May 16th COVID-19 Update

May 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.

COVID case counts are down today, but that’s not unusual for a Sunday.  Reporting of both cases and deaths tends to be spotty on the weekends.  Hospitalizations are up a little.  One troubling metric is that our percentage of positive test results is over 10%, the first time we’ve seen a number that high since early December.  It’s a function of inadequate testing, combined with a higher-than-expected number of positive cases.  We’ll see if it’s an error, an anomaly, a trend, a problem.  I hope to receive an explanation from OHA.

Also troubling is that our daily average number of COVID vaccinations has dropped below 30,000 per day for the first time in many weeks.  If it continues to decline, we’ll have difficulty hitting the goal of seeing 70% of our 16+ population vaccinated by July 4, the goal and target date for a broad reopening of our state.

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 751 new COVID cases today.  The cumulative number of cases in Oregon since the beginning of the pandemic is 195,684.
• Variant COVID Cases: The reported variant case numbers were updated earlier this week. The case counts include 425 (up from 311) cases of the B.1.1.7 (UK) variant, 29 cases (up from 18) of the P.1 (Brazilian) variant, and 35 (up from 28) cases of the B.1.351 (South African) variant.  In addition, we are now seeing 196 (up from 177) cases of the B.1.427 variant, and 586 (up from 566) of the B.1.429 variant.  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.
• Positive Test Results: OHA reported 1,284 positive tests today. The cumulative total of positive test results since the beginning of the pandemic is now 281,896.
• Total Tests: OHA reported an additional 12,584 tests today. Our cumulative total of reported tests is now 4,932,57.
• Positivity Rate: The test positivity ratio for Oregon today is 5.6%.
• Hospitalization Information: OHA only reports on the first two items over the weekend. I’ll catch you up on the other metrics on Monday.
  • Patients Currently with Confirmed COVID-19: 339 (7 more than yesterday)
  • ICU Patients Confirmed w COVID-19: 82 (7 more than yesterday).
  • Available ICU Beds: 160 (2 fewer than yesterday)
  • Other Available Beds: 495 (23 more than yesterday).
  • Confirmed COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 37 (3 fewer than yesterday).
  • Available Ventilators: 778 (6 fewer than yesterday).
• Deaths: I’m sorry to report 2 additional COVID deaths today.  The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 2,587.
• Vaccinations:
  • As of the end of yesterday, here are the latest numbers:
    • New Immunizations Reported Today: 23,075
      • 18,438 were conducted and reported yesterday
      • 4,637 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 29,334 doses per day.

• Total First and Second Doses Administered So Far: 3,538,850
  • 1,942,647 Pfizer doses
  • 1,473,498 Moderna doses
  • 121,123 Johnson & Johnson doses
• Total Oregonians vaccinated so far: 2,061,640
  • 1,591,802 now fully vaccinated with two doses
• To date, 4,350,115 doses of vaccine have been delivered to sites across Oregon. (That’s a total of 315,131 for the week.)
  • 81.4% of these doses have been administered so far. The national average is now 79.4%.
  • 50.5% of Oregonians have received at least one dose (56.6% of those 16 and older).
  • 39.0% of Oregonians are now fully vaccinated (43.2% of those 16 and older).
  • 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.
  • Want to see how close each county is to hitting the 65% target for moving to lower risk? Here's an interactive map showing percentages for total population and for eligible population (residents about age 16).

• Additional Brief Updates:
  • Here’s more from the New York Times on the mix of reactions to the new CDC masking guidance.
  • Not surprisingly, the CDC Director made the rounds on the Sunday news shows this morning.  Here's more.from her on the new scientific evidence that led to the changes masking protocols.
  • The Oregonian’s Ted Sickinger reports on the reluctance of local businesses to acting as the "vaccination police."
  • The Oregonian’s Business reporter, Mike Rogoway, takes a look at the impact of COVID on Oregon’s businesses. Nearly all of the businesses that closed their doors have come back or been replaced by new businesses.  Rogoway’s conclusion? Serious pain was certainly felt by many businesses, but overall, "Oregon's steepest, deepest recession wasn't nearly as bad as feared.
  • If you haven’t yet filed your taxes or filed for an extension, welcome to the club, but please remember that tomorrow is the deadline to do so.
  • Speaking of deadlines—please remember that Tuesday is election day, the deadline to vote on a variety of school board and college board elections, along with some other local candidates and issues. It’s of course too late to mail your ballot—here in Multnomah County you can drop off at a number of sites, including the elections office itself and any county library building.

