(Update: Adding OHA weekly report)

Deschutes County 72nd death was a 96-year-old woman who died March 30

 PORTLAND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- There are seven new COVID-19 related deaths in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 2,434, the Oregon Health Authority reported Wednesday.

OHA also reported 481 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 as of 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, bringing the state total to 168,128.

Oregon Health Authority publishes COVID-19 variant dashboard

Starting Wednesday, the Oregon Health Authority is publishing a Tableau dashboard showing the cumulative count of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern or variants of interest in Oregon. (For additional information on COVID-19 variants, go here.)

The dashboard will include a map of variant cases broken down by Oregon’s seven Hospital Preparedness Program Regions, along with a time series showing variant cases in Oregon by collection date. The dashboard will be updated weekly on Wednesdays and include data through the previous Saturday. 

In order to provide a more comprehensive picture of variant circulation in Oregon, OHA will update its variant counts on the new dashboard using data from the GISAID Initiative — a publicly available scientific database for genetic sequences. This will allow OHA to rapidly report historical data whenever definitions of variants of concern or variants of interest are updated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On March 16, the CDC reclassified the B.1.427 and B.1.429 variants as variants of concern. These variants have been circulating in Oregon since late last year and had not been previously reportable.

Oregon will continue to ask all laboratory partners to promptly report all variants of concern (B.1.1.7, B.1.351, P.1, B.1.427 and B.1.429) and variants of interest (B.1.525, B.1.526 and P.2) to public health authorities in order to inform case investigation and contact tracing.

OHA to report COVID-19 vaccine spoilage, mishaps

Starting this week, Oregon Health Authority began publishing weekly reports with a table representing vaccination shipping mishaps, refrigeration fluctuations, breakage and/or vaccination expiration. Updates to the table, featured below, will occur every Tuesday and be featured in this daily media release. Vaccine providers report this information to OHA through the ALERT Immunization Information System (IIS).

“We believe that our health system partners are managing their vaccine responsibly and doing everything that they can to minimize waste,” said OHA Chief Financial Officer Dave Baden. “At this point, considering the logistical complexity of operating large-scale vaccination programs, the small amount of wasted vaccine in Oregon is expected and not surprising. This amount is a small fraction of the more than 2 million doses that have been safely delivered, managed and injected in the arms of Oregonians.”

Oregon Update Vaccine Waste Disclosure1,2,3

Vaccine Type	Doses Recalled	Wasted/Spoiled/Expired	Grand Total
Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine		42	42
Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine		544	544
Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine		70	70
Grand Total	0	656	656

1 Updated: 4/6/21 2 Data source: ALERT Immunization Information System (IIS) 3 Data is preliminary and subject to change

Definitions

Recalled doses: Examples of recalled doses include doses that have been recalled by the manufacturer or FDA.

Wasted doses: Examples of wasted doses include doses that have been destroyed due to breakage of vials, or improperly discarded doses.

Spoiled doses: Examples of spoiled doses include doses that have been left out too long or doses involved in a refrigeration or freezer failure.

Expired doses: Examples of expired doses include doses that are past their labeled expiration dates.

It is important to remember that vaccine wastage is a normal part of distributing vaccine and occurs infrequently.

Vaccinations in Oregon

OHA reported that 36,104 new doses of COVID-19 vaccinations were added Wednesday to the state immunization registry. Of this total, 24,097 doses were administered on Tuesday and 12,007 were administered on previous days but were entered into the vaccine registry on Tuesday.

Oregon has now administered a total of 1,057,696 doses of Pfizer, 952,957 doses of Moderna and 55,505 doses of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines. As of Wednesday, 802,090 people have completed a COVID-19 vaccine series. There are 1,313,016 people who have had at least one dose.

Cumulative daily totals can take several days to finalize because providers have 72 hours to report doses administered and technical challenges have caused many providers to lag in their reporting. OHA has been providing technical support to vaccination sites to improve the timeliness of their data entry into the state’s ALERT Immunization Information System (IIS).

