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February 17, 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, especially those faced with the extra challenge of loss of electricity, refrigeration, and heat.
COVID numbers continue to be stable for Oregon as a whole, with the number of new cases reported in the Portland region again disproportionately low relative to the rest of the state. Hospitalizations continue to go down, and the number of COVID deaths remains low.
The weekly data report and outbreak report haven’t been made available yet today. I’ll summarize their contents in tomorrow’s newsletter. We can expect them to reflect the ongoing decline in COVID metrics.
As you’ll see below, vaccinations have gone back up after several days of weather-related disruptions. Fortunately, there doesn’t appear to have been any vaccine spoilage due to loss of power, and most missed appointments have been rescheduled. However, there is a delay in our receiving Moderna doses destined for next week’s appointments, and other delays can’t be ruled out for now. Needless to say, we’re seeing challenges in many parts of the country.
Along with the usual COVID and vaccination information below, you’ll also find a communication from PGE with a description of the technical challenges they’re still facing in getting power to the tens of thousands who are still without, despite instances of really heroic effort on the part of thousands of workers in the field. Like COVID and the wildfires of the fall, we are experiencing a true stress test on our systems, and many weaknesses in our national and local grids are surfacing.
As with the challenges of COVID and the wildfires, we need to learn the lessons of this current stress test and commit to long-term improvements. Given the growing effects of climate change and the need both to increase our electrification and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, these aren’t challenges that are simply going to go away.
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 473 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 151,257.
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Variant COVID Cases: OHA continues to report a total of 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 few weeks. (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 372 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 198,254.
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Total Tests: OHA reported an additional 11,926 tests today. Our cumulative total of reported tests is now 3,431,911.
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Positivity Rate: Today’s test positivity ratio for Oregon is 3.1%. The national ratio today is 4.9%.
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Hospitalization Information:
- Patients Currently with Confirmed COVID-19: 190 (5 fewer than yesterday)
- ICU Patients Confirmed w COVID-19: 44 (7 fewer than yesterday).
- Available ICU Beds: 152 (13 fewer than yesterday)
- Other Available Beds: 531 (142 fewer than yesterday).
- Confirmed COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 22 (2 fewer than yesterday).
- Available Ventilators: 790 (6 fewer than yesterday).
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Deaths: I’m sorry to report 5 newly-reported COVID deaths today. You can read about the Oregonians we lost further down in the newsletter. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now at 2,143.
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Vaccinations: As of the end of yesterday, here are the latest numbers:
- New Immunizations Reported Today: 15,790
- 10,653 administered yesterday
- 5,137 administered previously and report received yesterday
- Total First and Second Doses Administered So Far: 707,244
- 373,806 Pfizer doses
- 332,778 Moderna doses
- Total Oregonians vaccinated so far: 496,079
- 205,901 now fully vaccinated with two doses
- To date, 922,300 doses of vaccine have been delivered to sites across Oregon.
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Today’s National Numbers:
- Total Tests: 338,618,827 (up 1,338,441 from yesterday).
- Total Cases: 27,606,974 (up 66.089 from yesterday).
- Deaths: 480,595 (up 2,336 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:
Senate Floor Session and Committees Will Meet Tomorrow
As I mentioned last night, most Senate committees were canceled again today because of the ongoing effects of the power outages. Meetings for tomorrow—including the in-person Senate floor session to introduce new bills—will be held as scheduled.
Thirty-four new bills and resolutions are slated to be introduced during tomorrow’s floor session. (I’m a chief-sponsor of six of them.) I’ll have more info about them in tomorrow’s newsletter. The House (whose floor session scheduled for Tuesday was canceled) will meet again next Tuesday.
By the way, a gun safety bill (SB 554) was posted this week for public hearing next Monday in Senate Judiciary. I sit on that committee, so, as you can imagine, my email inbox is starting to fill up. The bill would prohibit all guns (including those carried by holders of concealed weapons permits) from being brought into the state Capitol and other state buildings, and would allow cities and other local governments, school districts, colleges, universities, and airports to pass ordinances to keep guns off of their premises if they so choose. I’m a sponsor of this legislation, which I believe is long overdue, and especially important now.
Power Outages and Vaccines
Legislators received an update this afternoon on the effects of the winter weather and power outages on vaccinations in Oregon. As you can see in today’s report above, the number of vaccinations administered yesterday went back up after several days of very low numbers. Here’s the latest on the effects on vaccine supply and administration:
- All convention center and airport vaccine appointments in Portland which were cancelled due to ice and snow are being rescheduled, and so far that process seems to be running relatively smoothly.
- No vaccines were lost due to power outages that OHA is aware of. OHA proactively reached out to distribution sites to ensure that, if they lost power and did not have backup generators, vaccines could be moved in time to locations with power.
- Pfizer vaccines arrived on time this week.