The Coming Week in Salem – Revenue Forecast and State School Fund

This Wednesday will be one of the most consequential of the session: it’s the day that the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis provides us with our May revenue forecast.  They will be looking at the tax revenues that have come in since the last forecast, analyzing underlying trends, predicting what the economy will look like in the near term and middle term, and using all that to make predictions about state revenues in the next biennium.  This is the final forecast of the session, and it’s the one that’s used to build the final budget for 2021-23. 

Given the improving economy—and further improvements projected as we move out of the pandemic—it should be a strong forecast.  The one uncertainty is that many Oregonians have chosen to take advantage of the IRS extension to May 17, so we won’t have as clear a picture as we normally would with tax returns coming in on April 15 or earlier.

Once the May forecast is released, we enter the final stage of the long session: all the agency budgets are finalized, capital projects are chosen, and policy bills that create new or enhanced programs (that cost money) find their final place on the priority list.

The first budget that is typically finalized after the revenue forecast is the big K-12 State School Fund.  This year legislative leaders felt optimistic enough about the forecast that the decision was made forward to move forward on the SSF. 

The Governor’s proposed budget had the SSF at $9.1 billion, an amount that her analysts and the Legislative Fiscal Office believe to be “Current Service Level” (CSL) the amount that would allow all current school programs to continue once inflationary costs are added in.  It’s $100 million more than is in the current budget. That amount would have been higher, except that PERS reforms made in 2019 have reduced the amount that districts will need to budget for personnel costs. It doesn’t include the $1 billion per year that will come in as a result of the new Corporate Activities Tax (or of course the one-time COVID dollars from the federal government).

School districts and education advocates dispute this $9.1 billion CSL estimate.  They believe that it will take $9.6 billion to keep districts whole.  Legislative leaders decided last week to more or less split the difference and allocate $9.3 billion.  I voted for that amount on Wednesday as a member of the Ways and Means Education Subcommittee.  It was then approved in a bipartisan, near-unanimous vote of the full Ways and Means Committee on Friday.  It will come to the Senate floor early this week.

Further state allocations will also be coming to K-12 districts via policy bills, lottery-funded programs, and of course the $250 million that we are putting into summer learning programs this summer.

At the moment, the extra $200 million (raising the $9.1B CSL to $9.3B) is scheduled to come from reserves.  However, we’re hoping that the revenue forecast will allow us to use general fund dollars to fund the increase and leave the reserves intact.  I believe it’s likely that the economists will project a large kicker in the next biennium.  The Oregon Constitution requires that proceeds from the individual kicker go back to taxpayers; the corporate kicker, on the other hand, is required to go to the State School Fund. Those added revenues will, I believe, get us what we need.

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 507.  Here is today’s breakdown by county:

Benton (7)

Clackamas (45)

Columbia (9)

Coos (12)

Crook (6)

Deschutes (58)

Douglas (7)

Jackson (15)

Jefferson (5)

Josephine (6)

Klamath (20)

Lane (39)

Lincoln (3)

Linn (39)

Malheur (3)

Marion (90)

Multnomah (96)

Polk (9)

Washington (30)

Yamhill (14)

And the Deaths:

Oregon’s 2586^th death is a 74-year-old man from Marion county who tested positive on Apr. 29 and died on May 14 at Salem Hospital.

Oregon’s 2587^th death is an 88-year-old man from Jackson county who tested positive on Apr. 22 and died on Apr. 22 at Providence Medford 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

• 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