|
July 25, 2020
I hope that you and your loved ones are doing well, staying healthy, and looking out for your neighbors and friends.
Since it’s Saturday, you’ll find only partial reporting on some of the metrics tracking coronavirus in Oregon. Rather than providing information about positive test results alone, over the weekend OHA groups those numbers with the relatively small number of those who presumed positive while awaiting test results each day. But it still gives us a good idea of what’s going on. We seem to remain in a plateau in terms of spread of the virus. We don’t get hospitalization numbers over the weekend, so we won’t know what the rate of increase is till Monday.
Four additional Oregonians have had their deaths reported today. Three are from Multnomah County and one from Umatilla County.
As I’ve been doing on Saturdays for a while, I’m also taking the opportunity to look back at what’s going on in our individual counties on a week-by-week basis. Despite an overall decline in our percentage of test results coming back positive statewide, you’ll see some ongoing upticks in certain counties, particularly those that the Governor has put on her “Watch List.” On the other hand, you’ll see some real improvement in a couple of the other county hot spots: notably, Union County and Lincoln County.
TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE
-
Positive Cases: OHA reports that 408 additional Oregonians have either tested positive for COVID or are presumed positive for COVID. (OHA does not report positive test results alone over the weekend. I’ll readjust the numbers on Monday.) The cumulative total for those testing positive and presumed positive is 16,492.
-
Total Tests: The number of tests increased by 7,443. (OHA does not report positive test results alone over the weekend. Today’s increase in total results therefore includes presumed positives in the total results. I’ll readjust the numbers on Monday.) The cumulative total is now 374,010.
-
Ratio: The percentage of positive tests (and presumed positives) for today in Oregon is 5.5% of total results. The national percentage today is 7.2%.
-
Deaths: I’m sorry to have to report a record 4 additional deaths due to the coronavirus today. Further down in the newsletter, you’ll find information about those we’ve most recently lost. The total number of deaths in Oregon in now 286.
-
Hospitalized: OHA does not report on hospitalizations over the weekend The cumulative number of those who have been hospitalized with COVID thus remains at 1,474.
-
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; OHA DOES NOT REPORT hospitalization information over the weekend, so the numbers below are the same as Friday’s.
- Patients Currently w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 233 (8 more than yesterday). Of those, 168 have already received a positive test back.
- Available ICU Beds: 142 (10 fewer than yesterday).
- Other Available Beds: 701 (11 more than yesterday).
- ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 58 (6 more than yesterday).
- COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 30 (2 more than yesterday).
- Available Ventilators: 769 (3 more than yesterday).
-
Dashboards
-
Today’s National Numbers:
-
PPE:
What’s Going On In the Counties?
Each Saturday I’m tracking how individual counties are doing, especially now that we’re seeing big increases in cases around the state. 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 reproduce the current interactive county dashboard that the OHA has on its website. It shows case counts and total testing by county, scaled to cases per 10,000, so that we can see how the infection is penetrating the various counties, irrespective of their population size. This is what we see as of July 24:
This is a useful view because it allows us to see the infection rate within each county, irrespective of their total populations. If you look at the rankings, you can see the influence and lingering effects 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.
Looking at the tables below, you’ll again see many significant increases this week both in the numbers of new cases and in the percentages of new cases on a county level.
The percentage increases in positive test results may seem inordinately high when working off of a small base or when overall testing goes up rapidly in a county. The more accurate way to gauge the penetration of the disease in a given county is by the percentage of positive test results each week. In order to make the current trends in positive percentages more obvious, I’m again showing you the week-over-week percentages, along with the percentage of positive cases for each county since the beginning of the pandemic.
What’s potentially encouraging is that the proportion of positive test results for the state as a whole has gone down this week for the first time in over a month. We’ll obviously want to see this trend continue.
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 408. A little under 2/3 of the state’s new cases are again from counties outside the Portland Tri-County region, including another large number of cases from Umatilla County. Here is the breakdown by county for today:
Baker (2)
Benton (1)
Clackamas (30)
Columbia (1)
Coos (3)
Crook (1)
Curry (2)
Deschutes (19)
Douglas (6)
Harney (1)
Hood River (5)
Jackson (7)
Jefferson (9)
Josephine (5)
Klamath (3)
Lane (5)
Lincoln (2)
Linn (3)
Malheur (11)
Marion (52)
Morrow (10)
Multnomah (73)
Polk (11)
Umatilla (80)
Wasco (2)
Washington (58)
Yamhill (8)
And the Deaths
Oregon’s 283rd COVID-19 death is a 66-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on June 14 and died on July 14, at Adventist Medical Center.
Oregon’s 284th COVID-19 death is an 88-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on July 10 and died on July 21, in his residence.
Oregon’s 285th COVID-19 death is an 87-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on July 7 and died on July 17.
Oregon’s 286th COVID-19 death is an 85-year-old man in Umatilla County who tested positive on July 14 and died on July 24.
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:
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
| 
