July 13th COVID-19 Update

July 13, 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.  

TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE

• Positive Cases: OHA reports that 914 additional Oregonians have tested positive for COVID since Friday, an average of 305 per day. The cumulative total for those testing positive is 11,795.
• Total Tests: The number of tests increased by 13,872 since Friday, an average of 4,624. The cumulative total is now 300,069.
• Ratio: The percentage of positive tests for the last three days is 6.6% of total tests. The national percentage today is 8.1%. 
• Deaths: I’m sorry to report 3 additional deaths due to the coronavirus.  The total number of deaths in Oregon remains at 237.
• Hospitalized: OHA is reporting 54 new COVID hospitalizations over the weekend, an average of 18 per day. The cumulative number of those who have been hospitalized with COVID is now 1,234.
• 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 presumed positives is 643.
• Other Hospital Information:
  • Patients Currently w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 246 (38 more than Friday). Of those, 155 have already received a positive test back.
  • Available ICU Beds: 168 (51 more than Friday).
  • Other Available Beds: 766 (86 more than Friday).
  • ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 67 (11 more than Friday).
  • COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 35 (5 more than Friday).
  • Available Ventilators: 769 (7 fewer than Friday).
• Dashboards
  • Oregon (OHA)
  • Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, & Yamhill Counties
• Today’s National Numbers:
  • Total Tests: 41,002,876 (up 720,340 from yesterday).
  • Positive Tests: 3,350,326 (up 57,997 from yesterday).
  • Deaths: 128,004 (up 327 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 not received any additional Personal Protective Equipment. You can track the history of incoming and outgoing PPE shipments here.
• Additional Brief Items:
  • This afternoon, the University of Oregon, along with Oregon State University, Stanford, USC, and 16 other institutions on the West Coast filed a lawsuit in Eugene’s U.S. District Court seeking a temporary restraining order against the proposed ICE regulations that would force the immediate deportation of international students if their colleges and universities are forced to go online as a result of a resurgence of COVID. The UO is the lead plaintiff on this particular lawsuit, but there are many others being filed around the country. You can read more about the suit being filed in Eugene here.
  • In addition to the universities, a number of states Attorneys General are filing suit to stop the proposed new rule.  Our AG Ellen Rosenblum today joined a coalition of 18 Attorneys General in this filing.
  • In an email to legislators today, DHS reported that Oregon is seeing a resurgence in COVID-19 infections at long-term care facilities, with some of the outbreaks occurring outside of large metropolitan areas, including in Malheur, Lincoln, and Union counties.  Those three counties are on the Governor’s “Watch List” because they have a high degree of community spread. We’re presumably seeing instances of that community spread making its way into facilities whose residents are at high-risk for serious complications from the disease.  We should get a better sense from this week’s COVID Weekly Report, which should be coming out tomorrow or Wednesday.

Governor Brown Announces New Statewide Restrictions

In a press conference this morning, which you can watch here, the Governor announced two new orders to curb the resurgence of COVID in Oregon:

1. The state must return to a limit of 10 on any indoor social gatherings. The limit does not apply to outdoor get-togethers, so everyone should plan to move their parties and their celebrations outdoors.
2. Starting Wednesday, face-coverings will be required outdoors as well as indoors whenever individuals are in situations where they cannot maintain six feet of separation at all times.

These limits don’t apply to businesses or churches at this time (except for the outdoor face-covering requirement for customers/congregants), but the Governor made it clear that we may need to change that if these steps aren’t sufficient to slow down the spread.  In fact, she reiterated that she is ordering the two changes precisely in order to avoid having to look at further closures of businesses and schools.

Not surprisingly, the Governor was asked several questions about how she will enforce these new restrictions.  She made it clear that she is not going to be sending out the “party police” to invade people’s homes. 

She announced that she has convened a statewide enforcement task force to advise her on how best to make sure that businesses and organizations comply with the regulations.  She believes that businesses are generally following the requirements, but certainly not universally.  She repeated that there will be serious consequences for those that are not protecting employees and customers.

Finally, the Governor expressed her appreciation for the many Oregonians who are looking out for their neighbors, limiting gatherings, and wearing face coverings, despite the difficulties.  If these new restrictions don’t work, we can expect a tripling of cases in the next six weeks, and we’ll likely have to follow other states and go back to earlier times of closure. 

