July 27th COVID-19 Update

July 27, 2020

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 967 additional Oregonians have tested positive for COVID since Friday, an average of 322 per day. The cumulative total for those testing positive is 16,240.
• Total Tests: The number of tests has increased by 15,982 since Friday, an average of 5,327 per day. The cumulative total is now 381,718.
• Ratio: The percentage of positive tests in Oregon for the three-day period since Friday is 6% of total results. The national percentage today is 7.2%. 
• Deaths: I’m happy to be able to report 0 additional deaths due to the coronavirus today. The total number of deaths in Oregon remains at 289.
• Hospitalized: OHA is reporting an additional 40 COVID hospitalizations since Friday, an average of 13 per day. The cumulative number of those who have been hospitalized with COVID is now 1,514.
• 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 now 848.
• Other Hospital Information:
  • Patients Currently w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 237 (4 more than Friday). Of those, 151 have already received a positive test back.
  • Available ICU Beds: 157 (15 more than Friday).
  • Other Available Beds: 781 (80 more than Friday).
  • ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 58 (same as Friday).
  • COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 27 (3 fewer than Friday).
  • Available Ventilators: 769 (same as Friday).
• Dashboards
  • Oregon (OHA)
  • Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, & Yamhill Counties
• Today’s National Numbers:
  • Total Tests: 52,252,334 (up 760,840 from yesterday).
  • Positive Tests: 4,275,188 (up 55,134 from yesterday).
  • Deaths: 140,309 (up 1,059 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:
  • In case you missed it here is DHS's announcement regarding outdoor visits to love ones in long-term care. If you have a loved one in a facility, check with the facility to see what their policy is. 
  • Also, DHS has updated their policy for those wanting to visit a loved one INSIDE a facility for purposes of “compassionate care.” DHS defines compassionate care visits as including end-of-life situations, bereavement due to the loss of a loved one, or emotional support for the resident who has just moved into a licensed setting and is adjusting to their new surroundings.
  • Hope you’re coping OK with the current heat wave. As you can imagine, this heat wave is causing problems on our fire lines, with high heat and lightning strikes providing very risky conditions for our forests.  Under COVID conditions, firefighting is particularly tricky.  Fortunately, so far this season Oregon fires have been below their recent rates, and none have put residents at risk so far.  I’ll periodically report on what’s going on in our fire season.  For those who are interested, the Department of Forestry has a wildfire blog, which is updated regularly.  Also, if you’re concerned about air quality as a result of wildfire smoke, check out the Oregon smoke blog with current information about the smoke effects of wildfires.  For now, I’m happy to report, things are looking OK. 

Legislative Work On Police Reform

During the first special session, the Legislature created a new House/Senate Joint Committee on Transparency in Policing and Use of Force Reform in order to keep working on policing reform.  They’ve been meeting on a regular basis (taking last week off because of budget committee meetings) in public session, hearing from experts and taking public testimony on the problems they’re trying to address.

Based on what they’ve heard so far, they’ve had some legislative concepts (LCs) drafted, with the goal of getting them introduced as bills and passed in the next special session, which should be occurring sometime in the next month.  These concepts will be open to public testimony this week.  If you go to any of the agenda links below and scroll down, you’ll find information on how to sign up to speak remotely or to submit written comment.

As you’ll see, some of them are expansions or modifications of bills passed during the first special session, while others are new concepts that have been generated in response to public input.  I believe that there are additional concepts in the works.

Here’s the schedule for this week’s hearings: 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 29

• Completing public testimony on HB 4208 (use of tear gas)
• LC 742 (use of “non-lethal” weapons). Here is the preliminary staff description of the concept.
• LC 743 (restrictions on police uniforms and requirement to have officer name visible). Here is the preliminary staff description of the concept.

THURSDAY, JULY 30

• LC 744 (reporting officer misconduct). Here is the preliminary staff description of the concept.
• LC 745 (prohibiting “chokeholds” from police use of force). Here is the preliminary staff description of the concept. (This description was written before the most current version of  the LC, which adds corrections officers to the prohibition.  This analysis will likely be updated before Thursday.)

FRIDAY, JULY 31

• LC 746 (arbitrators’ decisions re: police misconduct). Here is the preliminary staff description of the concept. 
• LC 748 (disciplinary records): still waiting for this one to be drafted. Should be posted onto the committee website soon.

Testing in Oregon: Good News and Bad News

OHA’s weekly testing report was just released today.  It confirms a trend that we saw in Saturday’s County-by-County report: for the first time since May, we actually saw a decline in our positivity rate last week.  That’s welcome news IF it continues.  Unfortunately, the report also shows that the problem of declining testing supplies and longer test response times is getting worse.  As I’m sure you’ve seen in the news and in this newsletter’s reporting of national numbers, infections and infection rates are going up dramatically nationwide, which is producing an increase in testing.  This is leading to increased pressure on supplies and on national labs.  Those who are able to get their tests processed locally are still able to experience relatively quick turnaround times, but if a sample goes to a national lab, it can take at least 14 days to process.  With that long a turnaround time, it’s not clear that a test has much value.

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 340. Most of the state’s new cases today are from the Portland Tri-County region, particularly from Multnomah County. Here is the breakdown by county for today:

Benton (2)

Clackamas (7)

Columbia (1)

Coos (1)

Crook (1)

Deschutes (11)

Douglas (1)

Harney (1)

Hood River (1)

Jackson (11)

Jefferson (9)

Lane (8)

Lincoln (1)

Malheur (8)

Marion (26)

Morrow (4)

Multnomah (119)

Polk (9)

Umatilla (47)

Wasco (1)

Washington (61)

Yamhill (9)

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