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November 30, 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.
With the beginning of the new work week, we see the new COVID test reporting system reflected in the daily updates. So you’ll see a number of caveats at the beginning of the report below. Please be patient—within the next day or so I’ll be able to include more graphs that reflect the new numbers.
In any case, you’ll see that our daily number of new cases remains very high, well over 1,000 for today. And we’re continuing to see ongoing pressure on hospitals, with every day setting a new record for the number of Oregonians in hospital for COVID. Fortunately, the hospital systems appear to be doing a great job so far of keeping staffed beds available to accommodate them, but I’m sure it’s not easy. It also reflects the fact that some people are being forced to postpone certain medical procedures. Unfortunately, this pressure will only continue as the likely effects of the Thanksgiving holiday are felt.
Again, Oregon is by no means unique in what we’re experiencing right now—we can see the same trends occurring all over the country. You may have seen that Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, is now urging Americans who traveled this past week to “assume that you were exposed and you became infected.” She went on to encourage them to get tested within the next week in order to identify potential positives. That may be difficult here, given our stricter testing protocols. In any case, anyone who socialized outside of their immediate household should be very, very cautious about interacting with anyone in a vulnerable category for the next couple of weeks. And certainly not without carefully wearing a face covering.
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 Test Results: OHA now reports a cumulative 108,571 positive test results since the beginning of the pandemic. This is obviously a huge increase from Friday’s 67,515. This is the result of the new method of reporting test results, which counts every time a person has been tested either positive or negative. Some people, especially those in the hospital or in a recovery setting, will continue to test positive for a while, hence the larger number. (Today’s individual case count is a much lower 75,431, even though it also includes those presumed positive.) My sense is that the number of positive test results will henceforth be less important than the case count, useful only for calculating the positivity rate. From now on, I’ll likely be tracking new cases each day. (See the graph towards the bottom of the newsletter.)
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Total Tests: With the new method of reporting tests, today’s cumulative test count is now 1,979,794 (vs. Friday’s 1,028,119). This will become the new starting point for my reporting future increases in tests.
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Positivity Rate: The national ratio today is 9.5%. It’s still too soon to calculate today’s rate for Oregon. I’ll be able to start calculating Oregon’s daily positivity rate starting tomorrow, as we move into Day 2 of daily reporting under the new system. (I can tell you that under the new system our cumulative positivity rate since the beginning of the pandemic is 5.5% vs. the national average of 6.9%.)
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Deaths: I’m sorry to have to report 7 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 912.
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Hospitalized: OHA reports 175 new COVID hospitalizations since Friday, an average of 58 per day. The cumulative number of those who have been hospitalized with COVID is now 4,518.
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Presumptive Cases: OHA is including “presumptive COVID-19 cases” in its 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:
- Patients Currently with COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 662 (93 more than Friday). Of those, 584 (63 more than Friday) have already received a positive test back.
- Available ICU Beds: 169 (1 fewer than Friday)
- Other Available Beds: 712 (4 more than Friday).
- ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 127 (4 more than Friday).
- COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 58 (8 more than Friday).
- Available Ventilators: 741 (8 fewer than Friday).
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Dashboards:
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Today’s National Numbers:
Additional Brief Updates:
- Tomorrow, the Governor will release her proposed budget for the next biennium’s. The proposed budget is based on requests from the various agencies, based on their perceived needs. She and her staff have gone through those requests, prioritized them, and added priorities of her own—all based on expectations of available funds for the next two years. She will hold a press briefing at 1pm to present and explain the budget.
- OHA has just released its latest county school reopening metrics. It provides metrics for the last two weeks. You’ll see that the positivity rates are much lower, because of the new reporting methodology. However, infection rates per 100K population have continued to increase dramatically for most counties and for the state as a whole.
- I know that many of you are trying hard to restrict your social interactions to those within your immediate household or a “bubble” that you’ve worked hard to create with friends and/or family for mutual support. But bubbles can sometimes be more porous than we’d like to believe. OHA just sent out a communication with more information about bubbles and how you can only be fully secure in your bubble when your “bubble-mates” don’t have additional bubbles of their own.
- When the Governor announced the temporary freeze the week before last, she also directed that $55 million be sent to the counties to help businesses that would be adversely affected by the temporary closures and restrictions. Today, Multnomah County initiated its application process for the small grants available to restaurants and food carts. They are available to anyone who has held a valid, Multnomah County-issued food service license between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, 2020.The funds are open to owners with five or fewer permits. You can read about the application process here.
- Interested in being part of a final COVID vaccine trial? If so, OHSU may be looking for you! Astra Zeneca, one of the three pharmaceuticals with a vaccine that’s close to being final, is using OHSU for trials. You can read all about it In this article in today’s Oregonian. Remember, though, that it’s not guaranteed that you’ll be getting the actual vaccine—as is usual in a blind study, you may well be getting a placebo.
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DHS reports that SNAP (food stamps) benefits are being increased effective next week. A family of four will see their foodstamp allocation increased by $180.
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 1,314. Here is the breakdown of reported cases by county for today:
Baker (2)
Benton (9)
Clackamas (228)
Clatsop (1)
Columbia (14)
Coos (4)
Crook (4)
Curry (2)
Deschutes (54)
Douglas (33)
Harney (1)
Hood River (1)
Jackson (54)
Jefferson (9)
Josephine (20)
Klamath (1)
Lake (1)
Lane (62)
Lincoln (3)
Linn (16)
Malheur (2)
Marion (167)
Morrow (1)
Multnomah (320)
Polk (26)
Tillamook (2)
Umatilla (40)
Union (6)
Wasco (2)
Washington (202)
Yamhill (27)
And the Deaths
Oregon’s 906th COVID-19 death is a 64-year-old man in Lane County who tested positive on Oct. 28 and died on Nov. 28 at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center Riverbend.
Oregon’s 907th COVID-19 death is a 67-year-old man in Marion County who tested positive on Nov. 5 and died on Nov. 27 at Salem Hospital.
Oregon’s 908th COVID-19 death is an 85-year-old woman in Marion County who tested positive on Nov. 19 and died on Nov. 28 at Legacy Meridian Park Medical Center.
Oregon’s 909th COVID-19 death is a 48-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on Nov. 22 and died on Nov. 25 at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center.
Oregon’s 910th COVID-19 death is an 83-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on Nov. 17 and died on Nov. 25 at his residence.
Oregon’s 911th COVID-19 death is a 78-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on Nov. 5 and died on Nov. 19 at Adventist Hospital.
Oregon’s 912th COVID-19 death is a 58-year-old man in Washington County who tested positive on Oct. 31 and died on Nov. 25 at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center.
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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