January 3rd COVID-19 Update

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin at 01/03/2021 08:32 PM PST
Michael Dembrow

January 3, 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.

COVID case numbers are up today, largely due to some counties catching up with reporting disrupted by the New Year’s holiday.  We’ll have a better sense of exactly where we are when we see the weekly update on Wednesday—that will tell us if the decline in COVID metrics will continue for a fourth straight week here in Oregon. 

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

  • New COVID Cases: OHA reports 1,421 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 117,745.
  • Positive Test Results: OHA reports 833 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 161,052.
  • Total Tests: An additional 9,527 test results were reported today. Our cumulative total of reported tests is 2,713,257.
  • Positivity Rate: The test positivity rate for Oregon today is 8.7%.  The national ratio today is 14.5%.
  • Deaths: I’m sorry to report 8 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 1,500.
  • 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 483, 15 more than yesterday. There are 109 COVID-19 patients in intensive care unit (ICU) beds, no change from yesterday.
  • Vaccinations: As of the end of yesterday, a total of 48,725 Oregonians have received the COVID vaccine.  That’s an increase of 3,430 doses. (1,717 inoculations occurred yesterday, and 1,713 occurred earlier but hadn’t been reported.) 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.
  • 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.   
  • 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).
  • Dashboards:
  • Today’s National Numbers:
    • Total Tests: 255,239,494 (up 1,424,180 from yesterday).
    • Total Cases: 20,376,721 (up 206,805 from yesterday.)
    • Deaths: 343,177 (up 1,449 from yesterday).
    • These national numbers come from the COVID Tracking Project. You can visit that site here.
  • Additional Brief Updates:
    • This Wednesday Congress is expected to confirm the results of the Electoral College vote in December. A number of Republican congresspersons are expected to vote against confirmation, arguing that there are outstanding issues with the November 3 election that point to fraud directed against President Trump.  Today’s Washington Post has a lengthy article debunking these assertions point-by-point, showing why courts have been rejecting them in virtually every case.
    • The CDC now has a vaccination tracker that allows you to see where each state is in terms of rollout of the vaccine, along with the nation as a whole. (It’s currently showing data from January 1, so the numbers for Oregon are less than those provided above in the newsletter.) You’ll see that the rollout is particularly slow with respect to delivery to residents and staff at long-term care facilities.  This may be partly due to slow reporting.

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 1,421.  These cases include “catch-up” for some of the counties that didn’t report fully or at all on New Year’s Day.  Here is the breakdown of cases by county today:

Baker (3)

Benton (9)

Clackamas (202)

Clatsop (6)

Columbia (14)

Coos (20)

Crook (4)

Curry (6)

Deschutes (37)

Douglas (3)

Harney (2)

Hood River (5)

Jackson (115)

Jefferson (65)

Josephine (30)

Lane (58)

Lincoln (1)

Linn (11)

Malheur (2)

Marion (221)

Morrow (9)

Multnomah (189)

Polk (31)

Tillamook (7)

Umatilla (91)

Union (6)

Wallowa (2)

Wasco (1)

Washington (212)

Yamhill (59)

And the Deaths:

Oregon’s 1,493rd COVID-19 death is an 82-year-old man in Coos County who tested positive on Dec. 21 and died on Dec. 31 at his residence.

Oregon’s 1,494th COVID-19 death is a 76-year-old man in Marion County who tested positive on Nov. 28 and died on Jan. 1 at Salem Hospital.

Oregon’s 1,495th COVID-19 death is an 88-year-old woman in Marion County who tested positive on Dec. 1 and died on Jan. 1 at Salem Hospital.

Oregon’s 1,496th COVID-19 death is a 77-year-old woman in Polk County who tested positive on Nov. 13 and died on Dec. 12 at her residence.

Oregon’s 1,497th COVID-19 death is an 81-year-old man in Polk County who tested positive on Nov. 30 and died on Dec. 15 at his residence.

Oregon’s 1,498th COVID-19 death is a 79-year-old woman in Polk County who tested positive on Dec. 15 and died on Dec. 28 at West Valley Hospital.

Oregon’s 1,499th COVID-19 death is a 77-year-old woman in Union County who tested positive on Dec. 10 and died on Jan. 1 at Grand Ronde Hospital.

Oregon’s 1,500th COVID-19 death is an 88-year-old woman in Washington County who tested positive on Dec. 18 and died on Jan. 1; her location of death is being confirmed.

Additional Graphs:

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**You can find a breakdown of regional availability here.

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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.

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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,

dembrow signature

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