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February 6, 2021
Friends and Neighbors,
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.
You’ll find ongoing good news on Oregon’s COVID front today, except for a relatively high number of deaths (17), most of them the result of infections that occurred at the end of December and early January. The more recent metrics—notably hospitalizations, which are the most reliable indicator for the state of the disease—continue to decline.
Friday was another big day for inoculations, and you’ll see that today our rate of administering the vaccine surpassed 70% of available doses. (72.4% to be precise!) That’s good news.
In other good news, Monday marks the beginning for Oregonians living independently who are 80 and over to be eligible for receiving the vaccine. Notice I’ve bolded the word “eligible.” That doesn’t mean that everyone 80 and older will be vaccinated that day. More realistically, it means that they can begin to schedule appointments for their vaccines. It will take several weeks to get through this group, even as the next wave (75+) becomes eligible a week later. Fortunately, as you’ll see below, we have received some good news regarding vaccine availability, and it seems likely that we can get to our target of vaccinating 75% of all seniors (approx. 770,000 people in this group) a month early, i.e., by early April.
Some of the more rural counties have been able to expedite their inoculations for various reasons, and they’ve already begun vaccinating those in the older age category.
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 624 new COVID cases today. This count is a combination of positive test results and those who are presumed positive. The cumulative number of cases in Oregon since the beginning of the pandemic is 146,741.
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Positive Test Results: OHA reports 680 positive tests 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 now 192,701.
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Total Tests: OHA reported an additional 20,960 tests today. Our cumulative total of reported tests is now 3,271,481.
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Positivity Rate: Today’s test positivity ratio for Oregon is 3.2%. The national ratio today is 6.2%.
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Hospitalization Information: Over the weekend, OHA only reports on the first two bulleted items. The others are the same as Friday’s.
- Patients Currently with Confirmed COVID-19: 228 (10 fewer than yesterday)
- ICU Patients Confirmed w COVID-19: 52 (7 fewer than yesterday).
- Available ICU Beds: 151 (7 more than yesterday)
- Other Available Beds: 633 (31 more than yesterday).
- Confirmed COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 28 (4 fewer than yesterday).
- Available Ventilators: 767 (19 fewer than yesterday).
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Deaths: I’m sorry to report 17 new COVID deaths. You’ll find more information about those we’ve lost recently further down in the newsletter. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 2,019.
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Vaccinations: As of the end of yesterday, here are the latest numbers:
- New Immunizations Reported Today: 22,871
- 18,895 administered yesterday
- 3,976 administered previously and report received yesterday
- Total First and Second Doses Administered So Far: 532,451.
- 291,087 Pfizer doses
- 240,771 Moderna doses
- Total Oregonians vaccinated so far: 400,009.
- 127,036 now fully vaccinated with two doses
- To date, 734,950 doses of vaccine have been delivered to sites across Oregon.
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Today’s National Numbers:
- Total Tests: 322,331,939 (up 1,847,899 from yesterday).
- Total Cases: 26,700,702 (up 113,927 from yesterday).
- Deaths: 452,660 (up 2,983 from yesterday).
- These national numbers come from the COVID Tracking Project. You can visit that site HERE https://covidtracking.com/data/national
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Additional Brief Updates:
Highlights of Yesterday’s COVID Press Conference
The Governor held a press conference on COVID yesterday. She was joined by OHA Director Pat Allen, and the focus, not surprisingly, was on vaccinations. Here’s a summary from her office Here's a summary from her office that contains a link to the press conference if you’d like to watch it, along with a link to her prepared remarks.
Here are some of the things we learned yesterday:
- Oregon continues to have one of the lowest rates of infection of all the states, including among seniors.
- More than 100,000 seniors have already received at least one dose of the vaccine, and those are largely the most vulnerable to severe impacts—i.e., those living in nursing homes and memory-care facilities.
- We just learned from the Biden administration that we can expect shipments to be increased by 20% starting next week. That increase, combined with additional doses for the upcoming federal direct-to-pharmacy program, means that the projected rollout for those 65 and older can be expected to be completed a month earlier than had been projected. We now expect that the target of inoculating 75% of seniors (along with the 1a population, teachers, and incarcerated individuals) with their first dose will be completed by early April.
- We’ll then be able to move on to the next group, those younger but with serious underlying conditions and certain front-line “essential” workers.
- A third vaccine (the one developed by Johnson & Johnson) is now being considered for FDA approval. It too has proven to be very effective in trials and has the added benefit of only needing one dose. If that does win approval soon, we can expect our vaccination timeline to speed up to some (not yet known) extent.
- Monday marks the beginning of eligibility for seniors, starting with those aged 80 and over. But of course that doesn’t necessarily mean that people in this age group will actually be vaccinated on that day. It does make them eligible to schedule vaccination times.
- To aid in that process, starting Monday OHA is initiating a new online tool that has been developed with Google, called Get Vaccinated Oregon, that will be located on the covidvaccine.oregon.gov site. It will help people determine their eligibility and sign up for email alerts and text notifications when they become eligible.
- For many seniors, a better option may be the 211 phone system. People can dial 211 for information. There will likely be long wait times initially, but to help ensure that there is adequate coverage, the Governor is deploying 30 additional National Guard members to help staff the call lines. (Thanks always to these men and women who provide important services for us all.)
- Availability of the vaccine remains the biggest obstacle for administering the vaccine more quickly. We have made great progress in creating the infrastructure and assembling the staff to do the vaccinations. (Now that we’re at the end of our 8th week of receiving vaccine shipments, we have ramped up our administration rate—the percentage of doses received that have been gone into Oregonians’ arms--from around 25% a month ago to 72.4% today.)
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