March 22nd COVID-19 Update

March 22, 2021

Dear 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.

COVID case counts reported today have tied for the lowest they’ve been since early fall, one-tenth of their all-time high in early December.  They will most likely go up as the week progresses and weekend reporting catches up, but this lower number is consistent with the lowered trend overall.  Having said that, you’ll see in the County metrics report linked below that over the last week overall infection rates have actually risen slightly.

A number of counties have been given the go-ahead to expedite their opening up of vaccines to additional groups of at-risk Oregonians.  Read more below.

I’m sorry to report that the Oregon Legislature’s record of remaining COVID-free has come to an end.  A House member who was on the floor in close contact with others last week has tested positive.  You can read more about it further down in the newsletter.  Fortunately, members are continuing to wear masks while on the floor, though of course that may not be the case for some who are congregating in their office areas.  Hopefully, this was an infection acquired outside of the Capitol and was not passed on to any other legislators.  We’ll see.  The person’s identity is being kept confidential.  Whoever it is, I wish them a speedy recovery.

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

• New COVID Cases: OHA reports 178 new COVID cases today.  The cumulative number of cases in Oregon since the beginning of the pandemic is 161,706.
• Variant COVID Cases: OHA again reports no increases in the number of variant cases in Oregon. The reported number of the B.1.1.7 (UK) variant in Oregon remains at 17, and the P.1 (Brazilian) variant is still at 1.  There are still 0 reported cases of the other variants.
• Positive Test Results: OHA reported 233 positive tests today. The cumulative total of positive test results since the beginning of the pandemic is now 234,372.
• Total Tests: OHA reported an additional 7,435 tests today. Our cumulative total of reported tests is now 4,073,496.
• Positivity Rate: The test positivity ratio for Oregon today is 3.1%.
• Hospitalization Information:
  • Patients Currently with Confirmed COVID-19: 116 (4 more than yesterday)
  • ICU Patients Confirmed w COVID-19: 18 (4 fewer than yesterday).
  • Available ICU Beds: 185 (16 more than Friday)
  • Other Available Beds: 729 (79 more than Friday).
  • Confirmed COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 7 (1 fewer than Friday).
  • Available Ventilators: 788 (20 fewer than Friday).
• Deaths: I’m sorry to report 2 additional COVID deaths today.  The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now at 2,365.
• Vaccinations:
  • As of the end of yesterday, here are the latest numbers:
    • New Immunizations Reported Today: 21,629
      • 14,422 were conducted yesterday
      • 7,207 were conducted earlier, but the reports were received yesterday (there can potentially be a three-day window for reporting)
    • Total First and Second Doses Administered So Far: 1,531,011
      • 757,970 Pfizer doses
      • 740,155 Moderna doses
      • 32,022 Johnson & Johnson doses
    • Total Oregonians vaccinated so far: 985,881
      • 570,304 now fully vaccinated with two doses
    • To date, 1,858,385 doses of vaccine have been delivered to sites across Oregon. (same as yesterday.)
      • 82.4% of these doses have been administered so far. The national average is now 80.7%. 
      • 24.2% of Oregonians have now been vaccinated.
      • 16.0% of Oregonians have now been fully vaccinated.
      • For more details, including the demographics of those receiving the vaccine, here is a link to more information about the vaccine and vaccination protocols.
      • Here is the daily vaccination tracker from Bloomberg.
      • And here is a link to each county's vaccination website. It provides access information for those in Category 1a and 1b.

• Additional Quick Updates:
  • The Weekly County Metrics have just been released. You’ll see that the infection rate has risen slightly in the Portland area and the state as a whole.  The positivity rate remains largely the same as last week.
  • An in-depth study in The Lund Report, the online journal focusing on healthcare issues in Oregon, shows an increase in the proportion of those hospitalized with COVID is skewing younger. That’s actually good news, providing further proof that vaccines are keeping more and more older Oregonians from infection and severe consequences.

Interested in Knowing the Number of Doses Coming to Oregon?

I just received a spreadsheet today from OHA that breaks down the number of doses that have been coming to Oregon either directly to retail pharmacies, to pharmacies for use in vaccinated residents in long-term care, and to Federally Qualified Health Centers, or to the state for distribution to County health and local hospitals and health centers.  It doesn’t include vaccine going directly to the VA from the federal government. 

You can check it out here.

House Cancels Floor Sessions for the Week

In last night’s newsletter I included news about the Idaho Legislature needing to be shut down as a result of COVID infections among members.

