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November 29, 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.
Today’s reported COVID cases are again at near-record levels.
We don’t get hospitalization numbers over the weekend, so we won’t know what the rate of increase is till tomorrow. With the high case numbers we’ve been seeing for the last two weeks, however, we have to be prepared for another increase in reported hospitalizations tomorrow.
We do have COVID deaths reported over the weekend, however, and today we learned of nine more Oregonians who have died of the disease. These newly reported deaths move us over the 900 mark, a sad milestone. At the current rate of COVID deaths (86 over the last week), we’ll likely reach 1,000 within the next 10 days.
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.
Please stay safe, and let me know if you have any questions about today’s newsletter.
TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE
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Positive Cases: OHA reports that 1,599 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 74,120.
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Total Tests: The number of reported tests has increased by 9,656. The cumulative total is 1,042,806. (Still using the old reporting method.)
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Positivity Rate: The national ratio today is 10.4%. Oregon’s number today is 16.6% (still using the old method).
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Deaths: I’m sorry to have to report 9 additional COVID deaths today. You can read about the Oregonians we lost further down in the newsletter. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 905.
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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 4,343.
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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): 569 (37 more than Wednesday). Of those, 521 have already received a positive test back.
- Available ICU Beds: 170 (24 more than Wednesday).
- Other Available Beds: 708 (78 more than Wednesday).
- ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 123 (5 more than Wednesday).
- COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 50 (2 more than Wednesday).
- Available Ventilators: 749 (2 fewer than Wednesday).
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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 November 6. 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 many losses among people in their 60s 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. This may be due to improvements in COVID treatments that are making more of a difference with younger patients. However, we are continuing to see more hospitalizations among people in the oldest age category, which will likely see our death rate rise further.
  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 reported for is 1,669. Three-fifths of today’s reported cases come from the Portland Tri-County area. Here is the breakdown of reported cases by county for today:
Baker (3)
Benton (7)
Clackamas (136)
Clatsop (1)
Columbia (18)
Coos (4)
Crook (9)
Curry (2)
Deschutes (78)
Douglas (9)
Grant (1)
Hood River (5)
Jackson (57)
Jefferson (21)
Josephine (14)
Klamath (28)
Lake (8)
Lane (59)
Lincoln (6)
Linn (30)
Malheur (20)
Marion (126)
Morrow (4)
Multnomah (648)
Polk (35)
Tillamook (5)
Umatilla (17)
Union (6)
Wasco (6)
Washington (206)
Yamhill (34)
And the Deaths
Oregon’s 897th COVID-19 death is an 82-year-old woman in Jackson County who tested positive on Nov. 11 and died Nov. 24 at Ashland Community Hospital.
Oregon’s 898th COVID-19 death is a 69-year-old woman in Linn County who tested positive on Oct. 30 and died Nov. 26 at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center.
Oregon’s 899th COVID-19 death is a 72-year-old woman in Malheur County who tested positive on Nov. 19 and died Nov. 27 at St. Alphonsus, Nampa, Idaho.
Oregon’s 900th COVID-19 death is a 76-year-old woman in Malheur County who tested positive on Nov. 16 and died Nov. 28 at her residence.
Oregon’s 901st COVID-19 death is an 82-year-old woman in Marion County who tested positive on Nov. 23 and died Nov. 28 at Salem Hospital.
Oregon’s 902nd COVID-19 death is a 73-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on Nov. 12 and died Nov. 24 at his residence.
Oregon’s 903rd COVID-19 death is an 88-year-old woman in Multnomah County who tested positive on Nov. 24 and died Nov. 26 at her residence.
Oregon’s 904th COVID-19 death is an 88-year-old woman in Washington County who tested positive on Nov. 25 and died Nov. 26 at her residence.
Oregon’s 905th COVID-19 death is an 80-year-old man in Washington County who tested positive on Nov. 21 and died Nov. 25 at his residence.
Additional Graphs:
   **You can find a breakdown of regional availability here.
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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