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Dear Friends and Neighbors,
The holiday season has begun! Halloween is around the corner and we know how quickly Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza and New Years will come after that! This year will be a challenge for all of us in finding new and safe ways to connect with family and celebrate our important religious and cultural events. OHA has put together the great image below to help us all rethink our Halloween plans! Hope you have a spooky and safe celebration!
New Developments
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County Watch List: Lane County has been added to the County Watch List. Counties are placed on the Watch List when COVID-19 is spreading quickly and public health officials cannot trace that spread to specific sources—creating a potentially dangerous dynamic. Specific markers of this rapid community spread include when there is a sporadic case rate of 50 or more per 100,000 people in the last two weeks and the county has had more than five sporadic cases in the last two weeks (sporadic cases are those that cannot be traced to a source; they indicate community spread). The complete County Watch List now includes the following five counties: Benton, Clatsop, Lane, Malheur, and Umatilla.
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Child Integrated Dataset: This week, Governor Kate Brown launched the Oregon Child Integrated Dataset (OCID) Project, a vital online resource to provide policymakers with a more complete picture of how state programs interact with Oregon children and families over time. OCID reaches across state data systems to combine data from five agencies to ensure accountability for the well-being of the children who touch state services. OCID compiles data by family where possible instead of by agency, giving a more complete picture of how different programs across state government have interacted with similar children and families over time. The data, which is compiled from five state agencies - the Oregon Department of Education, the Oregon Early Learning Division, the Oregon Department of Human Services, the Oregon Health Authority, and the Oregon Youth Authority - will provide a more complete picture of where programs can be improved to best serve Oregon children. This data will be vital as we work on policy to help children affected by COVID-19.
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How Has COVID-19 Impacted Your Child Care Needs? (from Oregon Department of Education: Early Learning Division): ELD wants to hear about your family’s experience searching for and using child care during the pandemic. Take the survey and help make a difference! Your input will help the state understand family needs and supports for child care providers.
- Child Care Opportunities:
- The Department of Human Services has Employment Related Day Care Opportunities, they have changed the income requirements to open the assistance to more families, and lowered co-pays. Learn more here.
- Forest Grove School District has childcare spots available, learn more here.
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School Reopening: Counties are still struggling to meet the metrics necessary to reopen schools, but our schools and teachers are doing all they can to support students and families through Comprehensive Distance Learning.
- County Metrics-metrics to be met three weeks in a row:
- Case rate: Less than 10 cases per 100,000 population in the preceding 7 days
- Test positivity: Less than 5% in the preceding 7 days
- State Metric-metric to be met three weeks in a row
- Test positivity: Less than 5% in the preceding 7 days
Case Data
- Confirmed Cases: 7,958,254 (up 63,486 from yesterday)
- Deaths: 216,917 (up 892 from yesterday)
- Cases in the Last 7 Days: 375,244
- These national numbers come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You can view their national and state by state data here.
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Oregon Status Report: Oregon now has 36,971 total cases (confirmed and presumptive) of COVID-19.
- Today we have 418 new confirmed and presumptive cases, and 6 new deaths.
- Thursday: 374 cases, 3 deaths
- Wednesday: 390 cases, 3 deaths
- A total of 617 Oregonians have died from COVID-19.
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Washington County still has one of the highest case counts at 5,297 confirmed cases, including 58 new cases today. You can review on-going updates from OHA by clicking on the table below.
- The Oregon Health Authority recently provided a Public Health Indicators Dashboard to enable communities across Oregon to monitor COVID-19 in the state.The dashboard, which will be updated weekly on Thursdays, provides a transparent report that presents complex epidemiological data in an interactive, easy-to-understand way on a state and county level.
- This week’s Weekly Report showed that during the week of October 5 - 11, we recorded 2,418 new cases of COVID-19 infection—up 18% from last week’s tally of 2,055 and the highest weekly total reported in Oregon to date. The number of Oregonians newly tested rose 26%, to 28,490, and the percentage of tests that were positive rose slightly to 6.4% from 6.3% the prior week. Twenty-seven Oregonians were reported to have died in association with COVID-19—compared to 25 last week. One hundred forty-seven Oregonians were hospitalized, up from 119 in the previous week, and the highest weekly figure since mid-July.
