experience and use it in the future to open up our legislative process to more remote input from around the state.

If you missed the meeting, you can go to the committee website for today's meeting.  If you’d like, you can get to the archived version of the meeting and watch it.  You can click on Meeting Materials see all the  testimony. 

Again, tomorrow’s meeting, focusing on police accountability, begins at 9:30.  Here's the agenda.  From that page you can watch it (live or later archived) and get to the bills and public testimony under Meeting Materials. 

The public record will be open until 5 p.m. on Tuesday if you’d like to submit written testimony for us all to see.

The actual session will begin in Salem on Wednesday morning at 8 a.m.  I wish I could say it will be over in one day, but at this point that seems unlikely.  

Below are the LCs that have been submitted so far.  You can see them all by clicking on the links or by going to the Meeting Materials tabs on today’s and tomorrow’s meetings of the Special Session Joint Committee. 

Again, they fall into three categories: Police Accountability, COVID Response, and Urgent Holdovers from the February session. Please remember that these are preliminary drafts and very much in flux.  I’m sure most of them will see changes before the session actually begins.

There will also be some additional technical/procedural LCs that are simply needed to manage the running of the special session.

Police Accountability

LC 49: Prohibits an arbitrator from reinstating an officer judged to have committed misconduct, where the employer followed the guidelines agreed upon through collective bargaining.

LC 78: Creates a statewide database of police officer disciplinary proceedings, so that problem officers can be identified and prevented from being hired elsewhere in the state.

LC 79: Requires that instances of death or serious injury caused by police officers to be investigated and potentially prosecuted by the state Department of Justice.

LC 80: Creates rules requiring police officers to intervene to stop another officer from engaging in an act that is illegal, unethical, or violates rules or policy.

LC 81: Prohibits law enforcement from using tear gas, long range acoustic devices, or sound cannons

LC 83: Prohibits police officers from using force that limits the ability of a person to breathe, including but not limited to choke holds.

COVID Emergency Issues

LC 33: Prohibits commercial evictions during the pandemic.

LC 37: Temporarily extends timelines for judicial proceedings during the pandemic.

LC 45: This is the House version of the Senate’s LC 84. LC 45 is also an Omnibus COVID response bill.  Includes a number of response elements, including some that are included in stand-alone bills.

LC 39: Expands access to broadband via a service charge on cell phone plans.

LC 43: Fixes problems with existing allocation system for transit services, including for seniors and people with disabilities.

LC 52: Clarifies the rights of those with disabilities to receive equitable medical care, including the right of a person with a disability to have a support person present.

LC 66: Extends for one year small school district grants and school district funding for foreign exchange students.

LC 74: Creates state meat processing inspection program to address disruptions due to outbreaks in very large national meat processing plants.

LC 84: This is an omnibus bill covering multiple elements of coronavirus response.

LC 85: Creates temporary limitations on the ability of lenders to enforce foreclosures during the pandemic.

LC 90: Prohibits residential and commercial evictions up to 90 days after the emergency period has ended.

Holdover Issues

LC 7:  Memorializes an agreement between environmental organizations and timber companies creating restrictions on and notification of pesticide use.

LC 51: A number of fixes related to foster youth placements, including out-of-state placements.

LC 53: Technical fixes to the Corporate Activities Tax passed last year.

LC 62: Grant/Loan Program for Eastern Oregon workforce development/economic development.

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 146.  Here is the breakdown by county for today:

Benton (2)

Clackamas (15)

Deschutes (4)

Douglas (1)

Hood River (1)

Jackson (1)

Jefferson (1)

Lane (4)

Lincoln (6)

Marion (47)

Morrow (1)

Multnomah (17)

Umatilla (11)

Union (5)

Wasco (1)

Washington (27)

Yamhill (2)

And the Deaths:

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

Oregon’s 191^st COVID-19 death is a 68-year-old man in Lincoln County who died June 16 in his residence and tested positive on June 17. He did not have underlying medical conditions.  

Oregon’s 192^nd COVID-19 death is a 90-year-old woman in Marion County who tested positive on June 18. Additional information about this COVID-19 related death is still pending. An update will be provided when we have additional information.

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