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Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Wednesday marked the first day that health care workers in Oregon began receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. You can watch video here of the first vaccines in the state. It’s heartening to hear the cheers from the frontline workers who have heroically dealt with challenges that were unimaginable one year ago.
Surprisingly, we learned yesterday that the federal government reduced our supply of vaccine doses for next week by 40%, as Willamette Week reported here. This is frustrating since we don’t seem to have clear answers from the federal government on why this is happening.
Today, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) finalized recommendations for who will get the COVID-19 vaccine first, as KOIN reported here. Below is who is classified in Phase 1a, meaning they are the first groups to receive the vaccine:
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Group 1: Hospitals; urgent care; skilled nursing and memory care facility health care providers and residents; tribal health programs; emergency medical services providers and other first responders.
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Group 2: Other long-term care facilities and congregate care sites, including health care providers and residents; hospice programs; mobile crisis care and related services; individuals working in a correctional setting; personnel of group homes for children or adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
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Group 3: Outpatient settings serving specific high-risk groups; in-home care; day treatment services; non-emergency medical transportation.
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Group 4: Health care personnel working in other outpatient and public health settings.
I’d recommend listening to this interview from this week on OPB’s Think Out Loud with doctors in Klamath Falls, one of the areas being hit especially hard by the pandemic right now. The doctors note that patients are getting sicker for longer than they were earlier in the pandemic. Hospitals have been dealing with staff shortages due to illnesses, which can have a more pronounced effect in a rural community. There is a lack of places to transfer patients when hospitals become overwhelmed, and the city is in a region that had no intensive care unit beds available as of Wednesday (ICU beds are currently at 85% capacity).
It’s interesting to learn about the conversations these doctors and other health care professionals in the community have had with their local county commissioners about encouraging mask usage. I’m still encouraged every time I see someone put on their mask when they see they’re going to walk by someone. Our empathy and trust in science will get us through this.
We need to combat misinformation whenever we can. As the OHA has said, roughly 70% of the population would have to get the vaccine in order for herd immunity to kick in. A new poll shows most Oregonians want to take the vaccine, which is encouraging. Please continue relying on trusted sources of information.
It’s clear from reading the latest COVID-19 Weekly Report, which can be read in full here, that our numbers are slightly better than last week, but far from where we need to be given the breadth of our community spread and the ongoing capacity issues our hospitals are facing.
Thank you for doing your part over the Thanksgiving holiday to flatten the numbers.
Here are some notable data points from the report:
- From Monday, December 7 through Sunday, December 13, OHA recorded 9,222 new cases of COVID-19 infection – an 11% drop from last week’s tally.
- 491 Oregonians were hospitalized with COVID-19 during the week, compared to 494 the previous week.
- 116 Oregonians died in association with COVID-19, down from 133 the previous week.
- Persons of Hispanic ethnicity have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19: they account for 13% of Oregon’s population but 38% of cases of known ethnicity reported to date.
- 883 (76%) of the deaths are among Oregonians 70 years of age or older.
The latest projections from the Institutes for Disease Modeling (found here) noted that people in Oregon successfully lowered the higher level of transmission seen earlier in November, and we did not observe an increase in transmission over Thanksgiving. However, as of November 28, cases were continuing to rise.
Last night, the Joint Interim Committee on the Third Special Session of 2020 heard three hours of remote public testimony about the following legislative concepts that will be considered during Monday’s special session of the Legislature:
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LC 10 – Restaurant Relief Package
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LC 18 – Eviction Moratorium Extension and Landlord Compensation Fund
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LC 21 – School Liability Protections
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LC 28 – Emergency Fund Allocation
Most of the testimony focused on LC 18, and the committee will virtually convene again tomorrow, Saturday December 19, at 10 am in order to hear remaining testimony from individuals who signed up prior to Thursday’s meeting but haven’t yet been heard. You can read all written testimony on these four legislative concepts here, and you can livestream tomorrow’s meeting by clicking the video icon on the committee webpage on Saturday at 10 am.
