Oregon reports 1 more COVID-19 related death, 993 new cases
Four more cases than Wednesday; highest count in 3 months
PORTLAND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- There is one new COVID-19 related death in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 2,467, the Oregon Health Authority reported Thursday.
OHA also reported 993 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 as of 12:01 a.m. Thursday, bringing the state total to 178,110. That's four more cases than Wednesday's report, and once again the highest total since mid-January.
Vaccinations in Oregon
OHA reported that 48,387 new doses of COVID-19 vaccinations were added Thursday to the state immunization registry. Of this total, 28,535 doses were administered on Wednesday and 19,852 were administered on previous days but were entered into the vaccine registry on Wednesday.
The seven-day running average is now 34,328 doses per day.
Oregon has now administered a total of 1,398,442 doses of Pfizer, 1,172,051 doses of Moderna and 91,160 doses of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines. As of Thursday, 1,091,777 people have completed a COVID-19 vaccine series. There are 1,658,130 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, 1,683,045 doses of Pfizer, 1,432,000 doses of Moderna and 215,000 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 Thursday.
OHA finds small number of data entry errors in reported vaccine doses
Oregon Health Authority has identified that a small number of Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses were recorded in the ALERT IIS System on and after April 13. OHA conducted an investigation and contacted all of the sites that reported submitting three or more doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine since the pause was issued April 13. All the sites that OHA contacted reported that these reports were data entry errors, and none of the sites had administered the vaccine. All told, OHA has determined that data entry errors were a factor at eight sites, accounting for 121 of the 159 total doses recorded.
As we continue to receive additional reports of Johnson and Johnson doses administered while the pause is in effect, we will clarify with vaccine providers whether or not these are data entry errors and will continue to ask providers to clarify these reports.
OHA is currently working with sites that have continued to report administering Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses during the pause to investigate why these doses have been reported. Consequently, the vaccine administration numbers for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will change as this work continues. OHA is reiterating to partners that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Food and Drug Administration have recommended a pause on Johnson & Johnson vaccine administrations as they conduct a federal review of the vaccine.
COVID-19 hospitalizations
The number of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 across Oregon is 283, which is 11 more than Wednesday. There are 69 COVID-19 patients in intensive care unit (ICU) beds, which is four more than Wednesday.
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 Bend reported 17 COVID-19 patients as of 4 a.m. Thursday, five of whom were in the ICU, three on ventilators.
Cases and deaths
The new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases reported Thursday are in the following counties: Baker (14), Benton (24), Clackamas (116), Clatsop (4), Columbia (14), Coos (6), Crook (12), Curry (2), Deschutes (57), Douglas (5), Grant (1), Hood River (5), Jackson (46), Jefferson (6), Josephine (17), Klamath (54), Lake (2), Lane (54), Lincoln (7), Linn (34), Malheur (2), Marion (109), Morrow (1), Multnomah (206), Polk (20), Tillamook (1), Umatilla (8), Union (2), Wasco (16), Washington (128) and Yamhill (20).
Oregon’s 2,467th COVID-19 death is a 67-year-old man from Linn County who tested positive on April 21 and died on April 21 at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center. He had underlying conditions.
Note: Updated information is available for Oregon's 2,461st death, which was originally reported as an 82-year-old man from Douglas County. The man was actually 61 years old. OHA regrets the error.
Note: Due to a delay in laboratory reporting, OHA received a large quantity of ~13,800 negative electronic laboratory reports (ELRs) on April 21. The reports are from March 7 to April 20. As a result, daily ELR totals are higher and percent positivity is lower for April 21 than anticipated.
Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center brings equity and fair access to the COVID-19 vaccine
Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) that serves the members of Washington and Yamhill counties through access to high quality, culturally appropriate health care. For more than 46 years, Virginia Garcia has offered care to those most vulnerable in their communities.
When COVID-19 began to affect people in Oregon, Virginia Garcia immediately began to see the impact it was having on the communities they served. In addition to providing testing in the clinics, they began taking services into the community, eventually creating a response team dedicated solely to outreach events. Virginia Garcia was the first community health center in the state to begin offering drive-through testing services at the Hillsboro Stadium — increasing accessibility for their patients and the community at large.
Over the summer, with an awareness that Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities were impacted by COVID-19 at a higher rate than others, the newly formed Covid Response (CoRe) Team began partnering with other community-based organizations that served these groups to hold 15 different community events between June and November. Ultimately, more than 2,000 people were screened at these events.
Virginia Garcia also provided testing resources like educational handouts, informational videos and television commercials about how to stay safe during the holiday season, focused on the communities they serve.
Once the vaccine became available, the CoRe Team added vaccination events to their toolkit. Currently the team splits their time focusing on ensuring equitable access of testing and vaccinations by providing both free testing services at the Hillsboro Clinic location to anyone in the community and vaccine events targeted at providing the vaccine to individuals who would otherwise not have access.
"Our patients were the hardest hit by the pandemic," said Misty Downey, CoRe Team program manager. "The work that the CoRe Team does each week is critical to ensuring the most vulnerable populations have access to the vaccine."?
Last Tuesday, Virginia Garcia had their first mobile clinic vaccination event of the season where, with the help of volunteers, almost 300 people were able to get vaccinated. These mobile vaccination clinics will be offered every Tuesday to vulnerable populations like migrant and seasonal farmworkers who would otherwise have difficulty getting to a vaccination clinic. Virginia Garcia’s goal is to provide 30,000 vaccinations in 12 weeks.
On April 13, they vaccinated another 104 individuals, even after having to change out their vaccine from Johnson & Johnson to Moderna at the last minute. The need to schedule and provide second shots will be an added challenge, but they are actively working to make arrangements with the camps and nurseries to get those second clinics scheduled.
Staying true to their commitment to the community, Virginia Garcia is working to bring equity and fair access to the COVID-19 vaccine.
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.
