June 20th COVID-19 Update

Michael Dembrow

June 20, 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.

Hope that you who are fathers were appropriate honored today, and for those of you who have fathers were able to see them or speak to them and wish them the best.

COVID numbers today are what we would expect for weekend reporting.  Hospitalizations are up a little, as are people in the ICU for COVID.  Sadly, they are all, or nearly all, presumably individuals who have not been fully vaccinated.

We still haven’t received the latest information on how many people still need to be vaccinated to get us to the 70% threshold.  We’ll find out tomorrow.  Should now be in the range of 40,000 remaining.

Tomorrow begins our last week of this 2021 legislative session.  Hard to believe, really.  It’s been such a strange one, really.  But when the dust settles, and fingers crossed nothing blows up this week, I believe it will turn out to have been a highly productive one.  You can read more about this last week below.

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 200 new COVID cases today.  The cumulative number of cases in Oregon since the beginning of the pandemic is 206,774
  • Variant COVID Cases: Here are this week’s case counts for the COVID variants in Oregon, cumulative from the beginning of the pandemic: 1,433 (up from 1,240) cases of the B.1.1.7 (formerly known as the U.K. variant, now called the Alpha) variant, 286 cases (up from 200) of the P.1 (formerly Brazilian, now Delta) variant, and 125 (up from 108) cases of the B.1.351 (formerly South African, now Beta) variant.  In addition, we are now seeing 291 (up from 279) cases of the B.1.427 variant, 737 (up from 716) of the B.1.429 variant, and 10 cases of the new B.1.617.2 (Delta).  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 303 positive tests today. The cumulative total of positive test results since the beginning of the pandemic is now 299,744.
  • Total Tests: OHA reported an additional 8,182 tests today. Our cumulative total of reported tests is 5,330,090.
  • Positivity Rate: The test positivity ratio for Oregon today is 3.7%.
  • Hospitalization Information: OHA only reports on the first two bulleted metrics over the weekend.  I’ll catch you up on the remaining metrics on Monday.
    • Patients Currently with Confirmed COVID-19: 149 (5 more than yesterday)
    • ICU Patients Confirmed w COVID-19: 35 (5 more than yesterday).
    • Available ICU Beds: 127 (14 fewer than yesterday)
    • Other Available Beds: 496 (30 fewer than yesterday).
    • Confirmed COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 22 (3 more than yesterday)
    • Available Ventilators: 786 (13 more than yesterday).
  • Deaths: I’m sorry to report 1 additional COVID death today.  The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is 2,754.
  • Vaccinations:
    • As of the end of yesterday, here are the latest numbers:
      • New Immunizations Reported Today: 10,006
        • 5,675 were conducted and reported yesterday
        • 4,331 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 12,724 doses per day.
  • Total First and Second Doses Administered So Far: 4,306,340
    • 2,447,234 Pfizer doses
    • 1,704,526 Moderna doses
    • 162,520 Johnson & Johnson doses
  • Total Oregonians vaccinated so far: 2,352,425
    • 2,102,735 now fully vaccinated with two doses
  • Since OHA doesn’t report on this metric over the weekend, the number of Oregonians who still need to get a first dose for Oregon to reach the 70% threshold remains 51,616 (down by 4,081 from the previous day). We remain on track to hit the threshold by the end of the month.
  • To date, 5,437,475 doses of vaccine have been delivered to sites across Oregon. (That’s the same as yesterday, so the total number of additional doses last week was just 99,870.)
    • 79.2% of these doses have been administered so far. The national average is now 83.9%.
    • 57.7% of Oregonians have received at least one dose (64.8%*** of those 16 and older, 68.5%*** of those 18+, which is the CDC standard).
    • 51.4% of Oregonians are now fully vaccinated (58.2%*** of those 16 and older).
      • ***These numbers have not been updated from Friday’s.
  • Want to see how close each county is to hitting the 65% target for moving to lower risk? Here's an interactive map and more, showing percentages for total population and for eligible population (residents age 16+).  It shows how close each county is to hitting the 65% target.

Additional Brief Updates

  • The former head of the FDA is concerned that in states where vaccination rates are low, we're going to see a big surge in the fall. Much of it, he fears, will be due to the new, highly infectious Delta variant.
  • The New York Times Magazine has a long piece this weekend on the problems in the CDC that COVID has unveiled. and whether or not those problems can be fixed.
  • Yes, COVID has brought out the worst in some of our institutions and some individuals. But for many it has brought out inner strength and a sense of resilience that was unexpected.  Here's more from the Washington Post.
  • Capitol buildings around the country have had to cope both with the effects of the pandemic and (yes, it’s still hard to say this) the threats of insurrection. But they are starting to reopen. Here’s a national perspective.

 

The Final Week Has Come

“Sine Die” (no more days) for this 2021 legislative session is a week from today, meaning we must adjourn for good by the end of June 28th.  If all goes well, though, we’ll probably finish up before the weekend. 

Some late-breaking bills are still going through the House and Senate Rules Committees, but for the most part all the action will be in Ways and Means this week.  If they make it through Ways and Means, their floor votes will almost without exception be pro forma.  They won’t come from Ways and Means to the floor if they don’t have the votes already secured to go all the way.

The Ways and Means subcommittees were very busy last week before closing down on Thursday.  As a result, a final 44 bills will be voted on in full Ways and Means tomorrow afternoon.  You can see them here.

The remaining WM bills will need to go through the Capital Construction Committee.  It meets tomorrow morning at 8:00 to vote on a half dozen important bills, culminating with SB 762, the big Wildfire bill that was a top priority for this session. Here's the agenda for that one.

There may still be some policy bills coming through Capital Construction as a result of final negotiations among the presiding officers, the Governor, and Republican leaders.  We’ll see.  But for the most part the work in Capital Construction will be around bonding projects and ARPA (federally funded) projects.  We’ll likely hear more about them tomorrow.

I said above that we’ll likely be finished before the weekend.  That’s if everything goes well, Republicans agree to suspend the rules that can slow down the passage of a bill from one chamber to another, and there are no complications with the legal paperwork needed to finalize the legislation.  A further very sad complication is that most of us will be in Eugene Wednesday afternoon to support Senator Manning at the celebration of life for his dear wife Lawanda.  Still, I suspect that will further motivate us to buckle down and get the work done. 

I’ll fill you in as we know more during the week.

 

Fire Season Has Begun

I’m sad to report that even before the official beginning of summer, the extent of fires in Oregon are already triggering fire season reports to legislators from the Oregon Department of Forestry. The agency’s Chief of Fire Protection, Doug Grafe, sent out his first report this afternoon.  You can read it here.

As you’ll see, we’ve already experienced nearly five times the 10-year average for this point in the year, spending more than $3 million already to fight these fires.  Unfortunately, the forecast is for difficult fire weather from this point forward.  It’s a grim reminder of the ongoing effects of our current climate patterns.

I’ll continue to send you Doug’s updates as they are issued. In today’s update you’ll also find links to the ODF blog and other resources.

 

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 200.  Here is today’s breakdown by county:

Baker (1)

Benton (5)

Clackamas (19)

Clatsop (5)

Columbia (5)

Crook (1)

Curry (3)

Deschutes (13)

Douglas (6)

Harney (2)

Jackson (6)

Jefferson (1)

Josephine (10)

Klamath (1)

Lane (19)

Linn (9)

Marion (21)

Multnomah (42)

Polk (4)

Union (3)

Washington (21)

Yamhill (3)

 

And the Death:

Oregon’s 2,754th death is a 74-year-old woman from Lane County who tested positive May 22 and died June 18 at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend.

 

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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,

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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