Coronavirus Update: Keep Your Guard Up, New Online PUA Application

ViewOnline
House Speaker Tina Kotek

Coronavirus Update: Keep Your Guard Up, New Online PUA Application

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Before we catch up on all the coronavirus news, I’d like to acknowledge the disturbing news of the last several days, namely the unhelpful and dangerous actions of federal agents in Portland and the potential of more federal troops being deployed to other major cities in the country.

The protests that have emerged from the tragic murder of George Floyd and other Black Americans by police have already led to some meaningful policing reforms. But, more work still needs to be done, both in Oregon and across the nation. I’m proud of the conversations the Joint Committee on Transparent Policing and Use of Force Reform has been having over the last two weeks about long-term changes, and there is more to come.

Federal officers are clearly escalating an already tense situation in downtown Portland. I’m frustrated that the federal government is prioritizing this kind of action, which has resulted in the detention of people without warrants and gassing of non-violent protestors. You can read more about this as reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting here.

I wish, instead, that our federal partners would be focused on a national COVID testing strategy and getting more economic help to Oregonians. We need all levels of government rowing in the same direction.


Keep Your Guard Up!

This weekend, Oregon once again crossed the 400-plus daily case threshold, the third time since the pandemic started. All three occurrences have been since July 11. Here are the daily counts for new cases and deaths since my last newsletter (July 17-20):

  • Friday: 307 cases, 5 deaths
  • Saturday: 353 cases, 3 deaths
  • Sunday: 436 cases, 3 deaths
  • Monday: 277 cases, 2 deaths

Despite some national rhetoric about increased testing leading to increased cases, you’ll see in the Oregon Health Authority’s weekly testing summary that our state’s test positivity rate had gone up each of the previous eight weeks before plateauing last week at 5.8%. Our overall test positivity rate is 4.1%, still well below the national average of 9%.


Summary of Oregon Test Results

However, being in a better position than much of the country is no reason to let our guard down.

The summary also notes that testing supplies “may be reduced over the coming weeks due to the recent spike in positive COVID-19 cases nationally and increased demand for testing.” Everyone is monitoring this potential supply challenge. Oregon’s estimated testing capacity is currently around 41,000 tests per week.

It can be easy to get accustomed to seeing these large totals on a daily basis, particularly with cases rising in most states and shocking daily case totals in places like Florida above 12,000. It was more than two months ago when the total deaths nationwide matched the number of Americans killed during the entirety of the Vietnam War. The death count has now more than doubled, as at least 138,000 people have died from coronavirus in the United States.

We have to keep fighting back. We all have a role to play in stopping the spread, and we have done it before. This is not an urban or rural issue, as highlighted in these articles by Oregon Public Broadcasting and the Associated Press.

On this and the issue of racial justice, it seems appropriate to quote civil rights legend Congressman John Lewis, who passed away last Friday: “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic.”


Mask Up

New Online PUA Application

The Oregon Employment Department launched a new online form for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program claims and weekly certifications. The new online form offers the following improvements:

  • Speeding up weekly benefit processing. Reducing application errors and automating the application process will help get claims processed faster and PUA benefits out to more Oregonians faster.
  • Preventing blank PDFs. Many of the PDF forms came in as blank forms. The chance that someone would accidentally upload a blank PDF form is also gone when using the online form.
  • Preventing incomplete claims. Important information, like the COVID-19 reason that makes an applicant eligible for PUA, is required, but has often been missing or left blank on the PDF forms. The online PUA application or weekly certification will give a warning notifying people that the information is required. This change will help process claims faster and reduce delays in receiving benefits due to missing information.

If you have filed weekly PUA claims via PDF and have not yet received payment, the department encourages you to re-file your weekly certifications through this new online claim form. People can continue submitting their initial application and weekly certifications by PDF upload, mail, fax or phone if they want, but these will take longer to process than the online claim form.

As of this morning, the department has received more than 20,000 weekly PUA certifications and 1,700 initial PUA claims since the form came online last Friday.

In addition to the new form, the department’s new website, unemployment.oregon.gov has answers to frequently asked PUA questions.

Please let my office know about your user experience with this new online form. It’s important that any issues with the application be relayed to the department as quickly as possible.


Supporting Essential Workers

One topic I’m following closely is how to improve workers’ compensation insurance requirements to protect Oregon’s essential workers in this pandemic. Workers’ compensation is a system that helps both employers and employees. This recent article from Insurance Journal is a helpful introduction.

In Oregon, workers’ compensation changes are usually reviewed and recommended by the Workers' Compensation Management-Labor Advisory Committee (MLAC). At the request of Governor Brown, this committee held several meetings over the last few weeks to discuss the gaps in the worker’s compensation system related to the COVID-19 outbreak. MLAC released their recommendations today, and those can be found here.

I’m disappointed that there wasn’t consensus to move forward with a presumption standard. Workers deserve more certainty and consistency about workers’ compensation claims than they are currently experiencing, especially as they are continually asked to keep our economy going and our communities safe. We need a system that can adapt to these new times. Our workers deserve better.


The Latest News

  • The Oregon Employment Department introduced a new online form last Friday for processing jobless claims from self-employed workers, using technology developed by Google, as The Oregonian reports here.
  • The City of Bend is asking tourists to stay away due to concerns about the coronavirus. Oregon Public Broadcasting has more details here.
  • A french fry plant in Hermiston is now the location of one of the largest workplace outbreaks in the state, as The Oregonian reports here.
  • The Oregon Health Authority reported 277 new confirmed cases of coronavirus, bringing the statewide total of new and presumptive cases to 14,847. Sadly, two more people have died, meaning there have been 262 Oregonians to die of the coronavirus. You can click the images below for links to interactive data tables about coronavirus in Oregon.

Oregon Epi Curve

Testing outcomes

To read past newsletters, you can go to this link. For up to date information, please check this link to the Oregon Health Authority where regular updates are posted: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/ERD/Pages/News-Releases.aspx

Please email me at Rep.TinaKotek@oregonlegislature.gov if you have specific concerns that have not been addressed by the OHA. Our office will do all we can to help and protect all Oregonians.

Thank you for reading! We will get through this together.

Best,

Tina

Tina Kotek

State Representative
House District 44
Speaker of the House

email: Rep.TinaKotek@oregonlegislature.gov I phone: 503-986-1200
address: 900 Court St NE, H-269, Salem, OR 97301
website: http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/kotek