In last night’s newsletter I also mentioned that the House was going to be meeting Monday through Thursday in the morning and evening in an effort to overcome the slowdown created by the Republican insistence on reading bills aloud in their entirety.  Well, as it turns out, that will not happen.  Another reason for slowing down House floor votes has surfaced—COVID-19.

It was announced today that an unnamed House member (or it could have been a staffer) who was on the floor last week had tested positive for COVID.  All House members were potentially in close contact with that individual. The Speaker didn’t learn about it until after the morning floor session had begun.  Once she did learn of it, the meeting was adjourned immediately and abruptly.

Three Republican House members were absent today.  Presumably, it was one of them who had tested positive for COVID. (It technically could have been a staffer, but almost none of them are allowed on the floor now.)

As a result of this news, sessions were canceled for the week. (Committee meetings will be allowed to continue, fortunately, because they are occurring virtually.)

Ironically, we continue to hear calls for the Capitol to be reopened to the public immediately.

You can read more here.. 

Counties Approved For Expanding Vaccinations

Today, the Oregon Health Authority announced that 13 Oregon counties had submitted attestation letters signaling their intention to immediately offer COVID-19 vaccinations to expanded eligibility groups.

The counties are Baker, Benton, Deschutes, Grant, Jefferson, Lake, Lincoln, Malheur, Marion, Morrow, Polk, Umatilla and Union.

By attesting, these counties can now begin vaccinating all individuals listed in Phase 1B, Group 6, ahead of the previously designated statewide start date of March 29.

Group 6 is comprised of:

• Adults ages 45 to 64 with one or more underlying condition with increased risk.
• Migrant and seasonal farm workers
• Seafood and agricultural workers
• Food processing workers 
• People living in low-income, senior congregate and independent living facilities
• Sheltered and unsheltered individuals experiencing houselessness
• People displaced by wildfires
• Wildland firefighters
• Pregnant women 16 and older

The Get Vaccinated Oregon tool is being updated to accommodate this newly added population of people eligible for vaccination.

I was under the impression that permission would only be granted to counties that had hit their 70% targets for vaccinating seniors, but apparently that isn’t the case.  Apparently, permission has been granted to any county that felt it needed to move immediately to vaccinate these at-risk residents.

Amended School Reopening Physical Distance Guidance Released

As expected, ODE has released its new guidelines for physical distancing in schools, following the change recommended by the CDC.  The new room capacity will be based on a reduced physical-distance requirement of three feet (down from the current 6 feet) for elementary school students.  Those in middle school and high school can also have the lower requirement if their county infection rate is under 200 per 100K residents. (See the County Metric Report above to see where the different counties fall.  You can read the letter that when out to local districts here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hOfSuXFMOILZ5rfNUx_4JuiHe3zyGDN1/view?usp=sharing

These new relaxed limits will allow for more students in each classroom (assuming there is proper ventilation and other safety protocols), in many cases eliminating the requirement for having students come to school in two shifts, allowing them to be on site for more hours per day. 

The decision of whether or not to move to these new standards for the remainder of the school year will be up to individual school districts.  The remainder of elementary schools are set to reopen next week, with middle- and high schools set to reopen during the week of April 19. 

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 178. Fewer than 1/3 of these new cases are in the Portland Tri-County area. Here is today’s breakdown by county:

Benton (8)

Clackamas (29)

Columbia (3)

Coos (8)

Curry (8)

Deschutes (6)

Douglas (10)

Jackson (6)

Jefferson (2)

Josephine (10)

Klamath (9)

Lake (1)

Lane (16)

Lincoln (1)

Linn (4)

Marion (23)

Multnomah (24)

Polk (1)

Tillamook (4)

Washington (2)

Yamhill (3)

And the Deaths:

Oregon’s 2,364th COVID-19 death is a 91-year-old man in Lane County who tested positive on March 2 and died on March 19 at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center.

Oregon’s 2,365th COVID-19 death is a 40-year-old woman in Marion County who tested positive on March 14 and died on March 20 at Salem Hospital.

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:

• Multnomah County has a status report on reopening.
• You can view the reopening status of all 36 counties here.
• Here is the OHA’s coronavirus page, with links to a number of resources. 
• Oregon's Office of Emergency Management now has a website for information about COVID-19.
• Multnomah County has an excellent website with lots of really important advice and guidance.
• Here’s one from the Governor’s Office.
• The Employment Department has put together a webpage with Q&A’s on a number of employment issues related to COVID-19 (e.g., eligibility for Unemployment Insurance benefits).
• The Oregon Education Department has a site for COVID-19 updates.
• The Department of Corrections has a COVID tracking website.

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