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September 8, 2020
I hope that you and your loved ones are doing well, staying healthy, and looking out for your neighbors and friends.
In today’s newsletter you’ll find updated information regarding COVID in Oregon over the last few days. The news remains good on that front. We’ll know more when this week’s weekly report is released. (That is expected to happen on Thursday rather than the usual Wednesday, as a result of the long holiday weekend.)
The news is not good on the wildfire front, and most of the newsletter will provide you with the latest word on that front. The year 2020 is clearly shaping up to be an incredibly challenging year.
TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE
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Positive Cases: OHA reports that 720 additional Oregonians have tested positive for COVID since Friday, an average of 180 per day. The cumulative total for those testing positive since the beginning of the pandemic is now 26,988.
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Total Tests: The number of reported tests has increased by 14,536 since Friday, an average of 3,634. This seems unusually low and may be due to lags in reporting during the holiday weekend. The numbers will likely be adjusted upwards as additional test results for the last few days come in. The cumulative total is now 590,132.
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Ratio: The percentage of positive test result over the last four days in Oregon is 5.0%. The national ratio today is 4.4%.
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Deaths: I’m sorry to report 4 additional deaths due to the coronavirus today. You can read more about the Oregonian we lost further down in the newsletter. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now at 486.
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Hospitalized: The number of new COVID hospitalizations since Friday is 45, an average of 11 per day. The cumulative number of those who have been hospitalized with COVID thus remains at 2,206.
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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 currently 1,367.
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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): 153 (6 more than Friday). Of those, 105 have already received a positive test back.
- Available ICU Beds: 190 (45 more than Friday)
- Other Available Beds: 835 (154 more than Friday).
- ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 44 (1 fewer than Friday).
- COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 21 (1 fewer than Friday).
- Available Ventilators: 778 (three more than Friday).
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Dashboards
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Today’s National Numbers:
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Additional Brief Updates
Fires All Over Oregon
Until recently this has been a relatively mild fire season in Oregon. That has ended. We find ourselves suddenly in the middle of an extraordinarily challenging confluence of circumstances all over Oregon west of the Cascades (and to some extent in the East as well). We are of course not alone in this. California is experiencing wildfires of epic proportions, and Washington too is in terrible shape right now.
The Governor held a press conference this afternoon in which she explained her Emergency Conflagration Order and heard detailed updates from the Wildfire Director at the Department of Forestry, the State Fire Marshal’s Office, and the Office of Emergency Management. Legislators subsequently received a further briefing from these same individuals on the background of the fires and on current conditions.
We’re seeing the effects of conditions that have become all too familiar in recent years—extended periods of high temperatures and dry vegetation—combined with an unusually sustained period of high winds from the east. Those of us in the Portland area can just look out the window and still see this wind at work. Yesterday afternoon it brought us power outages and smoke from eastern fires. Fortunately, today the smoke here is gone. That’s unfortunately not true for most of western Oregon.
These high winds—20 to 30 mph but gusting up to 50 mph yesterday and 40 mph today—turned many canyons and river drainages into channels for roaring fires. The worst so far has been the Santiam Canyon, between Salem and the Detroit Lake/Breitenbush area on the western slopes of the Cascades. There the fires explodes from around 400 acres to around 140,000 acres almost literally overnight.
The line of fire stretches for fifty miles and runs through areas with many homeowners and their animals, and many structures. All are at risk, and Level 3 evacuations have been ordered throughout the region. Thousands of residents are now in shelter in a Red Cross facility at the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem (more on that below).
Looking ahead, the fire and emergency experts expect the East winds to reduce and shift direction over the next 24 to 48 hours, which should allow firefighters to shift from a purely defensive mode—evacuating people and animals, protecting structures, protecting firefighters from harm—into a more active offensive posture in beating back the fire. They are hoping to make this shift on Thursday.
The same pattern can be seen in several other of the drainages coming off of the Cascades—drainages east of Albany, the Mackenzie east of Eugene/Springfield, and the Umpqua east of Roseburg. Unfortunately, the latest big flareup has occurred near Medford, and it too is growing.
We’re also seeing big fires near Lincoln City, around Otis and Echo. There are also blazes in Washington County near Hagg Lake and in Clackamas County near Estacada.