Big Outbreak at State Prison in Malheur County

An outbreak of 102 cases has been reported at Snake River Correctional Institution in Malheur County. The case count includes all Oregon residents linked to the outbreak, which may include household members and other close contacts to an employee. Given the ongoing medical lockdowns in the prisons, staff are the likely point of transmission, an increasing problem now that the disease is becoming more prevalent on the outside.

There may also be additional cases among Idaho employees and their families, who are counted separately. OHA reports that it is working closely with Idaho to coordinate contact tracing across state lines.

The outbreak investigation apparently started on June 24 and presumably resulted in widespread testing at the facility over the last week or two.  The current posting on the DOC COVID website gives numbers dating July 8, when there were still only 13 adults In custody and 15 staff. 

As of July 8 a total of 197 AICs and 97 DOC staff have tested positive across the system.  A total of 1,259 AICs have been tested.

I’ll be speaking with DOC to get a better understanding of this outbreak and steps that should be taken going forward.

OHA releases Weekly Testing Summary

Today OHA released its Weekly Testing Summary, which showed that 28,314 tests were performed from July 6-12, with 5.8% of those tests coming back positive.

And here’s what OHA had to report about testing capacity in Oregon:

Overall testing capacity is estimated to be 41,000 weekly tests as of the most recent data available. Meanwhile, OHA has received information that testing supply allocations from several major manufacturers to Oregon State Public Health Laboratory (OSPHL) and clinical labs in Oregon are being, or may be, reduced due to increasing national demand. OHA and OSPHL are working collaboratively with in-state laboratories to help manage supply chain issues. And OHA continues to explore opportunities to expand collection and testing services.

We did hear again from OHA this morning that federal testing supplies are going to those states that are being hit much harder than we are right now, which is putting increasing pressure on our access to supplies.

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 280. Today more than half are from the Portland Tri-County region.  Here is the breakdown by county for today:

Clackamas (20)

Columbia (6)

Coos (2)

Gilliam (1)

Hood River (2)

Jackson (3)

Klamath (1)

Lane (4)

Linn (1)

Malheur (27)

Marion (36)

Morrow (9)

Multnomah (82)

Polk (2)

Umatilla (28)

Wallowa (1)

Washington (47)

Yamhill (8)

And the Deaths

Oregon’s 235th COVID-19 death is a 67-year-old man in Marion County who tested positive on July 8 and died July 11, in his residence.

Oregon’s 236th COVID-19 death is a 76-year-old man in Clackamas County who tested positive on July 1 and died July 4, in his residence.

Oregon’s 237th COVID-19 death is a 54-year-old man in Umatilla County who died on July 8 in his residence and tested positive post-mortem on July 9.

E-Board Meets Tuesday Morning at 10; Item Added

The Legislative Emergency Board web page now includes details on the latest round of COVID-Response allocations, including a new one: an allocation to help deal with the terrible problems that the residents of the Warm Springs reservation are having with their water and wastewater systems.  Inadequate infrastructure is limiting their access to clean drinking water and seriously endangering public health. The proposal is to use $3.58 million from the Emergency Fund for a direct grant via the Oregon Business Development Department.

Here are links to each of the individual proposals:

1. COVID-19 Emergency Business Assistance: $25,600,000 to support small businesses, including $2,500,000 in additional dollars to support the fishing industry.
2. Statewide Business and Cultural Support: $50 million for arts and cultural businesses and activities. 
3. Oregon Cares Fund for Black Relief and Resiliency: $62 million to the Black United Fund and The Contingent for grants to Black-owned businesses, non-profits, and individuals in need of emergency support.
4. COVID-19 Leave Fund for Quarantined Workers: $30 million to replace lost wages of individuals who need to quarantine because of contact with COVID.
5. Emergency Relief Checks: (This is the $500 that will be sent to those still waiting for their Unemployment and Pandemic Unemployment benefits.)
6. Election Security: $2,500,000 to install and operate election intrusion detection technology in each of the 36 counties.
7. Warm Springs Water/Wastewater Repairs: $3,580,000 General Fund from the Emergency Fund to the Oregon Business Development Department (OBDD), for improvements to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation water and wastewater systems.

We can expect that one of the more controversial subjects for the E-Board to address is the extent to which any of these dollars should be available for people and businesses in Portland, Multnomah County, or Washington County since those jurisdictions received separate funding from the CARES Act. Needless to say, opinions are mixed.

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