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February 10, 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.
The positive trends that we’ve been seeing in our daily COVID reports with respect to new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are confirmed in the newly-released weekly data and outbreaks reports that were released this afternoon. We see big declines among the general population and even more so in congregate care settings. We’re seeing large declines in case counts nationally as well, though the lingering effects of earlier infections have kept the number of deaths nationally at a high level.
Vaccines continue to be deployed effectively here in Oregon, but the health authorities are expecting vaccinations to go down over the next couple of days due to snow disruptions, something that we’ve certainly seen in other parts of the country. You can read more about that below.
Don't know if you saw it or not, but this week's Willamette Week lists this daily newsletter as one of "Twenty Four Reasons to Still Love Portland." I'm flattered, of course, but it's going to make giving up this daily task that much more difficult!
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 555 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 148,475.
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Variant COVID Cases: OHA continues to report 4 Oregonians who have tested positive for the B.117. (UK) variant and none of the other variants. We haven’t seen any new cases in the last week. (However, though Oregon’s testing for the variants is more extensive than in most states, testing for variants remains limited.)
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Positive Test Results: OHA reports 477 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 195,355.
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Total Tests: OHA reported an additional 15,229 tests today. Our cumulative total of reported tests is now 3,344,227.
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Positivity Rate: Today’s test positivity ratio for Oregon is 3.1%. The national ratio today is 6.8%.
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Hospitalization Information:
- Patients Currently with Confirmed COVID-19: 211 (15 fewer than yesterday)
- ICU Patients Confirmed w COVID-19: 53 (same as yesterday).
- Available ICU Beds: 157 (10 more than yesterday)
- Other Available Beds: 583 (1 more than yesterday).
- Confirmed COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 28 (3 fewer than yesterday).
- Available Ventilators: 789 (3 more than yesterday).
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Deaths: I’m sorry to report 13 new COVID deaths. You’ll find more information about the Oregonians we’ve lost recently further down in the newsletter. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 2,044.
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Vaccinations: As of the end of yesterday, here are the latest numbers:
- New Immunizations Reported Today: 16,427
- 9,686 administered yesterday
- 6,741 administered previously and report received yesterday
- Total First and Second Doses Administered So Far: 604,212
- 328,212 Pfizer doses
- 275,503 Moderna doses
- Total Oregonians vaccinated so far: 443,758
- 155,689 now fully vaccinated with two doses
- To date, 821,150 doses of vaccine have been delivered to sites across Oregon.
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Today’s National Numbers:
- Total Tests: 328,194,157 (up 1,393,156 from yesterday).
- Total Cases: 27,063,243 (up 95,194 from yesterday).
- Deaths: 461,695 (up 3,445 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:
- The Governor announced a revised set of guidelines for high school and college sports events.
- Portland Public Schools has shared a new update on its reopening plans with legislators. Here are the slides showing the new plans.
- Portland-area 80+ seniors will potentially have access to an additional 5500 vaccination slots Thursday morning at 9 a.m.. Read about it here.
- OHSU has announced it has canceled up to 4,500 vaccination appointments for seniors at its Portland International Airport site on Saturday and Sunday. More here.
- The Oregonian has a story about the . beginning of the new Federal pharmacy program.
- For those of you who’d like to dig deep into the science behind the viral sequencing technology that is looking for instances of COVID variants, here's an article from SCIENCE. You’ll see that sequencing unfortunately remains quite limited in this country. (Thx, Tom H.)
Thursday Senate Floor Session Cancelled
Last night’s newsletter mentioned that the Senate is scheduled to have its weekly floor session Thursday morning for the purpose of introducing new measures. However, the danger of snow—particularly for legislators who must travel long distances--has caused the meeting to be cancelled for this week. The next floor session for the Senate will be next Thursday, February 18.
Weekly COVID Data Report and Outbreak Report Released: Big Reductions in COVID
The Oregon Health Authority released its COVID-19 Weekly Data report today. As the daily numbers predicted, it again shows sharp decreases in daily cases, hospitalizations and deaths from the previous week.
