June 13th COVID-19 Update

Michael Dembrow

June 13, 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.

With tomorrow’s floor sessions, we enter the final two weeks of the 2021 Legislative Session in Oregon.  In this newsletter you can read more about what’s ahead of us in these final days. 

As you’ll see, reported COVID cases are down today, as they often are during the weekend, with some counties not reporting at all  We’ll know in a couple of days how much of this reduction is due to the weekend, and how much is a function of the ongoing reductions that vaccinations are creting.

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 167 new COVID cases today.  The cumulative number of cases in Oregon since the beginning of the pandemic is 205,029.
  • Variant COVID Cases: Here are the cumulative case counts for the COVID variants in Oregon: 1,240 (up from 1,152) cases of the B.1.1.7 (UK) variant, 200 cases (up from 176) of the P.1 (Brazilian) variant, and 108 (up from 86) cases of the B.1.351 (South African) variant.  In addition, we are now seeing 279 (up from 257) cases of the B.1.427 variant, and 716 (up from 700) of the B.1.429 variant.  OHA is now producing a Variant Dashboard, providing current variant case numbers for the state as a whole and for various parts of the state.  It’s updated each Wednesday.
  • Positive Test Results: OHA reported 246 positive tests today. The cumulative total of positive test results since the beginning of the pandemic is now 297,452.
  • Total Tests: OHA reported an additional tests today.  Our cumulative total of reported tests is now 5,261,489.
  • Positivity Rate: The test positivity ratio for Oregon today is 3.1%.
  • Hospitalization Information: OHA only reports on the first two bulleted items over the weekend.  I’ll update the other metrics on Monday.
    • Patients Currently with Confirmed COVID-19: 163 (3 more than yesterday)
    • ICU Patients Confirmed w COVID-19: 39 (2 fewer than yesterday).
    • Available ICU Beds: 124 (13 fewer than yesterday)
    • Other Available Beds: 485 (28 more than yesterday).
    • Confirmed COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 13 (3 fewer than yesterday)
    • Available Ventilators: 789 (10 more than yesterday).
  • Deaths: I’m sorry to report 1 additional COVID death today.  The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 2,730.
  • Vaccinations:
    • As of the end of yesterday, here are the latest numbers:
      • New Immunizations Reported Today: 15,381
        • 11,398 were conducted and reported yesterday
        • 3,983 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 17,498 doses per day.
  • Total First and Second Doses Administered So Far: 4,204,231
    • 2,375,566 Pfizer doses
    • 1,670,469 Moderna doses
    • 156,225 Johnson & Johnson doses
  • Total Oregonians vaccinated so far: 2,319,710
    • 2,031,629 now fully vaccinated with two doses
  • OHA has not updated this metric, so the number of Oregonians who still need to get a first dose for Oregon to reach the 70% threshold remains 87,702 (5,532 fewer than the previous day)
  • To date, 5,337,605 doses of vaccine have been delivered to sites across Oregon. (That’s the same as yesterday, so a total of just 47,960 doses came in last week.)
    • 78.8% of these doses have been administered so far. The national average is now 82.6%.
    • 56.8% of Oregonians have received at least one dose (64.1% of those 16 and older, 67.4% of those 18+***, which is the CDC standard).
      • ***OHA doesn’t update this figure over the weekend.
    • 49.2% of Oregonians are now fully vaccinated (56.8% of those 16 and older).

Additional Brief Updates

  • A new study from Israel shows that as more adults are vaccinated, infections rates among unvaccinated children go down.  This is especially important to know as we wait for approval of the COVID vaccines for children younger than 12. Examining the real-world effects of the extensive vaccine roll-out that Israel has experienced, we can see that the more the adults around them are vaccinated, the safer from the disease children will be.
  • Here are FAQs from the Washington Post for parents wondering if their kids should be vaccinated against COVID at this time. 
  • Here’s another story about the tragic juxtaposition of those becoming infected by COVID and then dying of the disease just as vaccination was in reach.
  • In the ongoing saga of the nurses and other hospital workers who filed a lawsuit against Houston Methodist for requiring them to be vaccinated, a federal judge has just thrown out the lawsuit. 99% of the health system’s 26,000-member workforce had already agreed to be vaccinated, while 170 members remain suspended for refusing.
  • The Oregon Employment Department is reporting the hottest job market since the early 1980s right now. Though it will take time for the official unemployment rate to reflect it, they report that the number of people requesting benefits is plunging.

 

The Week Ahead in Salem

We’re now in our final two weeks of the 2021 Legislative session: “Sine Die” (final adjournment) can come no later than June 27, two weeks from today. 

We are now mainly waiting for bills to come out of Ways and Means and head to the floor.  On Friday Ways and Means voted out 51 bills that came in from its various subcommittees.  They include a number of agency budgets and various policy bills.  These will head to the two floors this week:

  • 16 Senate bills, which will start on the Senate floor, then go directly to the House floor.
  • 35 House bills, which will start on the House floor, then go directly to the Senate floor.

You can see the bills that were voted on in Ways and Means on Friday here.  I’m pleased to say that one of my top priorities of the session—SB 233, which creates a Common Course Numbering system for college and university courses (and their high school dual-credit counterparts) and will be a tremendous improvement to college transfer—was one of them.  I should be carrying it on the Senate floor sometime in the next few days.  Can’t wait for that.

Some of the big ones still need to be assigned and voted on in subcommittees.  These include the two big environmental bills of the session: SB 582, the big recycling modernization bill; and HB 2021,1the 100% Clean Electricity bill (actually, this one has just been referred to the Transportation and Economic Development

Subcommittee and will have a work session on Tuesday).  They’re both on track to passage, and I’m looking forward to seeing them voted on.  The same is true of another of my priorities, SB 551, which will at last extend health insurance to part-time faculty members working at one or more public colleges and universities.

In the Education subcommittee, tomorrow we’ll be voting out the budget for the Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC), which includes the allocations to our public colleges, universities, and financial aid.  I’m pleased to say that this year we’ll be able to fully fund the college and university requests and also large increases to the Oregon Opportunity Grant.  You can see the HECC budget here.

Again, none of these bills will have any more public hearings.  They’ll have “work sessions” in their subcommittees, once they’re assigned, which means debate and vote by subcommittee members, and then on to the full Ways and Means and then on to the floors.

I expect that this week we’ll also see the Capital Construction Subcommittee begin its work.  That’s the subcommittee that deals with all the construction bonding proposals that are out there.  I believe that they’ll also be approving many of the projects funded by the federal ARPA dollars.  In the final week of the session, Capital Construction is also the place to look for a number of final appropriations and policy bills that still need action after the regular subcommittees shut down this week. (Capitol Construction is the Ways and Means analogue to the Rules Committees, which will prepare final policy bills for floor votes.)

I’ll provide more info as the week goes on.

 

Where Are Today’s  Cases?

If we put together the positive test results and new “presumptive cases” reported today, the overall number of new cases reported is 167.  Here is today’s breakdown by county:

Baker (2)

Benton (3)

Clackamas (25)

Columbia (1)

Crook (3)

Curry (1)

Deschutes (13)

Douglas (7)

Harney (2)

Jackson (6)

Jefferson (3)

Josephine (3)

Klamath (2)

Lane (5)

Linn (9)

Marion (14)

Morrow (4)

Multnomah (51)

Polk (4)

Union (1)

Wallowa (1)

Washington (4)

Yamhill (3)

 

And the Death

Oregon’s 2,730th COVID-19 death is a 58-year-old man from Multnomah County who tested positive on May 31 and died on June 12 at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center.

 

 

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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,

dembrow signature

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