September 27th COVID-19 and Wildfire Update

Michael Dembrow

September 27, 2020

I hope that you and your loved ones are doing well, staying healthy, and looking out for your neighbors and friends in these difficult times.

You’ll again see the latest news on firefighting.   The firefighting crews are strengthening the firelines in all the major fires, anticipating a return of warmer weather and higher winds.  In the newsletter you’ll find more information about the  individual fires, as well as the resources that are being made to evacuees.

The reported COVID numbers are somewhat lower again today, which is good news, but unfortunately that may be due to a much lower number of tests reported.  As a result, the state’s COVID positivity rate has again soared.

The inadequate level of testing continues to be a big problem for us.  To help address that problem, on Friday the Legislature made a big allocation to increase our capacity, with more to come.  You’ll find details about that further down in the newsletter. 

Since it’s Sunday, you’ll find only partial reporting on some of the metrics tracking coronavirus in Oregon.  Instead of giving us the 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 tomorrow.  Deaths are reported, however, and today OHA reported the death of one Oregonian from COVID.

As I’ve been doing on Sundays, I’m  also including updated information about how COVID is affecting people of different ages.  We see the same trends as in past weeks: COVID cases are most prevalent in younger people.  When it is passed on to older people, however, it becomes much more dangerous (though we continue to see a slight increase in hospitalizations and deaths among those under the age of 50).

Again, please let me know if you have questions about any of the information in this newsletter.

TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE

  • Positive Cases: OHA reports that 242 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 32,820.
  • Total Tests: The number of reported tests has increased by 2,819. Today’s increase in total results also includes presumed positives in the total results, so may actually be a little high. I’ll readjust the numbers on Monday. The cumulative total is now 671,490.
  • Ratio: The percentage of positive test results in Oregon for today is 8.6%.  The national ratio today is 4.4%.
  • Deaths: I’m sorry to report 1 additional death due to the coronavirus today. You can read about the Oregonian we lost further down in the newsletter. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 547.
  • Hospitalized: OHA does not report on hospitalizations over the weekend. The cumulative number of those who have been hospitalized with COVID thus remains at 2,496.
  • 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): 199 (12 more than yesterday). Of those, 139 have already received a positive test back.
    • Available ICU Beds: 190 (8 more than yesterday)
    • Other Available Beds: 652 (45 more than yesterday).
    • ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 40 (same as yesterday).
    • COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 14 (2 fewer than yesterday).
    • Available Ventilators: 796 (3 fewer than yesterday).
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  • Today’s National Numbers:
  • Additional Brief Updates:
    • As you can imagine, legislators and the Department of Education have been receiving many emails from people who are impatient with remote learning and the slow pace of a return to in-person schooling. Director Colt Gill is responding to those complaints with this explanatory message. It’s a good explanation of where we are as a state and why.
    • The Department of Corrections has announced the COVID death of another Adult in Custody, the ninth so far. He was incarcerated at the Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario. More than 950 AICs (out of a total prison population of 14,000) and 250 staff have been infected since the beginning of the pandemic. Both the infection rates and the death rate are much higher than for the general population of Oregonians.

Legislature Allocates Millions for COVID Testing and Wildfire Containment

Late Friday afternoon the Legislature’s Emergency Board made a number of allocations dealing with a variety of the challenges we’re facing as a state.  Not surprisingly, the largest was to deal with wildfires. The next largest was to ramp up the state’s capacity to process tests COVID-19, a capacity that is currently one of the very worst in the nation.

After a lot of discussion, debate, and questions, the E-Board allocated $7.4 million to the Oregon Health Authority to allow the University of Oregon and Oregon State University to build up their ability to process tests from around the state.  This allocation will allow them to increase the amount of tests processed each day by 2,000 each by November 15.  The goal is to increase the number by a total of 10,000 each day by the start of the new year. 

This $7.4 million is only to purchase the equipment and software to allow them to do this work. A total of $29 million will ultimately be needed to pay for the testing and processing of the tests.  (Actually, the total cost will be much higher, but medical insurance will pick up much of the cost.)  The OHA will come back to the E-Board for the remainder of the funding in future meetings.  It’s expected that federal dollars will be able to be used for much of these expenses.  You can read the details of the proposal and the funding request here.

Anyone who has been following this newsletter knowns that this is a much-needed investment.  Our inability to test broadly and receive results promptly is really hurting our ability to fight the virus in this state right now.

The other big expenditure is of course the money needed to fight the fires that are hitting the state. With thousands of people fighting the fires, requiring enormous expenditures for personnel, equipment, and logistics, the costs are huge already and will continue to rise by more than a million dollars a day.  It has already cost more than $50 million and will go much higher. The costs are shared to some extent with private forestland owners, and we can eventually expect reimbursements from FEMA and from an insurance policy that the state has with Lloyd’s of London.  But for now, we need to be prepared to cover the necessary costs. 

