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*Note: This email should have landed in your inbox last night, but the email service we use was undergoing maintenance. I'll have a fresh update for you this evening with more details about tomorrow's special session.
August 8, 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 combines those numbers with the relatively small number of those who are presumed to be positive based on their symptoms and close proximity to someone who has tested positive, but whose test results have not yet come back. But it still gives us a good idea of what’s going on. Today’s number of new cases is down, as is our positivity rate, but overall we seem to be on the same plateau we’ve been on in recent weeks.
We don’t get hospitalization numbers over the weekend, so we won’t know what the rate of increase is till Monday. Deaths are reported, however, and today OHA reported the deaths of seven Oregonians from different parts of the state.
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. You’ll see further evidence that the surge continues in some of our rural Eastern Oregon counties. On the other hand, you’ll see some improvements in other parts of the state.
For those of you interested in the goings-on of the Oregon Legislature, a lot is going on right now, as we prepare for Monday’s special session. Not much of a weekend for most of us, I’m afraid. You’ll find a sneak preview below, with more to come tomorrow.
TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE
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Positive Cases: OHA reports that 376 additional Oregonians have tested positive or are presumed positive (see below for definition) 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 21,010.
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Total Tests: The number of tests has increased by 6,749. (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 443,368.
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Ratio: The percentage of positive tests today is 5.6% of total results. The national percentage today is 8.1%.
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Deaths: I’m very sorry to report 7 additional deaths due to the coronavirus today. You can read more about those we lost further down in the newsletter. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 355.
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Hospitalized: OHA does not report on hospitalizations over the weekend The cumulative number of those who have been hospitalized with COVID thus remains at 1,758.
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Presumptive Cases: OHA is 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.
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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): 204 (26 fewer than yesterday). Of those, 145 have already received a positive test back.
- Available ICU Beds: 173 (16 more than yesterday).
- Other Available Beds: 649 (7 more than yesterday).
- ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 51 (7 fewer than yesterday).
- COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 18 (9 fewer than yesterday).
- Available Ventilators: 779 (5 more than yesterday).
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Dashboards
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Today’s National Numbers:
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PPE:
Preparing for Special Session #2
The bills are beginning to be posted for Monday’s special session of the Legislature. You can follow them as they are posted on the website for the Joint Committee on the Second Special Session.
At this point, it looks as if the bills that will be considered fall into four categories:
- Budget Rebalance: Steps needed to bring our state budget into balance for the next year, given the reductions in state revenues. As I write this, the bill to take money out of reserves to help balance the budget, as well as a fee bill have been posted, but so far the specific budget bills have not yet been drafted and posted. When they are posted, you’ll see that in some cases we’ve been able to avoid or reduce cuts that were anticipated. I’ll talk more about those changes tomorrow.
- Bonding Projects: These are Capital (Infrastructure) Building Projects that had been anticipated to be authorized in February, but the Republican Walkout prevented them from passing. In an economic downturn, infrastructure projects like these are especially important. These are mainly projects on university campuses, but there are others. The Bonding bills are difficult to read for the lay reader, so here's a cheat sheet with the projects.
- Policing Reform: Several of the concepts that the committee has been working hard on are ready to go this week. There are others that require more work and will I hope be finalized by the next time the Legislature meets.
- Other: There are some bills posted that are pressing in nature, don’t fall into the above categories, and where there is a fair amount of consensus. For example, you’ll see a few bills posted that have to do with Unemployment Insurance. If we’re able to get them passed, it will dramatically speed up processing time for people whose cases are in adjudication.
Let me say upfront that not every bill that’s posted will make it through the process as is. Some will be combined with others, others will be dropped entirely, others will be modified. It’s very dynamic.
Right now the prognosis is for a two-day session. We’ll see. I’ll have more to report tomorrow.
You’ll be able to watch all the floor sessions and committee meetings online. You can watch floor sessions here starting at 8 am on Monday and committee meetings here starting at 10 am. On the committee page you’ll eventually also find explanatory information and testimony on each of the bills under consideration.
What’s Going On In the Counties?
Each Saturday I’m tracking how individual counties are doing. 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 since the pandemic, 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 August 7:
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 various outbreaks. They are particularly noticeable in the less populous counties.
While the cumulative infection rate is an important metric to look at, I believe an even more important metric is the rate of test results coming in positive. The more you test, the lower that number should be, since you’re not just testing people with clear symptoms of COVID. Here’s a table I’ve created that shows county rankings by the most recent week’s positivity rate.
Looking at the tables below, which show various metrics over time, you’ll again see 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. Again, 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 overall percentage of positive cases for each county since the beginning of the pandemic.
Unfortunately, the proportion of positive test results for the state as a whole has continued to increase over the previous week, though only slightly.
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 376. Here is the breakdown by county for today:
Benton (5)
Clackamas (23)
Clatsop (1)
Columbia (3)
Coos (1)
Crook (1)
Curry (1)
Deschutes (15)
Douglas (2)
Hood River (3)
Jackson (12)
Jefferson (9)
Josephine (1)
Lane (14)
Lincoln (2)
Linn (6)
Malheur (14)
Marion (47)
Morrow (6)
Multnomah (87)
Polk (5)
Sherman (2)
Umatilla (27)
Wasco (8)
Washington (56)
Yamhill (22)
And the Deaths
Oregon’s 349th COVID-19 death is a 74-year-old man in Washington County who tested positive on July 21 and died on August 5, at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center. He had underlying conditions.
Oregon’s 350th COVID-19 death is an 83-year-old man in Marion County who tested positive on June 17 and died on July 19, in his residence.
Oregon’s 351st COVID-19 death is a 47-year-old man in Umatilla County who died on July 14 in his residence. The death certificate listed COVID-19 disease or SARS-CoV-2, as a cause of death or as a significant condition that contributed to his death.
Oregon’s 352nd COVID-19 death is a 77-year-old man in Clackamas County who tested positive on June 8 and died on July 28, at Providence Portland Medical Center.
Oregon’s 353rd COVID-19 death is an 80-year-old man in Deschutes County who tested positive on July 23 and died on August 7.
Oregon’s 354th COVID-19 death is an 85-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on August 6 and died on August 7.
Oregon’s 355th COVID-19 death is a 41-year-old man in Malheur County who tested positive on August 4 and died on August 5.
There is additional information on Oregon’s 342nd COVID-19 death. He is an 80-year-old man in Jackson County who tested positive on July 15 and died on August 6, at Rogue Valley Medical Center in Medford.
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
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