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April 4, 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.
For those of you who celebrated Easter today, I hope it was a day full of joy, love, and hope.
COVID case counts seem to have stabilized for now at their new, higher level. However, our recent rate of case increases are higher than most other states are experiencing, something we're not used to here in Oregon.
On the positive side, COVID hospitalizations are down slightly, and we continue to see very few COVID deaths on average.
As the week comes to an end, we’ve seen 327,000 doses of COVID vaccine come into the state this week, which is more than double where we were a month ago. We’re told that this number will continue to rise. Meanwhile our rate of administering the vaccines that we’re received is higher than most other states.
In tonight’s newsletter you’ll find details about our COVID and vaccination status, along with a look at the week ahead in the Legislature.
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 404 new COVID cases today. The cumulative number of cases in Oregon since the beginning of the pandemic is 166,882.
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Variant COVID Cases: OHA does not report on additional instances of variants over the weekend, so the total number of B.1.1.7 (UK) variant cases is still 19, and the P.1 (Brazilian) variant is still at 1. There are still 0 reported cases of the B.1.351 (the South African) variants. OHA is now testing for and has discovered cases of two other variants, the B.1427 (45 cases), and B.1.429 (158 cases).
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Positive Test Results: OHA reported 525 positive tests today. The cumulative total of positive test results since the beginning of the pandemic is now 241,751.
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Total Tests: OHA reported an additional 11,374 tests today. Our cumulative total of reported tests is now 4,251,501.
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Positivity Rate: The test positivity ratio for Oregon today is 4.6%.
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Hospitalization Information: OHA only reports on the first two bulleted items over the weekends. I’ll update the remaining hospitalization metrics on Monday.
- Patients Currently with Confirmed COVID-19: 150 (3 fewer than yesterday)
- ICU Patients Confirmed w COVID-19: 43 (1 fewer than yesterday).
- Available ICU Beds: 164 (6 fewer than yesterday)
- Other Available Beds: 576 (5 fewer than yesterday).
- Confirmed COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 17 (1 more than yesterday).
- Available Ventilators: 787 (5 fewer than yesterday).
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Deaths: I’m sorry to report 1 additional COVID death today. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 2,392.
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Vaccinations:
- As of the end of yesterday, here are the latest numbers:
- New Immunizations Reported Today: 32,692.
- 22,084 were conducted yesterday
- 10,608 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: 1,976,298
- 1,000,989 Pfizer doses
- 924,659 Moderna doses
- 49,520 Johnson & Johnson doses
- Total Oregonians vaccinated so far: 1,257,093
- 761,133 now fully vaccinated with two doses
- To date, 2,433,575 doses of vaccine have been delivered to sites across Oregon (no change from yesterday, for a total of 327,620 so far since Monday).
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Additional Brief Updates:
- The Oregonian’s Aimee Green has a very useful set of Q&As on what people who are now becoming eligible for COVID vaccinations need to know. If you’re newly eligible, I suggest that you check it out.
- Community college students have been particularly hard-hit by the pandemic. The New York Times takes a close look at why and what needs to be done to get students back in school.
- The Oregonian’s Fedor Zarkhin has a story about a bill that I’ve been working on, SB 719, which will lead OHA to be more forthright in releasing information that is in the public interest. If the pandemic has taught us one thing, it’s the importance of keeping people as informed as possible about the risks that they face. Clarifying amendments are being finalized that should result in the bill coming out of Senate Health Care this week.
This Week in the Senate
We’re coming to the end of the first half of this legislative session. This will be the last full week before the deadline to pass bills out of their first-chamber committees. The Legislative Counsel lawyers have for the most part stopped drafting new bills and are spending all their time on last-minute amendments, trying to get the bills ready for their work sessions. If the amendments aren’t ready, or the necessary fiscal analyses aren’t completed, the work sessions will be held over to the next meeting, so be prepared for lots of that. However, it all must be completed by the end of Tuesday, April 13.
As a result, behind the scenes this will be pretty crazy week for advocates, staff, and legislators.
Tomorrow morning the Senate will meet for its first Monday floors session. I’ll be carrying two bills tomorrow: Senate Concurrent Resolution 16, a resolution in memory of Mary Myers, the late general manager of Three-Mile Canyon Dairy near Boardman, which some of our SD 23 constituents visited with me some years ago in the first of our District-to-District journeys. Marty was a great guy, someone who worked hard to make an industrial-sized dairy work in a sustainable manner with fair labor practices (their workers are represented by the United Farm Workers). He was one of the rare prominent rural businessmen who supported the Cap & Invest climate-action proposals. I’m proud to have had this resolution drafted and to be co-carrying it with my Republican colleague Bill Hansell, who represents the district where Three Mile is located.
The second bill is SB 759, a bill that will make it possible for our staff to unionize if they so choose. Previous legislation has allowed workers in the Executive and Judicial branches to organize, and similar legislation is need to open the door to Legislative branch staff. I believe that they deserve that right if they choose to go that way, and I’m proud to make it possible for them to have that choice. Any of you who have dealt with my staff or others know that they are a very hard-working set of emplyees, who deserve to be treated with respect as partners in determining their working conditions.
You can see Monday’s floor session here. There will be 13 bills or resolutions in all on the calendar that day. I’m confident we’ll get through them all.
I can’t say the same for tomorrow’s House floor session. They are still terribly backed up as a result of the requirement to read bills aloud. Some progress was made on that on Thursday, so perhaps (fingers crossed) that positive environment will continue. You can follow them on that same link in the previous paragraph.
The Senate will meet again for floor sessions this week on Wednesday and Thursday. The House is currently scheduled every day this week, morning and evening, as well as sessions Saturday morning and afternoon.
Committees continue to meet remotely.
I will say that our hopes of being able to allow non-legislators into the Capitol by the end of this month seem increasingly unlikely, giving the negative trajectory of the pandemic in Oregon right now.
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 404. Here is today’s breakdown by county:
Baker (1)
Benton (5)
Clackamas (59)
Clatsop (1)
Columbia (7)
Crook (3)
Curry (2)
Deschutes (31)
Douglas (8)
Grant (2)
Jackson (24)
Jefferson (3)
Josephine (12)
Klamath (13)
Lane (30)
Lincoln (4)
Linn (12)
Malheur (1)
Marion (28)
Morrow (1)
Multnomah (84)
Polk (13)
Tillamook (3)
Union (4)
Wallowa (1)
Wasco (1)
Washington (45)
Yamhill (6)
And the Death:
Oregon’s 2,392nd COVID-19 death is a 58-year-old man in Lane County who tested positive on March 11 and died on April 3 at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center.
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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