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December 26, 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.
Today’s COVID figures—just 612 new cases and zero deaths—would be extremely encouraging if we could believe in them.
Unfortunately, we can’t. Today’s (and to some extent yesterday’s) reporting in Oregon and nationwide, was disrupted by the holidays. Many of our more populous counties did not report last night. We should see the additional cases and deaths from the last day or two reflected in next week’s reporting.
Still, if Oregonians treated Christmas as most of us did Thanksgiving—limiting social interactions and taking other steps to stay safe—we just may see new case numbers and hospitalizations continuing to decline.
Please stay safe, and let me know if you have any questions about information in today’s newsletter.
TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE
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New COVID Cases: OHA reports 612 new COVID cases today. OHA reports that there was a delay in processing laboratory results, so case counts today are lower than normal and will likely be higher in the future as a result. This count is a combination of positive test results and those who are presumed positive (see definition below). The cumulative number of cases in Oregon since the beginning of the pandemic is 108,326.
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Positive Test Results: OHA reports 1,101 positive test results today. (Individuals may have had multiple tests come back positive, and each is now counted separately.) The cumulative total of positive test results since the beginning of the pandemic is 151,085.
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Total Tests: An additional 16,190 test results were reported today. Our cumulative total of tests is 2,579,564.
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Positivity Rate: The average test positivity rate for Oregon today is 6.8%. The national ratio today is 8.9%.
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Deaths: I’m happy to report 0 additional COVID deaths today, following seven reported yesterday. You can read about those 7 Oregonians that were reported yesterday further down in the newsletter. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 1,422.
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Hospitalized: OHA does not provide detailed information about hospitalizations on holidays and weekends. So, for now, our cumulative number of reported hospitalizations remains at 6,168.
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Vaccinations: Similarly OHA does not provide detailed information about vaccinations on holidays and weekends. So far, a total of 14,524 doses have been administered in Oregon. For more details, go to the OHA Vaccinations Dashboard.
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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: OHA DOES NOT REPORT hospitalization information over the weekend or on holidays, so the numbers below are the same as Thursday’s.
- Patients Currently with COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 530 (30 fewer than yesterday). Of those, 495 (32 fewer than yesterday) have already received a positive test back.
- Available ICU Beds: 181 (11 more than yesterday)
- Other Available Beds: 770 (143 more than yesterday).
- ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 109 (6 fewer than yesterday).
- COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 59 (2 more than yesterday).
- Available Ventilators: 775 (3 more than yesterday).
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Dashboards:
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Today’s National Numbers:
- Total Tests: 242,969,996 (up 2,133,757 from yesterday).
- Total Cases: 18,755,195 (up 189,268 from yesterday.)
- Deaths: 323,401 (up 1,409 from yesterday).
- These national numbers come from the COVID Tracking Project. You can visit that site here.
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Additional Brief Updates:
- If you’re like me, you probably did NOT receive what you wanted most for Christmas—a COVID vaccine! Nevertheless, we can appreciate that thousands of front-line hospital and skilled nursing workers have already received their first dose. Most of them, however, live in families where they alone have received the vaccine. How do they act when they live in a “mixed” setting, where some have been Spurr has a story about the those still waiting to access more permanent housing.
Outbreaks at Long-Term Care Facilities
OHA’s weekly COVID report no longer includes information on outbreaks. That information is now included in a separate Outbreak Report.
The report lists outbreaks at long-term care facilities with more than five residents that have three or more confirmed cases or at least one COVID death.
We are continuing to se increased numbers of infections in our facilities, but as is the case in the general population, the rates of increase seem to be starting to go down again. higher rates of increase than we’re seeing in the general population.
OHA reports that since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been a total of 9,249 cases and 745 deaths associated with congregate care settings. (Deaths among this population constitute 55% of all deaths due to COVID.)
This is an increase of 973 new cases and 89 new deaths from the previous week. The rate of increase in the prior report was 1,858 new cases and 132 new deaths.
So this is progress, but still much higher than it should be. It’s really unfortunate that we haven’t been able to keep the disease out of these facilities. Given the age of most of the residents, we must expect a consequent increase in hospitalizations and deaths from those already affected.
Still, with this population being among the first to receive the COVID vaccine, we will hopefully see these numbers go down over the next month or so.
To date, there has still been only one death of a staff member reported.
Once again the report is divided between “Active” outbreaks and “Resolved” outbreaks. This week’s report lists outbreaks in 230 (up from 208) long-term care facilities that are still considered active. They are responsible for 4,567 cases (up from 3,914 cases last week and 2,643 cases two weeks ago) and 296 deaths (up from 227 deaths last week and 129 deaths two weeks ago). You can see them listed in chronological order.
Once a facility has gone 28 days without a new case, it is moved to the “Resolved” list. If a new outbreak occurs, it is then moved back to the Active list. There are 221 facilities whose outbreaks are now considered Resolved. They too are listed in chronological order.
In addition to the listed facilities, there are now 152 (up from 99 just two weeks ago) congregate settings with five or fewer beds that have also had three or more confirmed cases or one or more deaths. These group homes are not listed by facility name in order to protect patient privacy. With so few residents, it would be too easy to identify individuals who might be affected.
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 612. This is an unusually low number, but when you look at the list of counties, you’ll see why: a number of our more populous counties did not report on Christmas Day. (The cutoff for today’s numbers was midnight last night.) Here is the breakdown of cases by county:
Baker (7)
Benton (18)
Columbia (15)
Coos (10)
Crook (14)
Deschutes (68)
Douglas (9)
Harney (1)
Hood River (6)
Jefferson (33)
Lane (89)
Linn (26)
Marion (3)
Morrow (6)
Multnomah (271)
Tillamook (9)
Umatilla (37)
And the Deaths Reported Yesterday:
Oregon's 1,416th COVID-19 death is a 63-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on November 6 and died on November 15 at Providence Adventist Medical Center.
Oregon's 1,417th COVID-19 death is an 88-year-old man in Lane County who tested positive on December 16 and died on December 16 at his residence.
Oregon's 1,418th COVID-19 death is an 87-year-old man in Deschutes County who tested positive on December 20 and died on December 24 at St. Charles Medical Center – Bend.
Oregon's 1,419th COVID-19 death is a 63-year-old man in Marion County who tested positive on November 12 and died on December 23 at Salem Hospital.
Oregon's 1,420th COVID-19 death is a 65-year-old woman in Multnomah County who tested positive on December 16 and died on December 23 at Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center.
Oregon's 1,421st COVID-19 death is an 83-year-old man in Marion County who tested positive on December 11 and died on December 24 at Salem Hospital.
Oregon's 1,422nd COVID-19 death is an 83-year-old man in Marion County who tested positive on December 17 and died on December 23 at Salem Hospital.
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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