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August 24, 2020
I hope that you and your loved ones are doing well, staying healthy, and looking out for your neighbors and friends.
TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE
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Positive Cases: : OHA reports that 703 additional Oregonians have tested positive for COVID since Friday, an average of 234 per day. The cumulative total for those testing positive since the beginning of the pandemic is 23,859.
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Total Tests: The number of tests has increased by 11,985 since Friday, an increase of 3,995 per day. The cumulative total is now 522,041.
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Ratio: The percentage of positive cases today in Oregon is 5.9% of total results. The national percentage today is 5.1%.
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Deaths: I’m sorry to report 3 additional deaths due to the coronavirus today. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now at 420.
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Hospitalized: OHA reports that an additional 44 Oregonians have been hospitalized with COVID-19 since Friday, an average of 15 per day. The cumulative number of those who have been hospitalized with COVID since the beginning of the pandemic is 2,028.
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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 positives is now 1,296.
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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): 143 (30 fewer than Friday). Of those, 98 have already received a positive test back.
- Available ICU Beds: 151 (10 fewer than Friday)
- Other Available Beds: 824 (168 more than Friday).
- ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 44 (3 fewer than Friday).
- COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 25 (6 more than Friday).
- Available Ventilators: 774 (13 fewer than Friday).
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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
- Legislators received another update from the Department of Forestry today regarding this year’s fire season. As you’ve probably heard, outbreaks have been intensifying over the last week. Hot, dry conditions and multiple lightning strikes led to more than 250 fires in Eastern Oregon, with many more in the forecast for the coming week. The report details the current status of each of the big fires currently under attack in the state. Meanwhile, as I’m sure you’ve also heard, California is in the midst of a historically devastating fire season, simultaneously dealing with the second and third largest fires in the state’s history. Oregon has sent several fire teams down to California to reinforce the enormous effort needed to get those fires under control.
- The Employment Department announced today that it is applying to the U.S. Department of Labor to be included in the $300-per-week bonus payment program authorized by the President via executive order. This temporary bonus is designed to partially replace the $600 per week that Congress has allowed to elapse. If we are allowed to proceed, the benefits will be retroactive to August 1 and should last 3 to 4 weeks. Ideally, by then Congress will have restored the original bonus. You can read more about this development in this article in today’s Oregonian.
- DHS’s Self-Sufficiency Programs department (which handles food stamps, Employment-Related Day Care, and others) announced that it is about to post 50 new staff positions around the state to help handle the increase in client demand, with 20 more in the queue for posting, and 150 positions in all authorized to be filled.
- We received a couple of pieces of good news from two federally-supported childcare funds. First, the Employment-Related Day Care (ERDC)’s emergency $0-copay provision is being extended, and the threshold for those qualifying is being extended to 250% of federal poverty level. Second, Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) dollars can be used to provide care to children whose schools are closed to in-person instruction. The Trump administration was initially refusing to allow kids to receive care and do their remote learning at a federally supported center, but the news came in today that they have relented.
- The Oregon Senate President announced today in a press release that he is asking the Labor and Business Committee to hold hearings on the current state of Unemployment Insurance and the Employment Department. The hearings will be held on September 1-3. I’ll provide more details as the date approaches.
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The Appeal, an online news source that focuses on criminal justice issues, has been running a regular blogpost on COVID in prisons. This week’s post includes information about the “decompression” proposal that I and other Judiciary Committee members submitted to the Governor in June. The most recent report from the Department of Corrections shows that 590 adults in custody and 166 corrections staff have tested positive for COVID.
The Oregon Cares Fund Starts Taking Applications
Last month, the Oregon Legislature's Emergency Board allocated $64 million to support the Oregon Cares Fund for Black Relief and Resiliency. This fund was created to provide extra support to Black individuals and families as well as Black-owned businesses, non-profits and community-based organizations to help withstand the compounding impact of COVID-19 on Black Oregonians.
Black Oregonians have contracted COVID-19 at four times the rate of white Oregonians. In addition Black Oregonians were already experiencing poverty at twice the rate of white Oregonians, which has led to disproportionate economic impacts rfrom COVID-19. Across the U.S. twice as many Black-owned businesses have closed since the start of the pandemic. The goal of this program is to reduce some of these inequities during this challenging time.