OHA reported 4,049 new daily cases of COVID-19 during the week of Monday, Feb.1 through Sunday, Feb. 6 — a 15% decrease from last week and the lowest weekly total in three months.
New COVID-19 related hospitalizations similarly fell y from 251 to 230 — an 8% decline from the previous week.
COVID-19 related deaths also decreased to 66 — the lowest weekly total since mid-November.
Another positive development is that our positivity rate has continued to decline. The percentage of positive tests last week was 4.2%, down from 5.4% the previous week. That’s the lowest percentage of weekly positive tests since Oregon implemented its test-based method in mid-November.
After a week of increases, COVID testing has unfortunately declined. There were 112,226 tests for COVID-19 for the week of Jan. 31 through Feb. 6, which represents a 6% drop from the previous week.
Today’s COVID-19 Weekly Outbreak report shows a big reduction in COVID cases and deaths in congregate care settings: at 347, new case counts were down by nearly 2/3 and at 29, deaths were down by nearly 1/3.
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 555. Nearly two-thirds of today’s reported cases were again from counties outside the Portland Tri-County region. Here is the breakdown of cases by county today:
Baker (2)
Benton (15)
Clackamas (41)
Clatsop (2)
Columbia (5)
Coos (15)
Crook (3)
Deschutes (39)
Douglas (43)
Grant (1)
Hood River (3)
Jackson (25)
Jefferson (13)
Josephine (18)
Klamath (6)
Lake (6)
Lane (40)
Linn (9)
Marion (44)
Morrow (1)
Multnomah (116)
Polk (16)
Tillamook (2)
Umatilla (9)
Union (5)
Wasco (3)
Washington (53)
Yamhill (10)
And the Deaths:
Oregon’s 2,032nd COVID-19 death is a 49-year-old man in Clatsop County who tested positive on Jan. 11 and died on Feb. 8 at Oregon Health & Science University Hospital.
Oregon’s 2,033rd COVID-19 death is an 85-year-old man in Douglas County who tested positive on Feb. 3 and died on Feb. 7 at Mercy Medical Center.
Oregon’s 2,034th COVID-19 death is a 73-year-old man in Douglas County who tested positive on Feb. 8 and died on Feb. 7 at Mercy Medical Center.
Oregon’s 2,035th COVID-19 death is an 84-year-old man in Lane County who tested positive on Dec. 11 and died on Jan. 27 at his residence.
Oregon’s 2,036th COVID-19 death is an 84-year-old man in Lane County who tested positive on Jan. 9 and died on Jan. 25 at his residence.
Oregon’s 2,037th COVID-19 death is an 89-year-old man in Klamath County who tested positive on Jan. 8 and died on Jan. 29 at Sky Lakes Medical Center.
Oregon’s 2,038th COVID-19 death is a 73-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on Jan. 17 and died on Feb. 1 at his residence.
Oregon’s 2,039th COVID-19 death is an 81-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on Jan. 21 and died on Jan. 27 at his residence.
Oregon’s 2,040th COVID-19 death is a 94-year-old woman in Multnomah County who died on Feb. 4 at her residence.
Oregon’s 2,041st COVID-19 death is a 62-year-old man in Washington County who tested positive on Jan. 19 and died on Jan. 28 at his residence.
Oregon’s 2,042nd COVID-19 death is a 101-year-old woman in Washington County who tested positive on Jan. 11 and died on Jan. 16 at her residence.
Oregon’s 2,043rd COVID-19 death is a 96-year-old woman in Washington County who tested positive on Dec. 25 and died on Jan. 5 at her residence.
Oregon’s 2,044th COVID-19 death is a 90-year-old woman in Washington County who tested positive on Jan. 22 and died on Jan. 26 at her residence.
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: 503-281-0608
mail: 900 Court St NE, S-407, Salem, OR, 97301
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