October 14th COVID-19 and Wildfire Update

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin at 10/14/2020 08:29 PM PDT
Michael Dembrow

October 14, 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.

Today’s my birthday, and I was hoping to get a low COVID case count as a gift, but unfortunately the number of new cases is again high.  BUT I’m pleased to report that we have a very high number of tests reported today.  Perhaps test results from the newly distributed tests from the federal government are starting to kick in; if so, I’ll take that gift willingly!  As a result of more testing, we’re seeing higher positives, but a MUCH lower statewide positivity rate of 3.5% (i.e., only 3.5% of the new tests are turning out to be positive).  Let’s hope that continues.

We do see a jump in newly reported COVID hospitalizations today.  That could be a reporting anomaly, or it could reflect the record increase of new cases reported last week.  Increases and decreases in new hospitalizations lag behind increases and decreases in new cases by a week or two.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

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TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE

  • Positive Cases: OHA reports that 364 additional Oregonians have tested positive for COVID. The cumulative total since the beginning of the pandemic is 36,242.
  • Total Tests: The number of reported tests has increased by 10,259. The cumulative total is now 759,634.
  • Ratio: The percentage of positive test results is 3.5%.  The national ratio today is 6.2%.
  • Deaths: I’m regret to report 3 additional deaths due to the coronavirus today. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 608.
  • Hospitalized: OHA reports 31 new COVID hospitalizations. The cumulative number of those who have been hospitalized with COVID since the beginning of the pandemic is now 2,848.
  • 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.  OHA reports 26 new cases presumed positive for COVID-19.  The cumulative number of presumed positives is 1,918.
  • Other Hospital Information:
    • Patients Currently with COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 202 (8 fewer than yesterday). Of those, 153 have already received a positive test back.
    • Available ICU Beds: 164 (3 more than yesterday)
    • Other Available Beds: 569 (59 fewer than yesterday).
    • ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 50 (3 more than yesterday).
    • COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 20 (1 more than yesterday).
    • Available Ventilators: 787 (3 fewer than yesterday).
  • Dashboards
  • Today’s National Numbers:
  • Additional Brief Updates:
    • Yesterday I shared a link to the OHA-commissioned survey report on Oregonians’ COVID attitudes. They also commissioned a separate report focused particularly on the attitudes of Oregon’s Latinx residents.  It too is quite interesting.  Here it is in English and in Spanish.
    • The unemployment numbers for September have just been released, and they show both a continuing reduction in unemployment (down to 8% from 8.5% in August, almost exactly in line with the national average) and a slowdown in the rate of reduction and the restoration of jobs. To date, Oregon has gained back slightly less than half of the jobs lost in March and April. Women are particularly hard-hit by this pandemic recession: the unemployment rate for men is now 6.7%, while for women it’s 9.6%.  In addition, more women are believed to have left the labor force entirely since February.  You can read more details and see the sector breakdowns in today’s press release from the Employment Department. A video summary is available here.
    • The OHA released this week’s Weekly COVID Report late this afternoon. I don’t have time today to do a summary of it but will tomorrow.  Just looking at it quickly, I see that it will reflect the record increases in cases that have seen over the last week.

How Are Students Attending?

ODE has done an assessment of the kinds of instruction that schools around the state are providing right now.  It’s an incomplete list, and only includes private schools that have voluntarily provided the information. 

The majority of students (25,285) in a total of 1,203 districts or individual schools are doing what’s called Comprehensive Distance Learning (CDL), where all the instruction is delivered remotely.  Many students (7,835 in 114 districts or individual schools) are doing fully in-person learning right now as a result of low COVID case rates and/or their status as small, remote schools.  A total of 12,691 students in 109 districts or individual schools are in “hybrid” programs, partly in-person and partly remote.

Some districts are able to take advantage of the exception for K-3 instruction for those with higher, but still relatively low COVID rates; 4,731 children are attending 35 K-3 schools in person.

The ODE plan allows districts that don’t meet the COVID metrics for in-person instruction to take advantage of in-person learning for small numbers of special-needs students (known as Limited In-Person Instruction); 351 districts or individual schools are taking advantage of this LIPI exception for a total of 17,535 students.  In addition, 22 districts or individual schools are taking advantage of both the K-3 exception (for 2,013 students) and the limited in-person instruction exception (for 1,006 students).

These numbers are very preliminary, based on projected enrollments for this year.  School districts are about to report to ODE on their actual enrollments for the first month of the school year.  That will be very informative in a number of ways.  For example, most people expect the number of new kindergarteners to be lower than in the past, and that more parents will have chosen non-public school options (e.g., home-schooling, private schools) for their children for now.  We’ll soon get a clearer sense of what’s actually happening. 

As Education Committee Chair, I’ll want to see the follow-up to those numbers, to see where our children are, to see who might be falling through the cracks. 

I know that many school districts were hoping that improving COVID infection rates would allow them to move to more hybrid or in-person instruction levels in November, after completion of the first school quarter.  Unfortunately, for now, the rates are increasing, and that is likely to be impossible for a while longer.

Wednesday 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 notice a large increase in containment of the Riverside Fire near Estacada in Clackamas County.

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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 Impact/Recovery Updates

Oregon Emergency Management has just released its latest Recovery Update. Here are the latest highlights of the recovery effort.

  • The number of fatalities (9) and missing persons (1) remains the same.
  • The number of residences destroyed has gone up by 11 to 4,023. More than 1,400 structures other than residences have also been destroyed.
  • The number of Oregonians who have registered with FEMA for individual assistance has soared to 16,356. This is sad in terms of the number of families needing assistance, but gratifying to know that the word is getting out and people are taking the first steps to get the assistance they deserve and need. FEMA has already approved for $18.1 million in assistance grants.
  • Still, if you know of anyone who has NOT yet registered, please direct them to the following:

Wildfire Informational Resources

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 390.  Here is the breakdown by county for today:

Benton (3)

Clackamas (27)

Clatsop (1)

Columbia (1)

Coos (3)

Crook (2)

Deschutes (7)

Douglas (8)

Jackson (28)

Jefferson (2)

Josephine (2)

Klamath (2)

Lane (60)

Lincoln (2)

Linn (5)

Malheur (11)

Marion (63)

Multnomah (88)

Polk (4)

Umatilla (14)

Wallowa (1)

Washington (51)

Yamhill (5)

And the Deaths

Oregon’s 606th COVID-19 death is a 93-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on Sept. 18 and died on Oct. 2 at Adventist Health Portland.

Oregon’s 607th COVID-19 death is an 80-year-old woman in Wasco County who tested positive on Sept. 18 and died on Oct. 12 at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center.

Oregon’s 608th COVID-19 death is an 82-year-old woman in Washington County who tested positive on Oct. 5 and died on Oct. 13 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.

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