August 22, 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. 

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 death of three Oregonians.

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 over the last month. 

You’ll see further evidence that the surge continues in some of our Eastern Oregon counties, but this week’s analysis confirms that Oregon’s weekly numbers overall are trending down.  

TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE

• Positive Cases: : OHA reports that 302 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 be able to readjust the numbers on Monday to remove the presumed positives.) The cumulative total for those testing positive and presumed positive is 24,710.
• Total Tests: The number of reported tests has increased by 6,408. Today’s increase in total results also includes presumed positives in the total results, so is likely a little high. I’ll readjust the numbers on Monday.  The cumulative total is now 516.464.
• Ratio: The percentage of positive cases today in Oregon is 4.7% of total results. The national percentage today is 6.2%. 
• Deaths: I’m sorry to report 3 additional deaths due to the coronavirus today. You can read about those we lost further down in the newsletter. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 417.
• Hospitalized: OHA does not report on hospitalizations over the weekend The cumulative number of those who have been hospitalized with COVID thus remains at 1,984.
• 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.  
• 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): 173 (2 fewer than yesterday). Of those, 111 have already received a positive test back.
  • Available ICU Beds: 161 (19 more than yesterday)
  • Other Available Beds: 656 (44 more than yesterday).
  • ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 47 (1 fewer than yesterday).
  • COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 19 (2 fewer than yesterday).
  • Available Ventilators: 787 (4 more than yesterday).
• Dashboards
  • Oregon (OHA)
  • Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, & Yamhill Counties
• Today’s National Numbers:
  • Total Tests: 71,082,165 (up 745,384 from yesterday).
  • Positive Tests: 5,639,613 (up 46,295 from yesterday).
  • Deaths: 168,286 (up 1,024 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.

Click to edit this heading.

What’s Going On In the Counties?

Each Saturday I’m tracking how individual counties are doing, especially now that we’re seeing big increases in cases around the state. The key metrics that OHA is watching are the number of positive test results (per 100K residents) 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 100,000, 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 21. 

This is a useful view because it allows us to see the infection rate within each county, irrespective of their total populations.  Remember, though, that these are CUMULATIVE cases since the beginning of the pandemic.  If you look at the rankings, you can see the lingering effects of outbreaks at workplaces and other congregate settings that occurred a month or more ago. These lingering effects 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, as you’re not just testing people with clear symptoms of COVID. Anything over 10% is cause for concern.  Our school reopening target is 5%.  

Here’s a new table I’ve created that shows county rankings by the most recent week’s positivity rate.  When you compare it to the previous table. you get a better sense of what’s happening in the individual counties right now.  You’ll see that for last week at least, all but the top 10 are hitting the school-reopening standard.

Looking at the tables below, 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. 

As you’ll see, the proportion of positive test results for the state as a whole is going back down now.  This week’s positivity rate is the lowest it’s been since the end of June.

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 302.  Here is the breakdown by county for today:

Baker (9)

Benton (5)

Clackamas (25)

Clatsop (1)

Coos (3)

Deschutes (7)

Grant (4)

Hood River (2)

Jackson (20)

Jefferson (4)

Josephine (1)

Lane (5)

Lincoln (3)

Linn (3)

Malheur (18)

Marion (51)

Morrow (2)

Multnomah (56)

Polk (3)

Umatilla (23)

Union (1)

Wasco (1)

Washington (41)

Yamhill (14)

And The Deaths

Oregon's 415^th COVID-19 death is a 60-year-old man in Marion County who tested positive on July 31 and died on August 3, at Ward Memorial Hospital.

Oregon's 416^th COVID-19 death is a 37-year-old woman in Multnomah County who tested positive on August 10 and died on August 15, at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center.

Oregon's 417^th COVID-19 death is a 98-year-old female in Yamhill County who tested positive on August 11 and died on August 15, in her residence.

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 (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