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April 12, 2021
Dear Neighbors and Friends,
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.
I’m pleased to report that the number of new COVID cases is again under 300. I wish I could say that means that we’re experiencing the beginning of a more positive trend. However, it’s typical to experience low case counts on Mondays as a result of disrupted weekend reporting. That’s what we’ve seen consistently. Tuesday’s numbers will likely be much higher.
Again, though, we’re continuing to see few COVID deaths, fortunately. Hopefully, that will continue.
Since yesterday was Sunday, the number of reported vaccinations was relatively low, but again higher than it has been. We’ll start seeing larger numbers of vaccinations and doses coming into the state in tomorrow’s report. On a disappointing note, though, we’ve learned that the number of Johnson & Johnson (single-shot) doses coming into the state this week will be a fraction of what it has been. That’s a result of problems at the manufacturing site. Hopefully, production will get back to where it was, but for now supply coming to the states will be limited. That’s a shame, as the single-shot J&J vaccine is proving to be quite popular with many people.
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 294 new COVID cases today. The cumulative number of cases in Oregon since the beginning of the pandemic is 170,568.
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Variant COVID Cases: OHA is now producing a Variant Tableau dashboard providing current variant case numbers for the state as a whole and for various parts of the state. The reported variant numbers remain the same as last week.
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Positive Test Results: OHA reported 394 positive tests today. The cumulative total of positive test results since the beginning of the pandemic is now 246,682.
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Total Tests: OHA reported an additional 7,070 tests today. Our cumulative total of reported tests is now 4,362,500
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Positivity Rate: The test positivity ratio for Oregon today is 5.6%.
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Hospitalization Information:
- Patients Currently with Confirmed COVID-19: 177 (2 fewer than yesterday)
- ICU Patients Confirmed w COVID-19: 48 (2 more than yesterday).
- Available ICU Beds: 178 (13 more than Friday)
- Other Available Beds: 608 (58 more than Friday).
- Confirmed COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 19 (4 more than Friday).
- Available Ventilators: 833 (23 more than Friday).
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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 2,441.
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Vaccinations:
- As of the end of yesterday, here are the latest numbers:
- New Immunizations Reported Today: 27,503
- 17,823 were conducted yesterday
- 9,680 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: 2,286,205
- 1,176,174 Pfizer doses
- 1,027,791 Moderna doses
- 81,255 Johnson & Johnson doses
- Total Oregonians vaccinated so far: 1,447,624
- 916,207 now fully vaccinated with two doses
- To date, 2,784,175 doses of vaccine have been delivered to sites across Oregon. (That’s 12,040 doses more than Friday; we’ll start getting this week’s numbers tomorrow.)
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Additional Brief Updates:
- The OHA has just released the updated County COVID Metrics.They reflect the ongoing increase in cases, infection rates, and positivity rates. Washington County has crossed well above the 100 cases/100K residents level and will likely see its risk level raised to High Risk sometime soon if things don’t change.
- The Kaiser Family Foundation has done polling in rural America, examining attitudes towards COVID vaccines.
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The Atlantic has a story about the potentially huge social cost of vaccination refusal.
Today in the Legislature
I mentioned in last night’s newsletter that Tuesday is the deadline for bills to be voted out of their first-chamber committee or they’re dead. For the Senate Education Committee, which meets on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, that meant today was the last chance to get the remaining bills out. And we did. It wasn’t easy—when the meeting began at 3:15, we had only received fiscal analyses for half of the bills. But as the meeting progressed, one by one the analyses came in, and we were able to vote on them.
Here are the bills that we able to send directly to the floor today (i.e., they didn’t come with price tags for the state and so didn’t have to go through Ways and Means). The number following the dash is the number of the amendment that was adopted:
SB 236-2 Ends the disproportionate use of expulsions for children in pre-K centers.
SB 232-4 Directs the Educator Advancement Council to create a strategic plan for diversitying our educator workforce and recommend action to the Legislature.
SB 594-2 Creates a study of the use of educational software that monitors students' computer usage.
SB 602 Allows parents to continue to opt their children out of statewide standardized tests.
SB 623-4 Requires local workforce development boards to evaluate programs administered by state workforce agencies through the WorkSource Oregon system with a focus on creating jobs for people who lost employment because of COVIN..
SB 732-2 Requires school districts to establish educational equity advisory committees to hear concerns and recommend actions to the school boards.
And here are the bills that did require movement to Ways and Means:
SB 226-4 This bill does two things: it takes steps to begin reinvesting in library programs within K-12 schools and it creates a “seal of bilingual literacy” to be earned by students with proficiency in two or more languages.
SB 233-3 In order to facilitate transfer of courses from high school to college, college to university, and university to university, this bill directs the creation of a Common Course Numbering system for all college and university courses being taught at the first-year and second-year levels.
SB 334-2 Requires directors of school districts and education service districts, superintendents of schools districts and education service districts, members of public charter school governing bodies and principals of public charter schools to receive training on educational equity and board governance.
SB 356 Creates the position of School Nurse Specialist in Department of Education in order to coordinate school nursing activities statewide.
In addition, one bill had to be referred to the Rules Committee for a further amendment:
SB 225-6 Among other things, it will require that districts that choose to contract with local law enforcement for School Resource Officers must do so in a public meeting at which public testimony will be accepted.
And finally, one bill was voted down:
SB 804 Requires school district boards to ensure that at least half of a school district’s expenditures of school district go to compensation for teachers of core academic subjects or career/technical education. This topic will be taken up in a work group that I’ll be conducting along with the bill’s chief sponsor, committee member Senator Art Robinson.
Not a bad day’s work. But needless to say, nearly all of these bills required hours and hours of work leading up to this point, holding meetings and work groups, and crafting amendments. And of course, they’re not even halfway there! Nobody said this was easy.
Meanwhile, on the Senate floor, we were able to pass the 16 scheduled bills. The House, on the other hand, continues to operate at a snail's pace. Despite coming back for an additional session this evening, they were only able to get through five bills, thanks to the Republicans' insisting that all bills be read aloud in their entirety. They'll be back for more tomorrow.
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 294. Two-thirds of today’s cases are from outside the Portland Tri-County area. Here is today’s breakdown by county:
Baker (6)
Benton (2)
Clackamas (39)
Clatsop (6)
Columbia (5)
Coos (2)
Crook (3)
Deschutes (23)
Douglas (6)
Jackson (11)
Jefferson (4)
Josephine (13)
Lane (38)
Lincoln (6)
Linn (15)
Marion (43)
Morrow (1)
Multnomah (54)
Polk (4)
Tillamook (3)
Wasco (3)
Washington (3)
Yamhill (7)
And the Death:
Oregon’s 2,441st COVID-19 death is a 47-year-old woman in Multnomah County who tested positive on March 22 and died on April 7 at Adventist 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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