You can learn more and apply here: TheOregonCaresFund.Org
Update on Testing in Oregon
OHA released its Weekly Testing Report today, which showed that as of August 22, Oregon’s cumulative positive testing rate is 4.5 percent of people tested. The positivity rate for just last week (August 16-22) was 5.1%.
According to the testing report, just 24,177 people were tested last week. However, this number will rise as test results are reported to OHA. Tests are added to the week in which they were collected, but only once the results come in.
Thus, last week’s report showed that just 25,678 tests were taken in the week ending August 15. As you’ll see below, that number has been adjusted up to 33,009. As a result, last week’s positivity rate has been adjusted downward from 5.4% to 5.2%. Presumably, this week’s positivity rate of 5.1% will eventually turn out to be lower.
 Even so, our testing numbers are not as high as they should be. Again, this is due in part to the ongoing lack of testing supplies (though a recent purchase agreement should help with that in the near future), and in part because of the consequent need to send 20% of our specimens to national labs for processing. The turnaround times for those national labs are very long.
Medicaid Enrollment Increases by More than 100,000 Members since March
An update today from OHA reports on another effect of the pandemic and the economic downturn. Last week, the Oregon Health Plan (OHP) had an increase of 4,016 members, bringing the total number of members to 1,180,497. Since the March 8 emergency declaration, OHP’s enrollment has increased by more than 100,000 members or 9.3 percent.
About 1 in 4 of the additional members are new enrollments to OHP. They are Oregonians who have lost their employer-provided health insurance or whose reduced income now allows them to qualify for OHP, the state’s Medicaid Plan.
The rest of the increase is due to a policy change that keeps the vast majority of members enrolled in the program during this national emergency. Since the end of March, people exiting the program decreased by around 75 percent from 20,000 people a month to about 5,000 a month. Adults eligible for OHP through the Affordable Care Act have made up about 60 percent of the program’s growth, and children covered by Medicaid account for about 25 percent of the growth.
Federal funding has increased to support states’ increases in the program. This 6.2 percent increase in federal Medicaid matching funds has covered and is projected to cover Oregon’s enrollment increases through the end of the year.
The Oregon Health Authority has made several changes to its Medicaid program to support health care access for Oregonians during the response to COVID-19. These changes include:
- Individuals can sign up for OHP without having to verify their income (submit a pay stub) with their application. They can self-attest, which helps Oregonians get access to OHP coverage more quickly.
- Most members who are currently enrolled in the Oregon Health Plan will not lose coverage during this crisis.
- Federal stimulus payments and increased unemployment payments will not affect OHP eligibility. They will not be counted during the application process or when members report a change in their household.
OHP provides free physical, dental and behavioral health coverage to Oregonians who qualify. For more information about applying for OHP, go to OHP.Oregon.gov.
Details on Efforts to Keep Oregonians with Disabilities Safe in Hospitals
During the 2020 1st Special Session, thanks in large part to powerful advocacy from Senator Sara Gelser, the Oregon legislature passed Senate Bill 1606, This was legislation to help ensure that Oregonians with disabilities can see their families and support staff in the hospital to receive disability-related support. In response to the passage of this bill, DHS’s Office of Developmental Disabilities Services created a number of tools to help individuals and their families, as well as case management entities, understand their rights. These tools include:
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 220. This time the majority of cases are in the Portland Tri-County area, though we’re continuing to see high case counts from Jackson County. Here is the breakdown by county for today:
Clackamas (22)
Columbia (1)
Coos (1)
Deschutes (1)
Jackson (23)
Jefferson (7)
Josephine (1)
Klamath (2)
Lane (2)
Malheur (7)
Marion (33)
Multnomah (59)
Polk (2)
Umatilla (11)
Washington (34)
Yamhill (12)
And the Deaths
Oregon’s 418th COVID-19 death is an 87-year-old woman in Washington County who tested positive on Aug. 16 and died on Aug. 22, in her residence.
Oregon’s 419th COVID-19 death is a 77-year-old man in Washington County who tested positive on Aug. 14 and died on Aug. 18, at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center.
Oregon’s 420th COVID-19 death is a 73-year-old woman in Washington County who tested positive on July 29 and died on Aug. 23, 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:
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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