October 25th COVID-19 Update

October 25, 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 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. 

As we frequently see on Sundays, newly-reported case numbers are down a little today, but today’s number of reported tests is half of what it was yesterday.  As a result, we unfortunately see another jump in our positivity rate for today. When there are fewer tests, more of those who are able to be tested will be people with clear symptoms, thus more likely that more of the results will be positive. 

We don’t get hospitalization numbers over the weekend, so we won’t know what the rate of increase is till Monday.  Deaths are reported, and I’m pleased to say that no additional COVID deaths were reported today. 

As I’ve been doing on Sundays, I’m also providing 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’s passed on to older people, however, COVID becomes much more dangerous.

Today’s newsletter has nothing new to report on firefighting or the response effort. The wildfire containment numbers all remain the same as yesterday’s.  We’ll get our next updates tomorrow.

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 366 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 42,101.
• Total Tests: The number of reported tests has increased by 4,108. 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 825,250.
• Ratio: The percentage of total tests that are positive (or presumed positive) today is 8.9%.  The national ratio today is 5.9%.
• Deaths: Happily, there are 0 additional COVID deaths to report today. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon remains at 653.
• Hospitalized: OHA does not report on hospitalizations over the weekend. The cumulative number of those who have been hospitalized with COVID thus remains at 3,034.
• 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): 197 (3 more than yesterday). Of those, 148 have already received a positive test back.
  • Available ICU Beds: 161 (same as yesterday)
  • Other Available Beds: 617 (45 more than yesterday).
  • ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 53 (2 fewer than yesterday).
  • COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 21 (same as yesterday).
  • Available Ventilators: 710 (75 fewer than yesterday).
• Dashboard:
  • Oregon (OHA)
  • Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, & Yamhill Counties
• Today’s National Numbers:
  • Total Tests: 132,568,375 (up 1,113,149 from yesterday).
  • Total Cases: 8,597,312 (up 65,413 from yesterday.)
  • Deaths: 217,023 (up 367 from yesterday).
  • These national numbers come from the COVID Tracking Project. You can follow their updated numbers for each state and the nation as a whole here.

• Additional Brief Updates:
  • We’ve just learned that four staff members and one student at Vale Elementary School in Malheur County have tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, parents were notified this afternoon that four in-person classes involving 46 students will be moved to remote learning until November 5. Vale, located twelve miles from the Idaho border, is the county seat of Malheur County, site of the state’s highest per-capita COVID rates since the end of August.  Vale Elementary joins three other Malheur County schools and two childcare centers that have active COVID cases.
  • In yesterday’s newsletter I reported that the number of new COVID cases among UO students is coming down.  That’s true for students in general, but unfortunately we learned late yesterday that five students (or staff) on the UO football team have just tested positive (via the somewhat less precise antigen screening test).  As a result, the team’s second intra-squad scrimmage has been postponed.  You can read more about it here.
  • Today’s Oregonian includes an opinion piece penned by Lewis & Clark College President Wim Wiewel and co-signed by a number of other Oregon independent college presidents regarding their schools’ COVID performance so far this year. To date, there have been only a handful of COVID cases at the state’s small private colleges. President Wiewel concedes that managing the disease (so far) hasn’t been easy and is largely dependent on what happens in the state as a whole.
  • The Statesman-Journal’s Zach Urness has a good story on the controversy over the source of the fire in Santiam Canyon. Was it the fault of the Forest Service not working harder to put out the Beachie Creek Fire when it was smaller?  Was it the fault of downed Pacific Power power lines?  Both?  Investigations are underway, but we probably won’t have a clear answer for quite some time.

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 (more than three-fourths of all deaths), though we continue to see losses among people in their 50s and younger.

Those who eventually die of the disease are increasingly to be found in the 80-and-over category.  More than half of all deaths are now in this category.  I’m speculating, but this may be due to improvements in COVID treatments that are making more of a difference with younger patients.

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 for today is 366.  Here is the breakdown by county for today:

Baker (6)

Benton (5)

Clackamas (17)

Clatsop (1)

Columbia (3)

Coos (2)

Crook (4)

Deschutes (13)

Douglas (4)

Jackson (20)

Jefferson (1)

Josephine (3)

Klamath (2)

Lake (1)

Lane (30)

Lincoln (2)

Linn (5)

Malheur (6)

Marion (88)

Morrow (2)

Multnomah (82)

Polk (1)

Umatilla (5)

Union (1)

Wallowa (2)

Washington (57)

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:

• Multnomah County has a status report on reopening.
• You can view the reopening status of all 36 counties here.
• Here is the OHA’s coronavirus page, with links to a number of resources. 
• Oregon's Office of Emergency Management now has a website for information about COVID-19.
• You can sign up here for regular coronavirus updates from OHA.
• Multnomah County has an excellent website with lots of really important advice and guidance.
• Here’s one from the Governor’s Office.
• The Employment Department has put together a webpage with Q&A’s on a number of employment issues related to COVID-19 (e.g., eligibility for Unemployment Insurance benefits).
• The Oregon Education Department has a new site for COVID-19 updates.
• The Department of Corrections has a COVID tracking website.

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