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October 11, 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.
Well, I guess it had to happen sometime. We learned today that a COVID case has been reported in Wheeler County. Why is that meaningful? The beautiful, sparsely-populated county to the east of Prineville on Highway 26 has been Oregon’s only county with no reported cases since early in the pandemic, and was one of only six COVID-free counties in the country. Ironically, OPB’s Think Out Loud had a segment interviewing the county’s public health director about how they’ve managed to keep their case counts at zero just a few days ago. Ah well. Hopefully, it stays at one and is not a severe case.
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.
The case numbers are down today, but that may again be due to lower test results being reported. As a result, the positivity rate for the state has again risen above 7%.
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. Fortunately, OHA reports that no additional Oregonians have died 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, but they tend to be less likely to be hospitalized or die from the disease. When it is passed on to older people, however, it becomes much more dangerous.
On the firefighting front, we see big progress on the Holliday Farm fire east of Eugene, which is now 96% contained.
Please let me know if you have any questions about anything in this newsletter.
TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE
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Positive Cases: OHA reports that 337 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 37,262.
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Total Tests: The number of reported tests has increased by 4,646. 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 741,233.
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Ratio: The percentage of positive test results in Oregon is 7.3%. The national ratio today is 5.0%.
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Deaths: I’m happy to report 0 additional deaths due to the coronavirus today. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon remains at 599.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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Dashboards
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Today’s National Numbers:
Looking at Age Metrics
Here again are this week’s statewide case, hospitalization, and death metrics by age. Here is updated information as of October 9. The percentages for each category have again not really moved much. You’ll see again that younger people have come to dominate the category of new cases: 71% 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. 71% 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.
  Sunday 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. You’ll see a big increase in the containment of the Holiday Farm Fire east of Eugene.
 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:
- Again, for one-stop information about fires, firefighting response, smoke levels, relief for evacuees, and much more, you can find a variety of Wildfire-related Resources at the Governor’s Wildfire Website. It also takes you to the Department of Forestry’s Wildfire site, which gives you the daily updates on each of the fires. I really encourage you to check this one out first—there’s a wealth of info and links here, including on how to volunteer, donate, or otherwise help.
- For the daily informational releases on the major fires, go to the ODF Wildfire News Page.
- Here are regular updates on road conditions from ODOT.
- The Office of Emergency Management provides regular updates at the OEM Twitter page and at the OEM Facebook page.
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 337. More than half of today’s cases are from the Portland Tri-County area. The numbers reported for Lane County are fortunately way down. Here is the breakdown by county for today:
Benton (1)
Clackamas (37)
Columbia (3)
Coos (2)
Crook (2)
Curry (11)
Deschutes (12)
Douglas (4)
Jackson (2)
Josephine (7)
Klamath (5)
Lane (19)
Lincoln (1)
Linn (12)
Malheur (5)
Marion (50)
Multnomah (78)
Polk (5)
Tillamook (2)
Umatilla (12)
Wasco (1)
Washington (62)
Wheeler (1)
Yamhill (3)
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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