As you can see in this graph from the Weekly Report, new weekly cases and sporadics cases have been on the rise since the start of September. Click the Graph for more information.
Table showing Oregon case, testing and demographic data, link to more information
Metro Wildfire Economic Recovery Team (WERT): Representatives Mark Meek and Anna Williams co-convened the first Metro WERT meeting. They reviewed the charter and scope of work with team members and Clackamas County provided an overview of their preliminary damage assessment. The Team also heard from the Debris Management Taskforce on the ash and debris removal process. Clackamas County looks forward to a state managed, locally coordinated approach that results in an expedient cleanup and conforms to FEMA guidance. However, they look forward to clarifying roles and responsibilities and would like to use their existing debris-monitoring contractor. The Team provided feedback on issues/needs/gaps including the following:
- Ongoing case management needs related to individual assistance, housing, health care, and providing basic essentials to those that have been displaced, have damage to their homes and property.
- The need for a statewide standard for private property clean up, especially for those who plan to clean up their own property and acceptance standards for landfills. Concerns about local dump/waste transfer station capacity.
- Challenges reaching underserved populations including for those whom English is their second language about evacuation orders, resources and information.
- Those who are undocumented may not be eligible for certain types of assistance and may be fearful of applying for federal assistance programs.
Wildfire Resources:
OEM has put together this list of contacts to help speed up the process of replacing these documents:
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Green cards: Phone (800)-375-5283; Website: www.uscis.gov
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Medicare cards: Phone: (800)-772-1213; (TTY) (800)-325-0778 Website: www.medicare.gov
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Military records Phone: 866-272-6272 Website: www.archives.gov/contact/
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Passport Phone: 877-487-2778; (TTY) 888-874-7793 Website: travel.state.gov
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Social Security card Phone: 800-772-1213; (TTY) 800-325-0778 Website: www.ssa.gov
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U.S. Savings Bonds Phone: 844-284-2676 Website: www.treasurydirect.gov
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U.S. tax returns Phone: 800-829-1040 Website: www.irs.gov
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Birth, death, marriage, domestic partnership, divorce certificates Phone: 888-896-4988 Website: www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/Birthdeathcertificates
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Driver’s license, auto titles and registration, ID cards Phone: 503-945-5000 Website: www.oregon.gov/odot
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SNAP (Oregon Trail Card) Website: www.oregon.gov/DHS/Assistance/Food-Benefits
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State taxes (Oregon Dept. of Revenue) Phone: 503-378-4988 or 800-356-4222 TTY: All relay calls are accepted. Website: www.oregon.gov/dor
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Real estate and property - Contact your county government.
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Credit cards - Contact your credit card company directly.
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Credit reports from Equifax, Experian, TransUnion Phone: 877-322-8228 Website: www.annualcreditreport.com
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Insurance documents - Check with your insurance agent.
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Medical records - Call your doctor or your medical insurance company; medical and prescription records are tracked electronically.
The Governor’s office has put together a Wildfire Resources page that you can access from the Governor’s home page. It has links to many of the most important updates about the status of fires and resources for evacuees. This website will be updated regularly.
The Department of Forestry’s Wildfire Response and Recovery Overview has ongoing updates about firefighting efforts, damage reports, and more.
FEMA Updates: FEMA has provided several different Fact Sheets and resources for accessing benefits, determining eligibility and avoiding scams.
Employers and Employees
Education Links
Local Government
Utilities Assistance
Food and Housing Assistance
View Past Updates, Share and Subscribe:
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 (http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/mclain), click on “News and Information,” and you’ll find them all there. You can also share this site with your friends and loved ones, so they can view past newsletters, and subscribe to future updates.
Yours truly,
 Representative Susan McLain
House District 29
email: Rep.SusanMcLain@oregonlegislature.gov I phone: 503-986-1429
address: 900 Court St NE, H-376, Salem, OR 97301
website: http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/mclain
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