Coronavirus Update: Special Session Recap

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House Speaker Tina Kotek

Coronavirus Update: Special Session Recap

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Happy Wednesday! It’s been a busy week already, including a one-day special session in Salem. More on that below.

First, an update on where Oregon stands in the fight against the pandemic. Here are the latest daily figures since my last newsletter (August 8-12):

  • Saturday: 376 cases, 7 deaths
  • Sunday: 263 cases, 1 death
  • Monday: 227 cases, 1 death
  • Tuesday: 302 cases, 11 deaths
  • Wednesday: 258 cases, 7 deaths

We started the week on a good note, with Monday’s total being the lowest daily case total in over a month, which The Oregonian covered here. Also, on Monday, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) released its weekly testing summary, which can be found in full here. Here are the highlights:

After the number of positive cases and the test positivity rate generally increasing since late May, this week saw a decrease in test positivity to 5.4%, down from 6.3% the week before. Oregon’s cumulative positive testing rate for the pandemic is 4.5% of tests performed, which is still lower than the 9% national average.

Once again, per the OHA, testing capacity is holding steady for now with the capacity at about 48,000 tests per week (dating back to the week of July 22). Supply chain issues continue to be a long-term challenge due to the recent spike in positive COVID-19 cases nationally and increased demand for testing across the country.


Summary of Oregon test results- August 12

As a reminder, here is how Oregon prioritizes testing of people without COVID-19 symptoms:

  1. People who have had close contact with people who have confirmed or presumptive COVID-19.
  2. People exposed to COVID-19 in congregate settings (e.g., residential care facilities, group homes, schools, agricultural workplaces, food processing plants, jails or prisons, and shelters).
  3. Migrant and seasonal agricultural workers upon arrival in Oregon.
  4. People who identify as Black, African-American, Latino, Latina, Latinx, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Asian-American, or Pacific Islander.
  5. People who identify as having a disability.
  6. People whose first language is not English.

Special Session Recap

Legislators met on Monday in the Capitol for a special session called by Governor Brown to address the state budget deficit and other pressing issues. We completed our work in one day (15 hours), stepping up to do the people’s business in the unique circumstances of the pandemic.

The priority task was fixing the budget. After months of study and input to address the billion-dollar shortfall, we were able to make strategic decisions to protect services and return to a balanced budget. We preserved funding for critical public services, including education, health care, child welfare, housing supports, and economic development. A full rundown of the session actions on the budget can be found here.

We also continued our work to improve police accountability in the state. It was particularly significant that we updated Oregon’s obsolete deadly use of force statute to be current with Supreme Court caselaw. The new law will require officers to use de-escalation as a first resort when reasonably able. In circumstances where non-deadly force must be used, the law will require that force only be used to the degree necessary to prevent injury to a person or accomplish an arrest. A summary of House Bill 4301 can be found here.

We must keep pushing for more progress, and I look forward to continuing the work put forward by the Joint Committee on Transparent Policing and Use of Force Reform.

Finally, we also took up three last-minute bills to improve access to unemployment benefits. We successfully approved two of the bills - one to streamline claim processing for self-employed workers through better data sharing between agencies, the other to raise the income threshold temporarily for underemployed Oregonians to help them continue to receive benefits when they work part-time. However, I was really frustrated that one bill failed. It would have reduced the backlog of claims in adjudication and helped thousands of Oregonians get their benefits faster. This was a missed opportunity that we should revisit.

This week’s special session was just the next step in the ongoing effort to put Oregon on the path to an equitable economic recovery. The scale of this crisis demands additional support from the federal government, and I urge Congress to provide that support as soon as possible to prevent the suffering that is happening daily across our state.


Latest News

  • The Oregon Department of Education has updated its Ready Schools, Safe Learners guidance about prioritizing in-person instruction for certain students in need, as The Oregonian reports here.
  • Also on the education front, the Oregon Department of Education released new health metrics for rural schools to return to in-person education. Oregon Public Broadcasting covered this update here, and you can read the metrics from ODE here.
  • KGW tells the story here of an Oregonian helped by the Oregon Worker Relief Fund, an assistance program the legislative Emergency Board has supported with $20 million since April.
  • The Oregonian reports here that fewer residents statewide made rent payments in August. In June, the Legislature extended the statewide eviction moratorium through September 30. Multnomah County has details on the moratorium here.
  • The Pac-12 has officially canceled all sports for the fall of 2020 due to ongoing concerns related to the coronavirus pandemic, as Willamette Week details here.
  • The Oregon Health Authority reported 258 new confirmed cases of coronavirus, bringing the statewide total of new and presumptive cases to 22,032. Sadly, seven more people have died, meaning there have been 375 Oregonians to die of the coronavirus. You can click the images below for links to interactive data tables about coronavirus in Oregon.

Cases and Testing- August 12

Epi Curve- August 12

Testing and Outcomes by County

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