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January 1, 2021
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.
I also hope you were able to enjoy a nice, low-key New Year’s Day and have gotten off to a good start with your New Year’s resolutions. One of mine is to start thinking about how I’m going to transition away from these COVID-focused newsletters towards more of a focus on the other issues coming before the Oregon Legislature, which begins its 2021 session in ten days.
For now I can tell you that today’s COVID numbers are relatively high, especially in terms of positive test results--but there’s an explanation for that. Due to a laboratory’s reporting error, at year’s end OHA received a large volume of results dating as far back as June. We consequently see an increase in positive test results, but also an increase in total tests; today’s positivity rate as a result is actually nearly 2% points lower than yesterday’s.
COVID hospitalization rates are lower today, and COVID death rates remain relatively low in Oregon now.
This is in contrast to what we’re seeing in other states, particularly in California, which has just registered its largest daily reported number of deaths (585).
Despite the difference that the current COVID protocols appear to have made here in Oregon, we are continuing to experience a degree of pushback to them. Today at the Capitol a group of around 200 protesters rallied at the Capitol, organized by a group called Women for Trump (who were also involved in last week’s violent protests at the Capitol while we were in special session). Though the rhetoric was strong (and, I would say, completely unsupported by the facts), today’s protest fortunately remained largely peaceful. You can find details about it here.
Like many of you, I hope that 2021 will bring us a higher level of civil discourse, trust in evidence-based science, and progress in solving the many problems that we face.
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 1,446 new COVID cases today. 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 115,339.
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Positive Test Results: OHA reports 2,363 positive test results today. Many of these results, though, are due to a reporting backlog from a single laboratory. (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 158,639.
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Total Tests: An additional 33,511 test results were reported today (again, this high number is due to late reporting of earlier tests). Our cumulative total of tests is 2,686,181.
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Positivity Rate: The test positivity rate for Oregon today is 7.1%. The national ratio today is 14.0%.
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Deaths: I’m sorry to report 13 additional COVID deaths today. You can read about the Oregonians that we’ve lost further down in the newsletter. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 1,490.
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Hospitalized: OHA does not provide detailed hospitalization information on holidays and weekends. However, they did report the following today: The number of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 across Oregon is 466, 22 fewer than yesterday. There are 109 COVID-19 patients in intensive care unit (ICU) beds, three more than yesterday.
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Vaccinations: As of the end of yesterday, a total of 44,415 Oregonians have received the COVID vaccine. That’s an increase of 5,717 doses. To date, 190,500 doses have been delivered to sites across Oregon. For more details, including the demographics of those receiving the vaccine, go to the OHA Vaccinations Dashboard. And here is a link to more information about the vaccine and vaccination protocols.
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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): 524 (44 fewer than yesterday). Of those, 488 (33 fewer than yesterday) have already received a positive test back.
- Available ICU Beds: 143 (13 more than yesterday)
- Other Available Beds: 568 (17 more than yesterday).
- ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 119 (2 more than yesterday).
- COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 60 (1 fewer than yesterday).
- Available Ventilators: 751 (4 more than yesterday).
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Dashboards:
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Today’s National Numbers:
- Total Tests: 251,724,932 (up 1,239,502 from yesterday).
- Total Cases: 19,888,285 (up 173,255 from yesterday.)
- Deaths: 339,331 (up 2,552 from yesterday).
- These national numbers come from the COVID Tracking Project. You can visit that site here.
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Additional Brief Updates:
- Some of you may have received a notice on your iphones this morning telling you that you can download a new COVID contact-tracing app called OR Notify. Washington has had their version of this app for a while now, and an experimental pilot version for Oregon has been in the works thanks to a partnership between OHA and OSU. The new app will notify you if you’ve been near someone who has tested positive for COVID (actually, if you’ve been near their phone). If you were excited to be able to have this new app, I have bad news: Apple jumped the gun on telling people the app was going live. Here’s the press release from OHA explaining the error. And here is a little more detail from the Oregonian.
