April 15th COVID-19 Update

April 16, 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.

As you’ll see in today’s numbers and in Dr. Sidelinger’s assessment of where we are, we remain stuck in a more serious state of COVID right now, and there’s little indication that things on the COVID front will get better soon. 

On the legislative front, on the other hand, things are definitely improving.  The House managed to get through all the bills in the queue—the final 21 bills out of more than 100 scheduled for this week.  Next week’s list is much smaller, and it feels manageable now.  

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 704 new COVID cases today.  The cumulative number of cases in Oregon since the beginning of the pandemic is 173,626.
• 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 numbers are the same as yesterday:  69 cases of the B.1.1.7 (UK) variant, 4 cases () of the P.1 (Brazilian) variant, and 8 cases) of the B.1.427 (South African) variant.  In addition, we are now seeing 124 cases of the B.1.427 variant, and 474 of the B.1.429 variant. 
• Positive Test Results: OHA reported 905 positive tests today. The cumulative total of positive test results since the beginning of the pandemic is now 250,057.
• Total Tests: OHA reported an additional 20,391 tests today. Our cumulative total of reported tests is now 4,432,293.
• Positivity Rate: The test positivity ratio for Oregon today is 4.4%.
• Hospitalization Information:
  • Patients Currently with Confirmed COVID-19: 199 (4 more than yesterday)
  • ICU Patients Confirmed w COVID-19: 52 (1 fewer than yesterday).
  • Available ICU Beds: 164 (13 more than yesterday)
  • Other Available Beds: 590 (38 more than yesterday).
  • Confirmed COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 23 (1 more than yesterday).
  • Available Ventilators: 806 (5 fewer than yesterday).
• Deaths: I’m sorry to report 2 additional COVID deaths today.  The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 2,457.
• Vaccinations:
  • As of the end of yesterday, here are the latest numbers:
    • New Immunizations Reported Today: 47,407
      • 28,146 were conducted yesterday
      • 19,261 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: 2,447,141
      • 1,268,434 Pfizer doses
      • 1,089,986 Moderna doses
      • 87,666 Johnson & Johnson doses
    • Total Oregonians vaccinated so far: 1,542,429
      • 988,584 now fully vaccinated with two doses
    • To date, 3,041,495 doses of vaccine have been delivered to sites across Oregon. (That’s 25,640 doses more than yesterday, or 269,360 for the week so far.)
      • 80.5% of these doses have been administered so far. The national average is now 78.3%.
      • 37.6% of Oregonians have received at least one dose.
      • 24.0% of Oregonians are now fully vaccinated.
      • For more details, including the demographics of those receiving the vaccine and the counties in which the vaccines are being administered, 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 Brief Updates:
  • Here's reporting from the Oregonian's Aimee Green on the Governor’s press conference, along with projections from OHSU that are very troubling.
  • In a world in which some of us are fully vaccinated and some of us are not, we can find ourselves in awkward, uncertain situations. Here’s what the etiquette experts.
  • The Washington Post has a story about a vaccine study that is asking some students to put off getting the vaccine.
  • Wondering how to describe this period we’re in, when vaccinations are making us feel that the pandemic is close to coming to an end? This article in The Atlantic has a word for it: “Senioritis.”
  • And finally, here’s a nice assessment of the legislative session at the halfway point from OPB’s Lauren Dake.

Coming Up:  Another Ways and Means “Road Show”

We’re approaching that point in session where budgetary decisions for the next two years will begin to be made.  As usual, that won’t happen until the public has had a chance to weigh in with their priorities.  This usually comes in the form of a somewhat grueling series of “road shows,” as legislators travel around the state to hear directly from individuals in a succession of 2-minute oral testimonies and thousands of pages of written testimony.  It’s always enlightening and always painful, as we hear about the huge and varied levels of need there are out there.

This year, thanks to COVID, it will be different.  All the “road shows” will be virtual.  Instead of being held at a local community college or city hall, into which hundreds of people cram in hopes that their time driving or riding the bus will yield a couple of minutes of air time, this year time will be equally at a premium, but the distances traveled won’t be so great. 

The Road Shows continue on Saturday afternoon, this time for residents of CD 2.  Here is the overall schedule:

And here is the Ways and Means Webpage for Saturday with the links to the meeting agendas, info on how to sign up to testify, and how to watch the meeting and testimony.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Governor’s Press Conference

The Governor held a COVID press conference today, along with OHA Director Pat Allen and State Epidemiologist Dr. Dean Sidelinger. Here's information about it, along with a link to the video in English and Spanish. And here are Director Allen’s talking points.

The Governor announced that she’s in conversation with the federal government to get a number of fully-equipped mobile vaccination vans in order to get to harder-to-reach populations. She acknowledged that we have a lot more work to do in this respect.  Oregon has been prioritizing access for communities of color, those with disabilities, and immigrants more than most states, but we still have a long way to go.

Dr. Sidelinger pointed out the many ways in which COVID metrics are headed in the wrong direction right now, even as more and more Oregonians are getting vaccinated.  Here are some of the troubling indicators:

• Daily cases of COVID-19 have more than doubled in just over a month. 
• Over the past two days, OHA has reported 1,576 new cases, the highest two-day total since early February. 
• The largest increased illnesses in Oregon are in people in their twenties.  
• The second biggest increase is in people in their thirties. 
• According to the CDC, hospitals around the U.S. are seeing more people in their 30’s and 40’s who have been admitted with severe cases as the virus continues to mutate.
• More counties are likely to move into the High Risk category next week, reducing the number of people that can gather indoors.
• The good news is that with fewer older people now getting the virus, we are seeing far fewer deaths from this disease. However, even when short of death, the effects of the disease can be extremely serious and long-lasting.

The biggest problem right now, according to Dr. Sidelinger, is that more people are again meeting up in large social gatherings, which creates a lot of risk.  Here are some of the examples that he gave us:

He asked everyone to get vaccinated as quickly as they can and remain committed to being careful a little longer.

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 704.  Here is today’s breakdown by county:

Baker (9)

Benton (7)

Clackamas (79)

Clatsop (3)

Columbia (6)

Coos (6)

Crook (15)

Curry (3)

Deschutes (59)

Douglas (7)

Grant (25)

Hood River (3)

Jackson (54)

Jefferson (3)

Josephine (29)

Klamath (43)

Lake (2)

Lane (57)

Lincoln (6)

Linn (20)

Malheur (1)

Marion (63)

Morrow (5)

Multnomah (88)

Polk (13)

Tillamook (3)

Umatilla (9)

Union (2)

Wallowa (1)

Wasco (6)

Washington (69)

Yamhill (8)

Note from OHA: Due to a delay in laboratory reporting, OHA received roughly 4,400 electronic laboratory reports (ELRs) on April 15, 2021 from Josephine County. The reports are from Dec. 2020 to April 2021. As a result, daily ELR totals are higher and percent positivity is lower for April 15 than anticipated for Josephine County.

And the Deaths:

Oregon’s 2,456th COVID-19 death is a 45-year-old man in Columbia County who tested positive on April 12 and died on April 15.

Oregon’s 2,457th COVID-19 death is an 80-year-old man in Klamath County who tested positive on April 8 and died on April 12 at Sky Lakes 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:

• 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