To do that, the E-Board allocated $75 million in spending authority to the department.  You can  read the details here.

You’ll see that the initial request from the Department was for $55 million now.  However, the Legislative Fiscal Office recommended that the E-Board authorize the additional $20 million as well, since the need will clearly be there.

Sunday Wildfire Update:  Consolidation of Containment Lines

There was again no general wildfire briefing today.  But based on reports from the agencies and the incident commanders, we can see that containment lines are continuing to hold and in several cases expand (including the most challenging one, the Slater Fire in Southwest Oregon and Northern California).

To get a sense of what’s happening on the ground these days, here’s the report from the Riverside Incident Command. (You can find the daily reports for all the major fires at the Department of Forestry wildfire website: https://odfwildfire.wpengine.com/  Riverside is the fire in Clackamas County to the southeast of Portland.  Here are the plans for today’s firefighting in that area:

Today’s Activities: Along with handline, containment lines can include a combination of roads, scars from past fires, treated vegetation areas and natural features such as water or expanses of rock that are free of vegetation. Heavy equipment operators are working along roads with chippers and masticators to improve existing containment and contingency firelines. Work along the 224 road continues. This road is the main access to the Timberlake Job Corps and Ripplebrook Guard Station. Patrol efforts are ongoing to seek and extinguish areas where heat has held in larger downed trees, stumps or root systems. In addition to monitoring and patrol efforts, firefighters are identifying and felling trees that were weakened by the fire and pose hazards along roads and around structures.

Below again are two tables showing ongoing progress on the major fires, one from yesterday and one from today.  

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Again, for maps and up-to-the-minute details on the individual fires, I’d direct you to OEM’s State of Oregon Fires and Hotspots Dashboard.

  • I’m happy to report that the number of people confirmed missing has remained at 5. Confirmed fatalities remain at 9.
  • The number of homes reported destroyed remains at 2,291. The number of other structures (barns, outbuildings, businesses) destroyed remains at 1,503.
  • Nearly four hundred additional Oregonians have successfully registered with FEMA for individual assistance over the last 24 hours, bringing the total number to 5,510 households that have already had their applications approved. Eleven million dollars has already been approved for distribution.
  • Assistance provided by FEMA for homeowners can include grants for repairs to make their primary home habitable. Rental assistance is available to pay for temporary housing for homeowners and renters. Assistance can also help with other disaster-related needs like replacing essential household items, medical and dental expenses.
  • Again, if you know of anyone who has NOT yet registered, please direct them to the following:
  • FEMA has again reminded us that registering with them is only the first step in the process.  Survivors need to stay in touch with the agency.  They provided legislators with an information release on how to do that.  Here it is in English and here it is in Spanish.
  • Legislators received word today that FEMA issued a news release yesterday afternoon about Disaster Unemployment Assistance (DUA) to Oregonians who have lost work due to the wildfires. Here is the news release in English and here it is in Spanish.  Please share it with anyone you think would qualify for this benefit.
  • If evacuees have not done so already, it’s important that they update their address to ensure mail is being delivered to their current location. This will prevent lags in critical services, such as FEMA or prescriptions. Set up mail forwarding services here.
  • Remember that this does not apply to mail ballots. To change the address that you want your ballot sent to (you’ll still be able to vote in your home jurisdiction), here’s the info on how to do that.
  • You can find an up-to-the-moment status report on road closures from ODOT’s Trip Check tool.

Wildfire Informational Resources

Here again are some other resources that I would recommend:

Additional Wildfire News

Looking at Age Metrics

Here again are this week’s statewide case, hospitalization, and death metrics by age.  Here is updated information as of September 25.  The percentages for each category have again not really moved at all. You’ll see again that younger people have come to dominate the category of new cases: 70% of all cases so far have been in Oregonians below younger than 50.

However, effects of the disease become much more severe when it is transmitted to older people. Seventy percent of COVID hospitalizations are among those OVER the age of 50.  Deaths remain dominated by those above the age of 70 (nearly three-fourths of all deaths), though we continue to see many losses among people in their 50s and younger.

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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 242.   Here is the breakdown by county for today:

Benton (1)

Clackamas (10)

Clatsop (8)

Columbia (6)

Coos (1)

Deschutes (15)

Douglas (5)

Grant (1)

Jackson (9)

Jefferson (5)

Josephine (1)

Lake (1)

Lane (24)

Lincoln (1)

Linn (12)

Malheur (10)

Marion (26)

Morrow (1)

Multnomah (72)

Polk (1)

Tillamook (1)

Umatilla (14)

Union (3)

Wallowa (1)

Wasco (3)

Washington (23)

And the Death

Oregon’s 547th COVID-19 death is an 81-year-old woman in Multnomah County who tested positive on Sept. 23 and died on Sept. 26, at Providence Portland Medical Center.

Additional Graphs:

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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,

dembrow signature

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