Not surprisingly, firefighting resources are extremely strained. In more normal times, we could count on help coming from other states, but with the entire west on fire, that help is in short supply.
Fortunately, there is currently only one big fire east of the Cascades currently, near Chiloquin in the southeastern part of the state.
Please join me in sending all our best thoughts to those directly affected by these fires and to those fighting and coordinating the efforts to contain them and save lives.
Is There a Relationship Between the Fires and COVID?
Obviously not a cause-and-effect relationship, but clearly COVID complicates the efforts to contain the fires and manage the effects of this disaster.
One example is all those evacuees gathered at the Oregon State Fairgrounds. Under normal circumstances they could stay together in close quarters while the firefighters are fighting to save their homes. But with COVID to worry about, that becomes dangerous. They need to be moved to hotels and motels, and the state Office of Emergency Management and the Red Cross are hard at work finding places for people to go, if only to relieve congestion in the congregate shelters. That takes time and patience and care. It’s very difficult.
A second example relates to adults in custody in our state correctional facilities. Three of them are located in close proximity to the westward-moving fires: Mill Creek, Santiam, and the Oregon State Correctional Institution. Legislators have just been informed that the adults in custody at all of these institutions—1,450 in all--have just been moved to the Oregon State Prison in Salem and are being housed in emergency shelters there. Corrections officers from those institutions will move with them. Obviously, that creates real challenges for COVID containment: you don’t want to be mixing AICs from different cell-blocks, let alone from different prisons. I know they’re doing their best, but it’s dangerous. Fortunately, none of the Salem-area institutions is on the list of active COVID outbreaks.
Masks and Wildfire Smoke
OHA issued the following advisory this afternoon with respect to wearing COVID masks as a preventative device for smoke:
While it remains important to wear masks to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, please remember that cloth, dust, and surgical masks don’t protect from the harmful particles in smoke.
Only N95 respirators may provide protection from smoke. However:
- They must be tested to ensure proper fit and be worn correctly. Otherwise, they might just provide a false sense of security.
- They are not available in children’s sizes and are not recommended for strenuous activities.
- They are also in limited supply due to COVID-19.
To learn more about wildfire smoke and COVID-19, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.
COVID Update from DHS
Legislators received an update this morning from the Department of Human Services on how COVID is affecting people in long-term care, home care, child welfare, disability services, and those receiving self-sufficiency benefits such as SNAP and Employment-Related Day Care (ERDC).
You can read the full update here.
DHS reports that the number of outbreaks in long-term care facilities has leveled off and diagnostic testing in facilities is proceeding throughout the state. As of September 1, of the 685 congregate care facilities in Oregon, 354, or 52%, have completed their initial testing.
A piece of good news: as a result of a new federal requirement that testing be increased in facilities nationwide, federal agencies will be providing Point of Care (POC) antigen devices to 126 skilled nursing facilities in Oregon in the next 4-6 weeks. As of September 3, as many as 10 sites have received these devices already. These devices should help speed up deployment of the testing process in facilities around the state.
For more details on the testing plan, you can go to the Oregon Department of Human Services website: https://govstatus.egov.com/or-dhs-ltcf-testing.
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 169. Here is the breakdown by county for today:
Benton (1)
Clackamas (17)
Crook (1)
Deschutes (1)
Jackson (17)
Jefferson (2)
Lane (7)
Malheur (4)
Marion (25)
Morrow (4)
Multnomah (39)
Polk (4)
Umatilla (10)
Wasco (1)
Washington (25)
Yamhill (11)
And the Deaths
Oregon’s 482nd COVID-19 death is a 78-year-old woman in Lane County who tested positive on Aug. 27 and died on Sept. 5, in her residence.
Oregon’s 483rd COVID-19 death is a 90-year-old woman in Marion County who tested positive on Aug. 29 and died on Sept. 3, in her residence.
Oregon’s 484th COVID-19 death is a 100-year-old woman in Marion County who tested positive on July 28 and died on Sept. 7, in her residence.
Oregon’s 485th COVID-19 death is a 72-year-old woman in Marion County who tested positive on Aug. 26 and died Sept. 6, in her residence.
Oregon’s 486th COVID-19 death is an 86-year-old man in Lane County who tested positive on Aug. 28 and died on Sept. 6, in his residence. He had underlying conditions.
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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