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February 28, 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.
Today’s COVID case numbers are again a little lower, likely the result of the lower level of testing that we usually see on the weekends. But with ongoing declines in hospitalizations and deaths (zero reported today), and low test positivity results, the news overall remains positive. Regarding test positivity (one of our most meaningful metrics for gauging the spread of the virus), with only a couple of exceptions, Oregon’s positivity rate has been below the target of 5% every day since the middle of January.
Vaccinations remain robust, with nearly 30,000 administered yesterday, even though it was a Saturday. Our administration rate is now at 81.5%, again demonstrating our ability to effectively administer those doses that we can get.
Tomorrow is a big day for the vaccine. The final group of seniors—those 65 and olders—become eligible tomorrow morning. For those in the Portland area who are seeking appointments at the large Convention Center vaccination site, the process changes tomorrow. Appointments will be given out via invitation based on random selection, rather than via skill in accessing and using the scheduling technology. You can read more about it below.
I’m in this newly-eligible group myself, so I’ll let you know how it works first-hand.
As you can see, overall our COVID news is good today. Nevertheless, today is also a somber day, in that it marks a year that we’ve been on this difficult pandemic journey. You’ll find more references to the many human tragedies that we’ve experienced during this year in the links below.
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 292 new COVID cases today. The cumulative number of cases in Oregon since the beginning of the pandemic is 155,597.
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Variant COVID Cases: The total number reported in Oregon is now 10 for the B.1.1.7 (UK) variant and none for the other variants. (However, although 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 350 positive tests today, The cumulative total of positive test results since the beginning of the pandemic is now 203,383.
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Total Tests: OHA reported an additional 10,336 tests today. Our cumulative total of reported tests is now 3,590,431.
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Positivity Rate: Today’s test positivity ratio for Oregon is 3.4%. The national ratio today is 5.2%.
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Hospitalization Information: OHA only reports on the first two bulleted items over the weekend. The others remain the same as Friday’s report.
- Patients Currently with Confirmed COVID-19: 134 (14 fewer than yesterday)
- ICU Patients Confirmed w COVID-19: 26 (5 fewer than yesterday).
- Available ICU Beds: 167 (1 more than yesterday)
- Other Available Beds: 616 (73 more than yesterday).
- Confirmed COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 15 (2 more than yesterday).
- Available Ventilators: 806 (6 fewer than yesterday).
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Deaths: I’m TRULY happy to let you know that there were 0 newly-reported COVID deaths today. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon remains at 2,208.
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Vaccinations: As of the end of yesterday, here are the latest numbers:
- New Immunizations Reported Today: 29,330
- 19,513 administered yesterday
- 9,817 administered previously and report received yesterday
- Total First and Second Doses Administered So Far: 973,022
- 507,900 Pfizer doses
- 464,398 Moderna doses
- Total Oregonians vaccinated so far: 621,767
- 345,648 now fully vaccinated with two doses
- To date, 1,194,495 doses of vaccine have been delivered to sites across Oregon. (same as yesterday)
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Today’s National Numbers:
- Total Tests: 354,583,408 (up 1,346,785 from yesterday).
- Total Cases: 28,350,657 (up 70,622 from yesterday).
- Deaths: 503,235 (up 1,822 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 Quick Updates:
- Here’s an article from The Atlantic that provides excellent perspective on what we’ve come to understand about COVID, the various risks, and the extremely positive attributes of the COVID vaccines. It is quite critical of the poor messaging that has all to frequently been the case from national and local public health entities. I recommend it.
- The CDC has a new set of recommendations on proper ventilation for schools that are reopening for in-person instruction.
- We are now at our one-year anniversary of COVID in this state. In today’s Oregonian, Fedor Zarkhin looks back at the year that we've endured. Even though our losses have been far less than other states as a result of relatively quick and sustained health-related restrictions, it’s a story of pain and loss.
- OHA sent out a special report today, similarly acknowledging the losses of the last year and the grief that they have engendered.
- The New York Times reports that Johnson & Johnson will begin trials of the single-dose vaccine on children 12-16and then eventually on even younger children. Its COVID vaccine is similar to vaccines that have been successfully used on 1-year-olds in the fight against Ebola.
Tomorrow: All Oregonians 65+ Become Eligible for the COVID VACCINE
Again, the key word here is “eligible”; their actual first-vaccination date will be sometime in the next month. In some counties many of those in the 65+ age group have already been vaccinated, in others they will most likely be vaccinated this week or next. For those in the Portland Metro area, where the numbers (both population and demand) are high, it may not happen until the third or fourth week of March. But it’s coming.
