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.August 17, 2020
I hope that you and your loved ones are doing well, staying healthy, and looking out for your neighbors and friends.
The weekend COVID numbers from OHA are in, and overall they look quite good. We fortunately have had no deaths reported today, and our weekend positivity rate is well below 5% for the state as a whole. And for today at least, we’re seeing lower numbers from our Eastern Oregon hot spots. Let’s hope it continues.
The Legislature’s Emergency Board met this afternoon to appropriate additional money from federal COVID-response funds for statewide purchase of PPE to help out local governments and tribes. There is ongoing controversy over whether any of the PPE should be going to Portland, Multnomah County, and Washington County, which were granted federal relief dollars directly because of their population size, and that was reflected in the meeting. You can find out more about the proposal, with links to the hearing and budget information further down in the newsletter.
Finally, a note of celebration and a note of apology. Today is Logan’s birthday, which is cause for celebration, and I hope you’ll join me in extending warm happy birthday wishes to him! The note of apology is that as part of my birthday gift to him, I’m daring to negotiate the legislative e-publishing/delivery system myself. It looks as if I'm not going to get the graphs to copy properly. Hope you'll understand, and know that publishing and delivery of the newsletter will be in better hands tomorrow . . .
TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE
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Positive Cases: OHA reports that 793 additional Oregonians have tested positive for COVID since Friday, an average of 264 positive tests per day. The cumulative total for those testing positive is 22,234.
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Total Tests: The number of tests has increased by 18,065 since Friday, an average of 6,022 per day. The cumulative number of tests since the pandemic began is now 490,000.
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Ratio: The percentage of positive tests today is an average of 4.4% of total results for the last three days. The national percentage today is 5.8%.
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Deaths: I’m pleased to report no additional deaths due to the coronavirus today. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon remains at 388.
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Hospitalized: OHA reports that an additional 50 Oregonians have been hospitalized with COVID since Friday, an average of 17 per day. The cumulative number of those who have been hospitalized with COVID since the beginning of the pandemic is 1,913.
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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 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 positive cases is currently 1,217.
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Other Hospital Information:
- Patients Currently w COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 206 (18 fewer than Friday). Of those, 140 have already received a positive test back.
- Available ICU Beds: 158 (14 fewer than Friday)
- Other Available Beds: 687 (44 more than Friday).
- ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 47 (10 fewer than Friday).
- COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 19 (3 more than Friday).
- Available Ventilators: 774 (5 more than Friday).
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Dashboards
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Today’s National Numbers:
- Total Tests: 67,621,119 (up 651,329 from yesterday).
- Positive Tests: 5,417,366 (up 37,996 from yesterday).
- Deaths: 162,400 (up 408 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 https://covidtracking.com/us-daily/.
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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:
- DHS reports that COVID testing at large long-term care facilities statewide is proceeding. As of August 7, residents and staff at 192 facilities have been tested, 22 of which were in response to outbreaks. As of August 10, a total of 28,220 individuals had been tested.
- Starting tomorrow, (Tuesday), OHA will begin sharing information about supplies and inventory of personal protective equipment (PPE) in hospitals and medical facilities across Oregon. I’ll pass this information along when it comes in.
- The Early Learning Division has just released a new set of guidelines for childcare providers . They go into effect on Tuesday, September 1, 2020, but providers may choose to implement the changes earlier, as long as they implement all of the guidelines.
- Emergency Board Approves $105 Million Allocation for PPE
The Legislature’s Emergency Board met this afternoon in order to allocate $105 million of federal Coronavirus Relief Fund dollars for bulk purchase of Personal Protective Equipment to distribute to local governments and tribes to help meet local needs. Here’s a description of the proposal
For those interested, there’s also a wealth of information related to COVID Relief expenditures on the Meeting Materials Page for Today’s Meeting
It was reported today that the State has met its goals for PPE purchase in all categories other than N95 masks, which remain in short supply nationally. The Department of Administrative Services is working with a couple of Oregon companies to gain federal approval to begin manufacturing N95 masks here in Oregon. It is also trying to increase its acquisition of disposable gloves.
You can watch the one-hour hearing here.
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 192. You’ll see welcome reductions in some of our more rural “hotspot” counties today. Here is the breakdown by county for today:
Clackamas (12)
Clatsop (1)
Columbia (3)
Crook (1)
Deschutes (6)
Douglas (2)
Jackson (17)
Jefferson (2)
Josephine (1)
Lane (4)
Lincoln (2)
Linn (5)
Malheur (11)
Marion (30)
Multnomah (57)
Polk (3)
Umatilla (7)
Wasco (1)
Washington (23)
Yamhill (4)
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: 503-281-0608
mail: 900 Court St NE, S-407, Salem, OR, 97301
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