October 10th COVID-19 and Wildfire Update

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin at 10/10/2020 09:55 PM PDT
Michael Dembrow

October 10, 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.

Since it’s Saturday, 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. 

Today’s report on COVID shows a continuation of the high case numbers we’ve been seeing for the last few days.  This is due in part to a higher amount of testing, leading the state’s overall positivity rate to go down overall.  Today’s report includes 2 deaths, both from Washington County.

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, sadly, OHA has reported the death of eight additional Oregonians from COVID.

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.  It allows us to see how the recent increases in cases and positivity rates are playing out in the individual counties, as well as in the state as a whole.

You’ll also find an update on the fires and information about next week’s meeting of the Legislature’s Emergency Board.

Please let me know if you have any questions about anything in this newsletter.

TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE

  • Positive Cases: OHA reports that 409 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 since the beginning of the pandemic is 36,924.
  • Total Tests: The number of reported tests has increased by 7,757. Today’s increase in total results also includes presumed positives in the total results, so may be a little high. I’ll readjust the numbers on Monday.  The cumulative total is now 736,587.
  • Ratio: The percentage of positive test results in Oregon is 5.3%.  The national ratio today is 5.0%.
  • Deaths: I’m sorry to report 2 additional deaths due to the coronavirus today. You can read about the Oregonians we’ve lost further down in the newsletter. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 599.
  • Hospitalized: OHA does not report on hospitalizations over the weekend. The cumulative number of those who have been hospitalized with COVID thus remains at 2,741.
  • 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 with COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 212 (6 more than yesterday). Of those, 149 have already received a positive test back.
    • Available ICU Beds: 157 (28 more than yesterday)
    • Other Available Beds: 587 (38 more than yesterday).
    • ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 49 (6 more than yesterday).
    • COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 18 (2 more than yesterday).
    • Available Ventilators: 774 (7 fewer than yesterday).
  • Dashboards
  • Today’s National Numbers:
  • Additional Brief Updates:
    • FEMA has approved a Direct Temporary Housing program for Jackson, Marion and Linn counties after reviewing a request from Governor Brown’s office that documented the concentration of damages, the lack of available housing, and the impact to wildfire survivors and the communities they lived in. This program will address the shortage of available housing in the counties and provide a bridge to people as they continue to develop a long-term housing strategy.  Here’s the message from OEM and FEMA in English and in Spanish.

Emergency Board Meets on Monday Morning

As I mentioned the other day, the Emergency Board is meeting Monday at 10 am.  You’ll find the agenda and meeting materials here.

Along with allocations to repair schools damaged by wildfire smoke and test water systems, you’ll also find a $500,000 allocation to Housing and Community Services to create a liaison office to work with FEMA to help Oregonians get the assistance they need to rebuild their homes.   

The E-Board will also be receiving include status reports on COVID Relief Fund expenditures for migrant worker emergency housing and to help county elections offices purchase personal protective equipment and take other steps necessary to protect workers and the public. They’ll also be receiving reports on a number of other topics, including one on university budgets.

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 October 9: 

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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.  It also means that more recent outbreaks may not lead to big changes in the above rankings. In fact, there are only a handful of moves up or down by one or two spots.

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 real concern.  Our school reopening target is 5%.  

Here’s a 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.  For example, you’ll see the effects of the big outbreak in Klamath County last week, moving them up to #4.  Lane County, where we’ve seen a big increase in cases recently, has continued to move up to #6.

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Looking at the tables below, we can see the spikes in cases and positivity rates around the state that have been evident in the daily newsletters.

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.  However, it’s important that we have broad testing to be able to catch both symptomatic and asymptomatic cases.

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 positive trend that we were starting to see last week has unfortunately been reversed.  We are now seeing large increases both in cases and in positivity rates.

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If you’re interested in seeing an even more granular picture of what’s happening on the ground, cumulatively and over the last week, The Oregonian has created an interactive map of cases by zip code.

Saturday Wildfire Update

Below again are two tables that reveal the progress made in containment of the six remaining major fires over the last 24 hours. We see further containment on most of the fires, with firefighters again getting a lot of help from the weather.

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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.

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:

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 425. Nearly 2/3 of today’s cases are from outside the Portland Tri-County area, with Lane County again showing  very large numbers.  Here is the breakdown by county for today:

Baker (4)

Benton (2)

Clackamas (32)

Columbia (2)

Crook (4)

Curry (3)

Deschutes (11)

Douglas (3)

Gilliam (1)

Harney (1)

Hood River (3)

Jackson (24)

Jefferson (3)

Klamath (11)

Lane (73)

Lincoln (2)

Linn (14)

Malheur (12)

Marion (50)

Morrow (2)

Multnomah (75)

Polk (1)

Tillamook (2)

Umatilla 11)

Wasco (5)

Washington (47)

Yamhill (11)

And the Deaths:

Oregon’s 598th COVID-19 death is a 76-year-old male in Washington County who tested positive on August 10 and died on October 4 at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center.

Oregon’s 599th COVID-19 death is an 88-year-old female in Washington County who tested positive on September 28 and died on October 9 at Providence St. Vincent 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.

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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