- This week’s Moderna shipment has been delayed due to national weather events. We don’t expect the shipment this week, and are working to find out if it will arrive Monday or later next week. These vaccines are for next week’s appointments. We don’t know yet whether all distribution sites have enough vaccine on hand to retain Monday morning appointments. In many cases there may be enough to ensure there are no disruptions as long as the shipment arrives Monday. Otherwise, OHA will work with sites to increase capacity and reschedule vaccinations, with a goal of preventing pushing out other appointments in as many locations as possible. They expect to receive the same net amount of vaccine, with next week’s shipment coming in on time and without reductions unless there are additional weather complications.
Message from PGE
I know that many of you are still without power and are suffering the privations that lack of electricity and heat create. At one point there were nearly a half million homes affected by the downed trees and power lines, transformers, and other critical equipment. Most have been repaired, others still have difficult days ahead of them. For more information about that, here’s an email that I received at the end of the day today from PGE, in whose service territory most of the hardest-hit neighborhoods are located:
Hi Senator,
I wanted to provide you with an update with where we are on restoration efforts for our customers. This series of storms, the worst we’ve seen in 40 years, has hit our communities hard and caused extensive damage across our system. Since the storm began on February 11, we have restored 489,000 customers, but the number of customers remains high as more outages continue to occur from changing conditions. We have more than 137,000 customers without power, which represents around 16% of our customers.
As of this morning, we have 11 transmission lines (29 restored), 0 substations (20 restored), 28 feeders (211 restored), and 6,460 lines (1,962 restored) that are all in need of repair. These kinds of repairs take time and all the damage needs to be repaired in sequence before we can safely provide power to homes and businesses. We have 1100 line personnel working on restoration efforts which is the largest number of crews we’ve ever deployed in a storm response, and 3,000 total staff, including customer service and support personnel. We have mutual aid crews helping out from as far away as Montana and Nevada to assist our crew. Our crews are working 24/7 to restore power to all our customers. This is truly an all hands on deck situation for PGE.
When a monumental storm like this impacts every piece of the puzzle in how we get electricity to customers, from transmission lines, to substations, then feeders, and finally the downed wires we see in neighborhoods across our service area, we have to repair each piece along the way to restore power. With this amount of significant damage, we do know repairs for all customers will take time and in some cases, many days. In areas where transmission and substations are damaged, repairs will take longer. In areas where the damage is closer to homes, limited to neighborhood feeders or distribution lines, restoration could be quicker. We know it’s been frustrating to not have information about when specific areas will be restored. To help with this, we’re adding new info and tools on our website to help customers get a sense for what’s happening in their area. Starting today, customers can find this information at portlandgeneral.com/storminfo. The site will provide updated numbers on the restoration progress so far, a list of how many crews are working in each area and the work happening, and answers to common questions we are hearing.
Please know we are working as fast as we safely can to restore power to our customers and do not hesitate to reach out should you have any questions. Thank you!
And this evening I received the following follow-up message:
We also announced the following statement this evening.
“By Friday night we expect 90% of customers currently without power will be restored. For the remaining 10%, due to the significant damage and access challenges, we expect that it will take several more days.”
- VP of Grid Architecture, Integration & Systems Operations Larry Bekkedahl
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 473. Nearly 80% of today’s reported cases are from outside the Portland Tri-County region. Here is the breakdown of cases by county today:
Baker (5)
Benton (7)
Clackamas (17)
Clatsop (2)
Columbia (3)
Coos (10)
Crook (2)
Deschutes (50)
Douglas (40)
Grant (1)
Harney (9)
Hood River (6)
Jackson (52)
Jefferson (10)
Josephine (13)
Klamath (5)
Lake (6)
Lane (39)
Lincoln (2)
Linn (10)
Malheur (15)
Marion (25)
Morrow (2)
Multnomah (55)
Polk (14)
Tillamook (5)
Umatilla (11)
Union (8)
Wallowa (2)
Wasco (1)
Washington (27)
Yamhill (19)
And the Deaths:
Oregon’s 2,139th COVID-19 death is a 72-year-old man in Jackson County who tested positive on Jan. 26 and died on Feb. 14 at Asante Rogue Valley Regional Medical Center.
Oregon’s 2,140th COVID-19 death is a 76-year-old man in Lincoln County who tested positive on Jan. 28 and died on Feb. 15 at Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital.
Oregon’s 2,141st COVID-19 death is an 89-year-old woman in Marion County who tested positive on Jan. 15 and died on Feb. 12 at her residence.
Oregon’s 2,142nd COVID-19 death is a 53-year-old woman in Multnomah County who tested positive on Jan. 20 and died on Feb. 15 at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center.
Oregon’s 2,143rd COVID-19 death is an 88-year-old man in Washington County who became symptomatic on Feb. 3 after contact with a confirmed case and died on Feb. 12 at his 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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