June 27th COVID-19 Update

Michael Dembrow

June 27, 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.

Since it’s the weekend, today’s newsletter will not include all of the reporting metrics that are included during the week.  OHA is no longer issuing full data reports on Saturdays and Sundays.  But I’m still able to get you a lot of useful info regarding current infection rates. 

As a result of the modified reporting, you’ll notice a couple of changes in today’s report.  No information regarding hospitalizations and no specific breakout for positive test results (positive tests are combined with “presumptive positive” cases for today’s total positive cases.).  Monday’s report will incorporate the additional positive test results and hospitalization information.

As I do on Saturdays, I also am including a county-by-county lookback on number of new cases, number of tests, the percentage of tests that are positive, and deaths.  My goal is to help you see at a glance the trends that we are seeing in the individual counties, along with the state as a whole.

You’ll see that the infection rates in a number of counties—and in the state as a whole—continue to go up compared to previous weeks.  Though the rates are still relatively low, they’ve doubled from where they were a month ago.

According to the OHA, some of the new increases are due to higher rates of testing revealing more asymptomatic cases out there, some are due to workplace and congregate care outbreaks, and some are due to wider transmission into the community.  The latter have not yet been successfully traced to known carriers of the virus.  For the public health professionals, those are the most troubling.

TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE

  • Positive Cases: OHA reports today that 277 additional Oregonians have tested positive or are presumed positive.  The cumulative total for those testing positive and presumed positive is now 8,094.
  • Total Tests: The cumulative total number tests in Oregon is now 219,529, an increase of 3,185 tests.
  • Ratio: The percentage of positive results for today is 8.7%. (This includes the new presumptive positives, so the test ratio alone is likely lower.) The national percentage is 7.4%.  See below for a graph showing Oregon’s daily percentage changes over the last 14 days. 
  • Deaths: I’m afraid that I have to report 1 additional death due to the coronavirus reported today.  However, the total number of deaths in Oregon remains at 202, since OHA has determined that the death from Morrow County that was reported yesterday was not in fact a COVID-related death.         
  • Hospitalized: OHA does not report on new hospitalizations over the weekend. The cumulative total of those who’ve been hospitalized for COVID-19 thus remains at 1,022.
  • 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.  
  • Other Hospital Information: Since OHA does not report on hospitalization during the weekend, the numbers below remain the same as Friday’s.
    • Patients Currently w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 149 (40 fewer than yesterday). Of those, 98 have already received a positive test back.
    • Available ICU Beds: 154 (4 more than yesterday).
    • Other Available Beds: 688 (6 more than yesterday).
    • ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 53 (7 fewer than yesterday).
    • COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 35 (six more than yesterday).
    • Available Ventilators: 785 (1 fewer than yesterday).
  • Dashboards
  • Today’s National Numbers:
  • PPE:
  • Additional Brief Updates:
    • The Northwest Grocery Association announced the beginning of a campaign called "We Can't Do This Alone" today, urging Oregonians and Washingtonians to wear face coverings when in a grocery store. The purpose of wearing a face covering is to protect others, and that’s especially true for the grocery workers who are potentially exposed to the virus for hours at a time.  Hence their plea:  “We can’t do this alone. We urge all in our communities to join us in this call to protect our neighbors and employees. Please wear your mask!”

What’s Going On In the Counties?

Each Saturday I’m tracking how individual counties are doing now that nearly all are either in Phase One or Phase Two and we are seeing a number of relaxations statewide as well. The key metrics that OHA is watching are the number of positive test results and  the percentage of positive test results among all tests administered; the latter will be the more important way for us to see if the infection rate is increasing as a result of reopening and increased testing. (They also are looking at hospital capacity and changes in hospitalization rates, but I don’t have that information by county.)

But first, I want to direct you to an interactive county dashboard that the OHA has on its website.  It’s not surprising to see that Multnomah County generally has the highest number of new cases, given its population size.  What if we take that population size into account and look at the rate of infection within each county?  Where would Multnomah County land then?   Along with other information on the dashboard, this is what we see as of June 25:

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If you look at the rankings, you can see the influence of outbreaks at workplaces (especially agriculture and food processing), congregate care facilities, and the church community in Union County.  They are particularly noticeable in the less populous counties.  You can also the public health response, leading to much higher levels of testing (often as a result of contact tracing) in those counties where outbreaks have occurred.

Looking at the tables below, you’ll again see significant increases this week both in the numbers of new cases and in the percentages of new cases.  In order to make the latter more obvious, this time I’m showing you the week-over-week percentages, along with the percentage of positive cases for each county since the beginning of the pandemic.            

The tables include numbers reported on Saturday.

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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 277.  Here is the breakdown by county for today:

Benton (2)

Clackamas (16)

Columbia (1)

Coos (1)

Deschutes (3)

Jefferson (3)

Josephine (2)

Lake (1)

Lane (14)

Lincoln (2)

Linn (4)

Malheur (12)

Marion (32)

Morrow (5)

Multnomah (59)

Polk (2)

Umatilla (56)

Union (11)

Wasco (2)

Washington (44)

Yamhill (4)

And the Death:

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

Oregon’s 202nd COVID-19 death is an 84-year-old man in Multnomah County who became symptomatic on June 21, after close contact with a confirmed case, and died on June 22. His place of death is being confirmed. He had underlying medical conditions.

Correction: On Friday, OHA reported that Oregon’s 202nd COVID-19 death was a woman from Morrow County who had tested positive on June 22, but they also indicated in yesterday’s report that this case was still under investigation.  Upon further investigation they concluded that this was not a COVID-related death.

Additional Graphs:

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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.

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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,

dembrow signature

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