I want to remind you that on Friday, the Governor and OHA announced a change for those in the Portland Metro area (Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, and Columbia counties). The health systems that are running the Convention Center mass vaccination site will no longer require eligible people to get online at 9 on Mondays and Thursdays and click repeatedly in the generally fruitless hope of snagging one of the still-limited number of appointments. Starting on Monday, they will be randomly selecting individuals from among those who are registered at getvaccinated.oregon.gov and offered appointments when they come up. Those randomly selected will be contacted directly (based on the info given to GetVaccinated Oregon) by All4Oregon, the consortium of four hospital systems directing the Convention Center vaccinations.
I know this will still be frustrating for many of you because you’ll have to wait for someone to contact you and may be worried that the system is flawed or perhaps that your registration has been lost If you’re not sure about that, you can always go to getvaccinated.oregon.gov and enter your login information. It will let you know whether or not you’re registered and whether or not you’re eligible.
OHA has said that the covidvaccine.oregon.gov site will make it clear that the process has changed. Hopefully, that will have happened by the time you read this newsletter or at least by 9 a.m. tomorrow.
If you live in the Metro area and can attest to having mobility issues that require you to use the drive-through site at Portland International Airport, you can still use the appointment scheduling tool at covidvaccine.oregon.gov or 211.
Another option remains the pharmacies. Their appointments don’t open up at set times and are a function of how much vaccine they receive. Here again are the links:
Aimee Green at the Oregonian has done a really excellent job of thoroughly explaining where things are right now. I recommend you check it out.
If you’re not in the Portland Metro area and you’re not sure how to proceed, find your county on this county vaccine information page and follow its instructions.
The Week Ahead in the Legislature
This week the Senate moves to twice-a-week floor sessions—Wednesdays and Thursday mornings. Wednesday of this week will be for bill introductions, allowing us to introduce the bills that were slated for first reading on Thursday but could not be first read because of the Republican walkout/boycott (more on that below), along with some additional new ones. Thursday we will begin to have “third readings,” i.e., votes on bills and resolutions that have been passed by committees. None of those likely to be on the list for Thursday are particularly controversial.
Many of you may be wondering if we will have a quorum for our floor session on Wednesday, given the no-shows this past Thursday, or will this be ongoing as it was last session. The answer to that is a combination of “I don’t know” and “It’s complicated.” I’ve been told that this was a one-day boycott, limited to that particular floor session, done in order to send a political message to the Governor critical of her handling of the COVID crisis (ignoring, I would say, our success as a state at keeping Oregonians safe to a far greater extent than the nation as a whole).
At this point, I do expect a quorum on Wednesday. A somewhat odd wrinkle to Thursday was that aside from that canceled floor session it was a completely normal day for this abnormal session. Committees all met before and after the floor session, in their usual remote format, and all Republican committee members were present. Public hearings were held and bills were voted out of committee, many of them on bipartisan votes. In fact, the House Republican leader, Christine Drazen, came to Senate Energy and Environment and testified at length in support of SJR 5, a resolution I’m sponsoring calling for Congress to pass a bipartisan climate action bill.
As I said, it’s complicated. I remain in the belief that underlying this action was the Judiciary Committee’s passage that morning of HB 554, the bill that will prohibit anyone from bringing a firearm into the Capitol or other state buildings, and which will allow local governments, colleges, universities, and school districts to do the same if they choose to do so. The bill passed that morning on a party-line vote. (I was one of the aye votes.)
It likely has the votes to pass on the Senate floor when it comes to a vote in a couple of weeks. (Such legislation was a key point of difference in the last election, which resulted in Democrats retaining their super-majorities, so this outcome should come as no surprise to anyone.) I suspect that Thursday’s boycott was at least in part a warning, an attempt to keep that from happening. At this point it will likely have the opposite effect. So be prepared for a rocky road ahead.
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 292. More than 2/3 of today’s cases are again from outside the Portland Tri-County area. Here is today’s breakdown by county:
Baker (1)
Benton (7)
Clackamas (26)
Columbia (4)
Coos (10)
Curry (3)
Deschutes (6)
Douglas (11)
Grant (1)
Hood River (1)
Jackson (21)
Jefferson (3)
Josephine (3)
Klamath (2)
Lake (1)
Lane (36)
Lincoln (1)
Linn (4)
Malheur (1)
Marion (52)
Morrow (2)
Multnomah (25)
Polk (11)
Umatilla (8)
Washington (42)
Yamhill (10)
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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