April 18th COVID-19 Update

April 18, 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.

Today’s COVID case numbers are a little lower today, and no COVID deaths were reported.  I hate to say it again, though, but that’s not unusual for a Sunday.  Reports in some counties are always lower on the weekends.  I expect that we’ll learn of more cases in the next few days.

Percentages of positive test results are up for the state as a whole and in the Portland area.  That suggests that more people are being tested for COVID symptoms and for known contact with infected persons. 

COVID hospitalizations are up again today, which is more troubling, as these reports tend to be more accurate in real time than are case counts.  On the other hand, the number of Oregonians in ICU for COVID remains fairly stable, again suggesting that fewer of the most vulnerable are included in these recent cases.

Tomorrow is an important day for Oregon for two reasons, creating both opportunity and challenge:  It marks the return to in-person schooling for middle-school and high-school students and it marks the day that all Oregonians 16 and older become eligible for a COVID vaccine appointment (though of course eligibility does not equal availability in many parts of the state).

We’ll see how it goes.

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 628 new COVID cases today.  The cumulative number of cases in Oregon since the beginning of the pandemic is 175,121.
• 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 835 positive tests today. The cumulative total of positive test results since the beginning of the pandemic is now 253,027.
• Total Tests: OHA reported an additional 12,251 tests today. Our cumulative total of reported tests is now 4,474,599.
• Positivity Rate: The test positivity ratio for Oregon today is 6.8%.
• Hospitalization Information: OHA only provides information about the first two bullets on weekends. I’ll catch you up on the other metrics on Monday.
  • Patients Currently with Confirmed COVID-19: 215 (15 more than yesterday)
  • ICU Patients Confirmed w COVID-19: 48 (1 more 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 happy to report 0 additional COVID deaths today.  The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 2,460.
• Vaccinations:
  • As of the end of yesterday, here are the latest numbers:
    • New Immunizations Reported Today: 32,287
      • 20,973 were conducted yesterday
      • 11,314 were conducted earlier, but the reports were received yesterday (there can potentially be a three-day window for reporting)
      • The 7-day running average is now 34,359 doses per day.
    • Total First and Second Doses Administered So Far: 2,523,736
      • 1,312,414 Pfizer doses
      • 1,1121,855 Moderna doses
      • 88,405 Johnson & Johnson doses
    • Total Oregonians vaccinated so far: 1,587,592
      • 1,020,399 now fully vaccinated with two doses
    • To date, 3,068,725 doses of vaccine have been delivered to sites across Oregon. (That’s the same as yesterday, so our total for this past week is 296,590.)
      • 82.2% of these doses have been administered so far. The national average is now 77.1%.
      • 38.8% of Oregonians have received at least one dose.
      • 25.0% 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:
  • Our publishing software apparently didn’t correctly reproduce the links in the first two items from last night, so I’m reproducing them here. Sorry about that.
  • Someone I know who lives in Grant County was able to get a vaccine well before me, despite being younger. That’s because very few seniors there have wanted to be vaccinated.  And now we’re seeing big case counts in that low-populated county. Read more here.
  • OK, you’ve got your vaccination card with one or two doses recorded on it. What do you do with it?  Here's a primer from the Washington Post.
  • It was announced today that half of adult Americans have had at least one dose of a COVID vaccine.. The number here in Oregon is a little lower, more like 47%.
  • Tomorrow morning more than 80% of all Oregonians will be eligible for the vaccine (all but children under the age of 16). Here’s a story from The Oregonian’s Aimee Green about what that means.
  • Here are some practical tips on how to secure an appointment if you’re in the high-demand Portland area.

This Week in the Legislature: Looking Back, Looking Forward

As I mentioned last week, Monday and Tuesday of last week were the final two days before the first-chamber deadline, meaning that if a bill didn’t make it out of its first-chamber committee (i.e., a House bill in a House committee or a Senate bill in a Senate committee), it was dead for the session.  You can go to the legislative website (olis.oregonlegislature..gov) and search for a bill.  If you search for a bill and its measure history says it’s still in that committee, it’s too late for it to move.  It needs to have been voted out to Rules, Revenue, Ways and Means, or to the Floor (in which case it will be on the “President’s Desk” or the “Speaker’s Desk” or have already been voted on).

Bills may have been left behind for a number of reasons.  They may have been unnecessary duplicates of bills that are moving in the other chamber.  They may not have the support of the committee chair.  They may not have the votes to make it out of committee or they clearly don’t have the votes to succeed on the floor. 

As predicted, it was intense up to the last minute.  Legislative Counsel and Legislative Fiscal worked overtime getting the bills ready for their final committee votes.  Advocates and opponents pushed hard up until the last minute to get the bill passed to the floor or Ways and Means or sent to Rules for a little more life if they supported it, or killed if they opposed it.  The same was true for members and their bills.

And just like that, the first half of session was over.

The big news of last week of course was the end of the slowdown in the House.  Republican leadership agreed to waive the bill-reading requirement for the remainder of the session in exchange for co-leadership of the redistricting process. 

And with that, a hundred pieces of legislation that had been on hold were able to pass and make their way over to us in the Senate.

The Statesman-Journal’s Connor Radnovich has a story about five of the bills that passed this week.

Looking ahead, things will start slowly in committee this week.  Most committee chairs will start off with bills that passed easily on the other side.  Or in some cases they’ll hold hearings on bills that were never scheduled for a hearing before the deadline (and so couldn’t move) but warrant an airing. 

Meanwhile, thirty-one House bills have been scheduled so far this week, as have twenty-three Senate bills.  More will be scheduled as we approach the end of the week.  None of those scheduled so far are particularly controversial.  Many are being carried by Republicans, a sign of bipartisan support.

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 Wednesday evening, this time for residents of CD 3.  Here is the overall schedule:

And here is the Ways and Means webpage for Wednesday, 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.

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 888.  Here is today’s breakdown by county:

Baker (2)

Clackamas (72)

Clatsop (4)

Columbia (7)

Coos (7)

Crook (2)

Curry (2)

Deschutes (47)

Douglas (4)

Grant (6)

Harney (1)

Hood River (1)

Jackson (20)

Jefferson (6)

Josephine (9)

Klamath (37)

Lane (39)

Lincoln (4)

Linn (16)

Malheur (1)

Marion (83)

Multnomah (142)

Polk (11)

Tillamook (1)

Umatilla (15)

Union (5)

Wasco (2)

Washington (83)

Yamhill (14)

And the Deaths:

OHA reports no COVID deaths today.

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