- Firefighters and EMTs in Portland began receiving the COVID vaccine yesterday. They are obviously a group at risk because of their role in providing front-line care and transport, potentially of individuals with the disease. You can read about it here.
- The New York Times has a long opinion piece today that blames low staffing levels and poor pay at the country’s nursing homes and other long-term care facilities for the high levels of COVID outbreaks related to them. For the nation as a whole, outbreaks in long-term care are the source of 5.2% of all cases and 38.7% of all COVID deaths. (Here in Oregon, outbreaks in long-term care now account for 9% of all cases and 57% of all COVID deaths.) The writer sees this as another COVID lesson to be learned, another long-term weakness in our human services system that COVID has laid bare and that must be addressed.
- The Times also has a story about the important role that Black and Hispanic medical providers are playing in reassuring their communities that the vaccines are safe and necessary.
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 1,446.
NOTE FROM OHA: Due to a laboratory reporting error, OHA received a large volume of Electronic Laboratory Results (ELRs) dating from June through December. As a result, daily ELR totals are significantly higher today than usual; however, percent positivity remains stable.
Here is the breakdown of cases by county today:
Baker (10)
Benton (20)
Clackamas (90)
Clatsop (27)
Columbia (6)
Crook (9)
Curry (8)
Deschutes (108)
Douglas (39)
Harney (3)
Hood River (12)
Jackson (50)
Jefferson (15)
Josephine (41)
Klamath (2)
Lake (3)
Lane (88)
Lincoln (10)
Linn (39)
Malheur (17)
Marion (205)
Morrow (10)
Multnomah (265)
Polk (21)
Tillamook (5)
Umatilla (57)
Union (3)
Wallowa (1)
Wasco (11)
Washington (220)
Yamhill (38)
And the Deaths:
Oregon’s 1,478th COVID-19 death is a 70-year-old woman in Washington County who tested positive on Nov. 10 and died on Dec. 26 at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center.
Oregon’s 1,479th COVID-19 death is a 55-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on Dec. 22 and died on Dec. 24 at Providence Portland Medical Center.
Oregon’s 1,480th COVID-19 death is a 70-year-old woman in Multnomah County who tested positive on Dec. 14 and died on Dec. 26. She had underlying conditions.
Oregon’s 1,481st COVID-19 death is a 99-year-old woman in Multnomah County who tested positive on Dec. 4 and died on Dec. 30.
Oregon’s 1,482nd COVID-19 death is a 74-year-old man in Marion County who tested positive on Dec. 8 and died on Dec. 30 at Salem Hospital.
Oregon’s 1,483rd COVID-19 death is a 74-year-old man in Marion County who tested positive on Nov. 22 and died on Dec. 30 at Salem Hospital.
Oregon’s 1,484th COVID-19 death is an 86-year-old woman in Marion County who tested positive on Dec. 1 and died on Dec. 15 at her residence.
Oregon’s 1,485th COVID-19 death is an 84-year-old woman in Lane County who tested positive on Dec. 14 and died on Dec. 29 at Peace Health Sacred Heart Riverbend Medical Center.
Oregon’s 1,486th COVID-19 death is a 70-year-old woman in Jefferson County who tested positive on Dec. 24 and died on Dec. 30 at St. Charles Bend Medical Center.
Oregon’s 1,487th COVID-19 death is an 85-year-old woman in Hood River County who tested positive on Dec. 13 and died on Dec. 31 at her residence.
Oregon’s 1,488th COVID-19 death is an 88-year-old man in Hood River County who tested positive on Dec. 4 and died on Dec. 31 at his residence.
Oregon’s 1,489th COVID-19 death is an 89-year-old woman in Coos County who tested positive on Dec. 15 and died on Dec. 30 at her residence.
Oregon’s 1,490th COVID-19 death is a 63-year-old woman in Columbia County who tested positive on Dec. 19 and died on Dec. 19.
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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