The Oregonian covered the meeting here, noting that the majority of people who testified about LC 18 on Thursday expressed their support for the bill. As KGW reported Thursday night, tens of thousands of Oregon households are at risk of eviction if we don’t extend the moratorium.
I was glad to see that Multnomah County took action on Thursday to extend its own eviction moratorium for nonpayment of rent to July 2, 2021. But the challenges our communities are facing is a statewide issue. Oregon renters have been able to hang on to their homes even in the face of record unemployment and a global pandemic thanks to our state’s temporary eviction moratorium.
We have to take action next week to keep Oregonians housed and keep the rental market stabilized.
I know this is an incredibly scary time for many folks, especially as an estimated 72,000 Oregonians will lose unemployment benefits when the federal CARES Act expires at the end of next week, on December 26th. I continue to be very frustrated by the inability of Congress to pass another pandemic assistance bill that would extend some of these critical lifelines for Oregonians who are out of work.
Data from the Oregon Employment Department (OED) tells us that most of the people who would stand to lose benefits are those who have been receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and are self-employed. Women and workers over 65 years of age will be disproportionately impacted, and Josephine, Curry, Coos and Lincoln counties would be hit the hardest.
It’s also disheartening to hear that OED has been detecting more instances of unemployment insurance fraud, including many cases involving large scale use of stolen identities. This appears to be a broader national problem. If you believe you’ve been subject to possible unemployment benefits fraud or attempts at fraud, please call the OED fraud unit at: 1-877-668-3204, or go to https://secure.emp.state.or.us/public/ui-fraud/FraudReferralForm.cfm.
The Oregon Office of Emergency Management announced that the next phase of wildfire debris clean up will start soon. State-contracted workers will be removing dangerous trees as well as ash and debris. Visit wildfire.oregon.gov/cleanup to register or update your property information. If you have questions or need help, you can call the Wildfire Debris Cleanup Hotline at 503-934-1700.
Additionally, federal funding is available to local, tribal governments, state agencies, special districts and certain private nonprofit organizations in designated areas for emergency work and the repair or replacement of public facilities damaged by wildfires that occurred in Oregon between September 7 and November 3. The deadline to Request Public Assistance (RPA) has been extended to January 13, 2021.
Eligible applicants that incurred costs for response activities and/or sustained facility damage as a direct result of the September wildfires can apply in the following counties: Benton, Clackamas, Columbia, Coos, Deschutes, Douglas, Jackson, Jefferson, Josephine, Klamath, Lake, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Marion, Multnomah, Tillamook, Washington, Wasco and Yamhill.
Eligible applicants may apply directly through the FEMA Grants Portal. If your agency is already registered in the FEMA Grants Portal, submit an RPA directly at grantee.fema.gov. If you are unable to access the FEMA Grants Portal or need assistance in creating a Public Assistance Grants Portal user account, contact Public Assistance Grants Assistant Selicity Icefire at 503-378-3934 or selicity.icefire@state.or.us.
- This fall’s wildfires in Oregon have caused ongoing challenges for municipal water systems, KLCC reported here.
- The remaining money in the Oregon Cares Fund for Black Relief and Resiliency is being deposited with a federal court while legal challenges continue, The Oregonian reported here. I recommend this op-ed from Rep. Teresa Alonso Leon, Rep. Andrea Salinas, and PCUN executive director Reyna Lopez that describes why we need this fund.
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KOIN reported here that the Oregon Worker Relief Fund, which provides relief to those who have lost pay due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic but are otherwise unable to get unemployment insurance and federal stimulus funds due to their immigration status, is soliciting donations for more support.
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The Oregonian reported here that the Oregon DMV is still facing a large backlog of appointments and may shift to a 90-day grace period for expired licenses and registration.
- The Oregon Health Authority reported 1,390 new confirmed cases of coronavirus, bringing the statewide total of new and presumptive cases to 100,308. The OHA also reported 21 more deaths, meaning 1,304 Oregonians have died of the coronavirus. 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
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