PORTLAND, Ore. — COVID-19 has claimed 21 more lives in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 973, the Oregon Health Authority reported at 12:01 a.m. today.
Oregon Health Authority reported 1,151 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 as of 12:01 a.m. today bringing the state total to 79,263.
The new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases reported today are in the following counties: Baker (10), Benton (10), Clackamas (111), Clatsop (9), Columbia (5), Coos (6), Crook (4), Curry (7), Deschutes (42), Douglas (17), Grant (1), Harney (1), Hood River (4), Jackson (11), Jefferson (4), Josephine (1), Klamath (21), Lake (2), Lane (80), Lincoln (9), Linn (42), Malheur (13), Marion (113), Morrow (4), Multnomah (292), Polk (12), Tillamook (1), Umatilla (36), Union (6), Wasco (11), Washington (245), and Yamhill (21).
Daily COVID-19 hospitalizations increase
The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients across Oregon dropped to 559, 10 more than yesterday. There are 109 COVID-19 patients in intensive care unit (ICU) beds. That is four more than yesterday.
OHA monitoring weekly indicators of COVID-19 disease spread
In addition to county COVID-19 risk levels, OHA is monitoring weekly indicators of COVID-19 disease spread in Oregon and our public health response.
- Indicators of COVID-19 Disease Spread
- Percentage of emergency department visits for COVID-19-like Illness (CLI): Oregon has updated the ESSENCE query to increase sensitivity and specificity, and align with national reporting. The new query has also been applied to the emergency department visit counts on the Daily Update.
- Number of COVID-19 cases admitted to a hospital each week: Presenting weekly public health indicator data allows OHA to present county-level trends and improves readability of trends over time.
- Number of congregate living facilities with active outbreaks: These data may be found in the Weekly Outbreak Report
- Indicators of Public Health Response
- Percent of cases in last with follow-up within 24 hours: Weekly county-level data have been added.
- Percent of cases traced to a known source: Weekly county-level data have been added.
Lab reporting change provides additional benefit
As Oregon Health Authority adapts how it reports COVID test results to align with Governor Kate Brown’s new framework effective today, OHA anticipates an additional benefit. The change will eliminate some of the recent issues processing laboratory test reports because OHA will need only to process positive test results in the database. Negative results will be counted in the Electronic Lab Results (ELRs) totals.
The Oregon communicable disease reporting system was designed to collect information for reportable diseases (i.e. cases), with information reported by laboratories and collected by case investigators during the course of a case interview.
The system allows OHA to collect demographic and risk information, establish epidemiologic links between cases, identify cases who need additional wraparound services, and collect information on close contacts.
Because all COVID-19 results are reportable in Oregon, OHA has strained the database capabilities by using it for an additional purpose – keeping track of how many people tested negative for COVID-19. The volume of records slowed down the system.
OHA is reestablishing the database for its intended purpose—to only track cases. Test results will remain in the system, but OHA will only create cases for those who test positive. This allows OHA to alleviate the performance issues, track cases and calculate a test-based percent positivity.
Stay informed about COVID-19:
Oregon response: The Oregon Health Authority leads the state response.
United States response: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention leads the U.S. response.
Global response: The World Health Organization guides the global response.
