Coronavirus and Wildfire Update: Protect Your Family and Friends

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Charity and common sense.

This will be a holiday season like no other. We always aspire to charity at this time of year, mostly for others we don’t know. We’ll need charity more than ever this year, and we’ll also need a good dose of common sense.

The upcoming Thanksgiving holiday is one none of us could have anticipated a year ago. It’s perfectly understandable to be struggling with this. When the pandemic changed our lives back in March, we all hoped that by this point in the year, things would be somewhat back to normal. Instead, we’re at the most dangerous point of the pandemic, both here in Oregon and throughout the United States.

We are now averaging more than 1,000 cases per day, as The Oregonian reports here. Yesterday, the Oregon Health Authority recorded a daily state record of 20 deaths. I know we’ve become used to seeing these escalating numbers across the country, but I hope you find these numbers as shocking as I do, along with this latest graph of our rising hospitalizations.

I know we’re all feeling a lot of emotions right now – anger, frustration, sadness – about the repeated requests from public officials to limit our social gatherings. This is hard on everyone.

This is where your sense of charity comes in. Not just for others you don’t know, but the people you care about the most. Charity begins at home and with your closest friends and family. 

Please don’t ignore public health guidance and have large Thanksgiving celebrations with family and friends outside your immediate household. Just don’t do it. If you celebrate this way, you’ll be putting people you love and care about at risk. With the spread of the virus, lots more folks are asymptomatic carriers – they have COVD-19 but don’t know it. You might be fine, but another person you love could get really sick and possibly die.

If you’re having concerns about how your friends and family will react to declining their invitation to be in a large group, consider this advice from Oregon Health and Science University on how to respond:

• Keep it short and sweet. There’s no need to go into detail when you decline an invitation. A simple, “Thank you for the invitation, sorry, I can’t make it,” should do the trick.
• Provide an alternative. Offer to drop into the gathering by phone or video.
• Send a gift. Express your appreciation for the invite even though you’re not going. Sending the host a homemade card, flowers or baked goods shows you’re there in spirit.

And if you are traveling home for the holidays, consider this from the Oregon Health Authority:

Housing Committee to Meet Monday

On Wednesday, I called on Governor Brown to call the Legislature into a remote special session in December to address critical issues related to the pandemic. The Oregonian reported here that 70,000 unemployed workers could lose benefits at the end of the year when federal benefits from the CARES Act expire.

This is why I’m looking forward to Monday’s meeting of the House Committee on Housing, which will hold informational meetings about proposals to extend the statewide eviction moratorium, establish a landlord compensation fund, and address the existing foreclosure moratorium. The committee agenda is available here, and Oregon Public Broadcasting covered the housing stabilization proposal here.

Unemployment Update

The Oregon Employment Department (OED) is preparing for an increase in new unemployment claims because of the freeze requirements. For all the details, here is the latest update directly from the agency:

Preparing for an influx: Initial and Restarted Claims

The department anticipates an increase in the next few weeks of both initial unemployment insurance claims and restarted claims.  OED is ready to help claimants who need assistance.

• New Initial Claims
  • Go to the https://Unemployment.oregon.gov website for help. On the left side, there are links to step-by-step application guides/videos, the Unemployed Worker Handbook, FAQs, and online applications for regular unemployment benefits and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA).
  • The https://Unemployment.oregon.gov website also has a search function where you can search for what you need.
  • Initial claims can be filed here on the Online Claim System https://secure.emp.state.or.us/ocs4/
  • Can’t find what you are looking for? Use the Contact Us form here.

• Restarting Claims
  • The OED Online Claim System here has a Restart Your Claim option (it’s the 8th button down).
  • For more information on restarting claims or moving to a new benefit program, visit this FAQ.
  • Unfortunately, PUA claimants cannot restart using the online claims system. We are auto-processing restarts for regular UI and PUA, and claimants can request a restart online via the “Contact Us” form for both programs (selecting Restarting my claim, but PUA claimants do not have the option to click the Restart Your Claim button on the Online Claim System.
  • Use the Contact Us form and check the Restarting my claim option if you are unable to restart your own claim.

• Employers
  • We are developing an option for employers to bulk upload information for the employees they are laying off as a result of the statewide freeze. That form will be available on our website.

• Waiting Week
  • OED will be able to pay out the waiting week to eligible Oregonians who filed, or will file, a regular UI claim between March 8, 2020 and January 2, 2021.
  • The Waiting Week FAQ is now live on the OED website. You can find detailed information on the waiting week, including information on what claimants in different scenarios can expect regarding a waiting week payment.
  • As a reminder, claimants can log in to the Online Claim System to find out when their waiting week is.
  • Eligible claimants who filed their initial unemployment claim between March 29 and July 25 will receive a $600 FPUC payment in addition to their regular UI payment.
  • Eligible claimants who filed their initial claim between July 26 and September 5 will receive a $300 LWA payment in addition.
  • As a reminder, only people who were laid off and filed an initial regular UI claim have a waiting week. PUA and DUA claimants did not have waiting weeks.
  • Most people will automatically see their waiting week amount via their regular method of payment within about 3 business days. But not everyone will get their payment this quickly:
    • Because of some complications, we estimate about 25% of eligible Oregonians will need to have their payment manually processed;
    • Claimants receiving PEUC, EB, or Workshare, or in some other scenarios, can expect to have their payment manually processed;
    • Most will be resolved by the end of December;
    • It may take until the end of January to complete all the manual payments – although OED is working on how we can get all of those payments out as quickly as possible.
  • Claimants do not need to do anything to get their waiting week payment, and they do not need to call OED, even if their claim will be manually processed.

• Disaster Unemployment Assistance (DUA)
  • The DUA deadline is now next Friday, November 27, 2020. OED asked for an extension that was granted by the federal government.
  • Anyone whose employment was impacted by the recent wildfires, who is not currently eligible for regular UI and who has not yet applied for DUA, should submit their application ASAP. Remember, you must be in Clackamas, Douglas, Jackson, Klamath, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, or Marion counties.
  • Visit oregon.gov/employ/disaster to find the application, instructions, answer to frequently asked questions, and more.

The Latest News

• The Oregon Health Authority reported 1,306 new confirmed cases of coronavirus, bringing the statewide total of new and presumptive cases to 62,175. The OHA also reported four more deaths, meaning 812 Oregonians have died of the coronavirus. On Thursday, OHA announced 1,225 cases and 20 deaths. You can click the images below for links to interactive data tables about coronavirus in Oregon.

To read past newsletters, you can go to this link. For up to date information, please check this link to the Oregon Health Authority where regular updates are posted: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/ERD/Pages/News-Releases.aspx

Please email me at Rep.TinaKotek@oregonlegislature.gov if you have specific concerns that have not been addressed by the OHA. Our office will do all we can to help and protect all Oregonians.

Thank you for reading! We will get through this together.

Best,

Tina Kotek

State Representative
House District 44
Speaker of the House

email: Rep.TinaKotek@oregonlegislature.gov I phone: 503-986-1200
address: 900 Court St NE, H-269, Salem, OR 97301
website: http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/kotek