To date, 1,340,235 doses of Pfizer, 1,198,000 doses of Moderna and 170,400 doses of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines have been delivered to sites across Oregon.

These data are preliminary and subject to change. OHA's dashboards provide regularly updated vaccination data, and Oregon’s dashboard has been updated Wednesday.

COVID-19 hospitalizations

The number of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 across Oregon is 171, which is eight more than Tuesday. There are 42 COVID-19 patients in intensive care unit (ICU) beds, which is unchanged from Tuesday.

The total number of patients in hospital beds may fluctuate between report times. The numbers do not reflect admissions per day, nor the length of hospital stay. Staffing limitations are not captured in this data and may further limit bed capacity.

More information about hospital capacity can be found here.

St. Charles Health System reported four COVID-19 patients as of 4 a.m. Wednesday, one in the ICU on a ventilator.

Weekly COVID-19 cases increase; deaths and hospitalizations rise

The Oregon Health Authority’s COVID-19 Weekly Report, released Wednesday, shows increased daily cases and increases in hospitalizations and deaths from the previous week.

OHA reported 2,964 new daily cases of COVID-19 during the week of Monday, March 29 through Sunday, April 4. That represents a 21% increase from the previous week.

New COVID-19 related hospitalizations rose to 150, up from 137 last week.

Reported COVID-19 related deaths rose to 19, up from 10 last week.

There were 93,357 tests for COVID-19 for the week of March 28 through April 4 — an 1.4% increase from last week. The percentage of positive tests rose from 3.7% to 4.5%.

People 70 years of age and older have accounted for 40% of COVID-19 related hospitalizations and 77% of COVID-19 related deaths.

Wednesday’s COVID-19 Weekly Outbreak Report shows 21 active COVID-19 outbreaks in senior living communities and congregate living settings, with three or more confirmed cases and one or more COVID-19 related deaths.

Cases and deaths

The new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases reported Wednesday are in the following counties: Baker (4), Benton (9), Clackamas (55), Clatsop (4), Columbia (13), Coos (5), Crook (1), Deschutes (32), Douglas (11), Harney (1), Hood River (1), Jackson (23), Jefferson (1), Josephine (17), Klamath (11), Lake (2), Lane (40), Lincoln (3), Linn (21), Malheur (3), Marion (29), Morrow (3), Multnomah (92), Polk (11), Sherman (2), Tillamook (4), Umatilla (5), Union (1), Wallowa (3), Wasco (3), Washington (61) and Yamhill (10).  

Oregon’s 2,428th COVID-19 death is a 60-year-old man in Clackamas County who tested positive on March 29 and died on April 6 at his residence. Presence of underlying conditions is being confirmed.

Oregon’s 2,429th COVID-19 death is a 90-year-old woman in Douglas County who tested positive on Feb. 22 and died on March 25 at her residence. She had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 2,430th COVID-19 death is a 96-year-old woman in Deschutes County who tested positive on March 29 and died on March 30 at her residence. She had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 2,431st COVID-19 death is a 72-year-old man in Jackson County who tested positive on Feb. 1 and died on April 5 at Asante Three Rivers Medical Center. He had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 2,432nd COVID-19 death is a 51-year-old woman in Multnomah County who tested positive on March 9 and died on March 30 at Kaiser Sunnyside Hospital. Presence of underlying conditions is being confirmed.

Oregon’s 2,433rd COVID-19 death is a 67-year-old man in Polk County who tested positive on March 6 and died on April 5 at Salem Hospital. He had underlying conditions.

Oregon’s 2,434th COVID-19 death is a 48-year-old man in Union County who tested positive on Nov. 11 and died on March 23 at Legacy Emanuel Hospital. The death certificate listed COVID-19 disease or SARS-CoV-2 as a cause of death or a significant condition contributing to death. He had no underlying conditions.

Learn more about COVID-19 vaccinations? 

To learn more about the COVID-19 vaccine situation in Oregon, visit OHA's webpage (English or Spanish), which has a breakdown of distribution and other information.