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January 6, 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.
What a day this has been. As a Democrat, I’m pleased with the outcome of the Georgia Senate elections, the result of tremendous long-term effort and commitment, and the doors that it opens for national progress on issues that I care deeply about.
As a Senator, I’m so proud and pleased to welcome Kayse Jama to our body. (The Multnomah and Clackamas County Commissions just elected him as the replacement for our new Secretary of State, Shemia Fagan.) I’ve worked for many years with Kayse, a refugee from war-torn Somalia and community leader. He’s a man of high values and deep commitment to making this state a place where immigrants and refugees can thrive and contribute to the fullest of their abilities. I’m so eager to have him as a legislative colleague and partner. The fact that someone with Kayse’s life history could aspire to be—and become—a senator in this state, overwhelmingly elected by county commissioners from both parties, really speaks to the best in our nation.
But as an American, like most of you, I’m deeply disturbed by the acts of mob rule and lawlessness that unraveled at our nation’s Capitol building today, and in cities around the country. It’s sadly reminiscent of the violent acts we saw three weeks ago at Oregon’s Capitol, protesting the decision to limit access to the building for public health reasons. As always, we must respect the ability of individuals to protest decisions that they think are wrong. We must protect and promote their ability to do so. But when that protest sinks into bullying, intimidation, and destruction, we must draw the line. We must not allow ourselves to be intimidated.
Fortunately, our state troopers and police officers from Salem were able to keep the mob, many of them with sidearms and long guns, from breaking into our Capitol; if they had broken in as did today’s mob in Washington, D.C., I hate to think of what the consequences could have been.
Today’s COVID report is incomplete, I’m afraid, the result of a computer problem that made it impossible for OHA to report test results for yesterday. You’ll find updated information for hospitalizations and COVID deaths (both of which are relatively low), but we’ll have to wait till tomorrow for a clear picture of current COVID test outcomes.
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 764 new COVID cases today. This count is a combination of positive test results and those who are presumed positive (see definition below). However, we learned from OHA that today’s case count is lower than anticipated because a server outage led to unscheduled database downtime yesterday, leading to an undercount. We can expect higher numbers tomorrow. The cumulative number of cases in Oregon since the beginning of the pandemic is 120,223.
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Positive Test Results: As a result of the outage mentioned above, OHA is not reporting any additional positive test results today. The cumulative total of positive test results since the beginning of the pandemic thus remains 163,030. I’ll provide corrected numbers tomorrow.
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Total Tests: Again, no new test results were reported today. Our cumulative total of reported tests remains 2,741,116. I’ll provide corrected numbers tomorrow.
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Positivity Rate: The national ratio today is 15.2%.
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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 1,558.
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Hospitalized: OHA reports 56 new COVID hospitalizations. The total number of new hospitalizations since the beginning of the pandemic is 6,793.
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Vaccinations: As of the end of yesterday, a total of 61,058 Oregonians have received the COVID vaccine. Included in that number now are 595 Oregonians who have received both their first dose and their final second dose. Today’s number represents an increase of 6,432 vaccinations. To date, 225,600 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:
- Patients Currently with COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 530 (10 fewer than yesterday). Of those, 480 (14 fewer than yesterday) have already received a positive test back.
- Available ICU Beds: 141 (4 fewer than yesterday)
- Other Available Beds: 501 (31 fewer than yesterday).
- ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 118 (8 more than yesterday).
- COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 53 (2 fewer than yesterday).
- Available Ventilators: 765 (15 fewer than yesterday).
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Dashboards:
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Today’s National Numbers:
- Total Tests: 260,112,854 (up 1,605,799 from yesterday).
- Total Cases: 21,070,136 (up 243,376 from yesterday.)
- Deaths: 352,123 (up 3,793 from yesterday).
- These national numbers come from the COVID Tracking Project. You can visit that site here.
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Additional Brief Updates:
- OHA’s COVID-19 weekly report was released today. I’m afraid that it shows sharp increases in daily cases and positive tests for the week that ended on Sunday, following three weeks of declining cases. However, case numbers have been declining since then, and the increases are much lower than those we’ve seen in other states. Oregon remains in the bottom five of states with respect to new cases. I’ll provide a detailed summary tomorrow.
- Today’s COVID-19 outbreak report shows 4,853 active COVID-19 outbreaks in care facilities, living communities and long-term care facilities.
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 is 764. As noted above, this number is missing an unknown number of new cases because of a computer glitch and will be corrected tomorrow. For now, here is the breakdown of cases by county today:
Baker (11)
Benton (8)
Clackamas (79)
Clatsop (15)
Columbia (8)
Coos (13)
Crook (4)
Curry (1)
Deschutes (10)
Douglas (10)
Gilliam (2)
Grant (1)
Harney (2)
Hood River (6)
Jackson (44)
Jefferson (12)
Josephine (11)
Klamath (31)
Lake (5)
Lane (49)
Lincoln (3)
Linn (19)
Malheur (17)
Marion (134)
Morrow (2)
Multnomah (114)
Polk (14)
Sherman (1)
Tillamook (4)
Umatilla (50)
Union (4)
Wallowa (2)
Wasco (7)
Washington (27)
Yamhill (44)
And the Deaths:
Note From OHA: Updated information is available for Oregon’s 1523rd death, reported yesterday. He is a 76-year-old male in Josephine County who tested positive on Dec.19 and died on Jan. 2 at Asante Three Rivers Medical Center. He had underlying conditions.
Oregon’s 1551st COVID-19 death is an 87-year-old woman in Washington County who tested positive on Dec. 9 and died on Jan. 3 at Hillsboro Medical Center.
Oregon’s 1552nd COVID-19 death is 78-year-old man in Washington County who tested positive on Dec. 20 and died on Jan. 4 at Oregon Health Science University.
Oregon’s 1553rd COVID-19 death is an 86-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on Dec. 29 and died on Jan. 5 at Legacy Mt. Hood Medical Center.
Oregon’s 1554th COVID-19 death is a 53-year-old man in Josephine County who tested positive on Dec. 10 and died on Jan. 5 at Asante Three Rivers Medical Center.
Oregon’s 1555th COVID-19 death is a 69-year-old man in Josephine County who tested positive on Dec. 27 and died on Jan. 4 at Asante Three Rivers Medical Center.
Oregon’s 1556th COVID-19 death is a 64-year-old man in Jackson County who tested positive on Dec. 16 and died on Jan. 3 at Asante Rogue Valley Medical Center.
Oregon’s 1557th COVID-19 death is a 60-year-old man in Douglas County who tested positive on Nov. 11 and died on Jan. 3 at Providence Portland Medical Center.
Oregon’s 1558th COVID-19 death is a 95-year-old woman in Crook County who tested positive on Dec. 28 and died on Jan. 1 at her residence.
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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