August 16, 2020
I hope that you and your loved ones are doing well, staying healthy, and looking out for your neighbors and friends. (And finding a way to stay relatively cool!)
Since it’s Sunday, 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.
Overall, you’ll see that our case count and positivity rate remain relatively stable and appear still to be trending down slightly.
You may remember that yesterday’s total test numbers were surprisingly high (12,944), which drove our test positivity rate way down. I mentioned that something was likely wrong with OHA’s reporting. It turns out that indeed was the case. Some of the negative results that were reported to OHA yesterday morning were included in yesterday’s count. (The cutoff is supposed to be the previous midnight, so those numbers should have been included in today’s report.) Saturday’s total test numbers were therefore much larger than average, and today’s total test numbers were much smaller (3,918). For today’s report I’m therefore using the two-day average of yesterday and today (still a healthy 8,431). Tomorrow, I’ll be able to separate out the presumed positives and give you the total increases in the positive and negative test results for the weekend.
We also 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 two more Oregonians, an 86-year-old woman from Clackamas County and a 52-year-old woman from Multnomah County.
Speaking of ages, as I’ve been doing on Sundays for a while, I’m also taking the opportunity to look back at the week that has ended to see how COVID is affecting Oregonians of different ages. We’re again seeing that those infected by (and presumably transmitting) the virus are predominantly those under the age of 50, but the most severe consequences (hospitalization and death) are in the population over the age of 50. The relative share of each age group in COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths has changed little over the last month in Oregon.
TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE
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Positive Cases: OHA reports that 252 (an average of 332 over the last two days) 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 so that we can see the actual number of those testing positive over the weekend.) The cumulative total for those testing positive and presumed positive is 23,262.
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Total Tests: The number of reported tests has increased by an average of 8,431 per day for the last two days (see the intro for an explanation). The cumulative total is now 488,797.
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Ratio: The percentage of positive tests for the last two days is 3.9%, The national percentage today is 5.5%.
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Deaths: I’m very sorry to report 2 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 388.
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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 1,863.
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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): 224 (8 fewer than yesterday). Of those, 167 have already received a positive test back.
- Available ICU Beds: 172 (13 more than yesterday)
- Other Available Beds: 643 (17 more than yesterday).
- ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 57 (same as yesterday).
- COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 16 (6 fewer than yesterday).
- Available Ventilators: 769 (2 fewer than yesterday).
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Dashboards
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Today’s National Numbers:
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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.
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Additional Brief Updates:
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The New York Times reports on growing evidence that the antibodies that a person has developed from having had COVID—even a mild case—provides lasting immunity from the disease. The studies supporting this finding are not yet conclusive, not having yet gone through full peer review. If they hold up, that will be very good news, and not just for those who have recovered from the disease.
- New Guidance from the CDC Regarding Children and COVID
As I mentioned the other day, there is growing evidence that children, especially older children, are susceptible to COVID. This research has led the CDC to modify its guidance for pediatric healthcare providers, revising their earlier guidances to reflect new evidence about COVID-19 in children. It was earlier thought that children of all ages were resistant to the virus, but research and experience has shown that not to be true. This is particularly timely given the current national debate over in-person school reopening.
Here are their high-level findings:
In the United States and globally, fewer cases of COVID-19 have been reported in children (age 0-17 years) compared with adults. While children comprise 22% of the US population, recent data show that 7.3% [15% for teenagers and those younger in Oregon] of all cases of COVID-19 in the United States reported to CDC were among children (as of August 3rd, 2020). The number and rate of cases in children in the United States have been steadily increasing from March to July 2020. The true incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in children is not known due to lack of widespread testing and the prioritization of testing for adults and those with severe illness. Hospitalization rates in children are significantly lower than hospitalization rates in adults with COVID-19, suggesting that children may have less severe illness from COVID-19 compared to adults.
It is unclear whether children are as susceptible to infection by SARS-CoV-2 compared with adults and whether they can transmit the virus as effectively as adults. Recent evidence suggests that children likely have the same or higher viral loads in their nasopharynx compared with adults and that children can spread the virus effectively in households and camp settings.
Due to community mitigation measures and school closures, transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to and among children may have been reduced in the United States during the pandemic in the spring and early summer of 2020. This may explain the low incidence in children compared with adults. Comparing trends in pediatric infections before and after the return to in-person school and other activities may provide additional understanding about infections in children.
The new guidelines themselves provide details about diagnosis, testing, and medical care, as well as source footnotes.
Looking at Age Metrics
Here again are this week’s statewide case, hospitalization, and death metrics by age. Here is updated information as of August 14. The percentages for each category have not really moved at all. You’ll see again that younger people have come to dominate the category of new cases: three-fourths of new cases are below the age of 50.
Again, a slight majority of hospitalizations are among those above the age of 60. Deaths remain dominated by those above the age of 70, but we are continuing to see deaths among people in their 60s and younger.
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 252. Here is the breakdown by county for today:
Clackamas (26)
Clatsop (1)
Columbia (4)
Deschutes (4)
Hood River (2)
Jackson (18)
Jefferson (3)
Josephine (1)
Klamath (2)
Lane (4)
Lincoln (1)
Linn (5)
Malheur (12)
Marion (40)
Morrow (7)
Multnomah (67)
Polk (7)
Umatilla (15)
Wasco (1)
Washington (29)
Yamhill (3)
And the Deaths
Oregon’s 387th COVID-19 death is an 86-year-old woman in Clackamas County who tested positive on August 12 and died on August 13, at Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center.
Oregon’s 388th COVID-19 death is a 52-year-old woman in Multnomah County who tested positive on August 5 and died on August 14 at Providence Portland Medical Center.
There is updated information on Oregon’s 384th COVID-19 death. She was a 73-year-old woman in Lane County who tested positive on July 25 and died on August 12 at McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center.
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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