Feb. 13, 2022
United States: Cumulative Cases: 79,293,924, Cumulative Deaths: 942,944
World: Cumulative Cases: 410,837,662, Cumulative Deaths: 5,829,542
Over the course of the last week, there have been 14,857,117 new reported cases of Covid in the world, and an additional 70,841 reported deaths.
In the U.S., there have been 1,276,522 new cases and 16,915 new deaths.
The U.S. now accounts for more than 19% of total reported cases worldwide, and over 16% of total reported deaths worldwide.
New Schedule of Vaccine Clinics
Corvallis
Saturday, February 19, from 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., at Lincoln Elementary School Gym, 110 SE Alexander Avenue
Sunday, February 20, from 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., at Letitia Carson Elementary School Gym, 2701 NW Satinwood Street
Thursday, February 24, from 3:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m., at Mountain View Elementary School Cafeteria, 340 NE Granger Avenue
Philomath
Tuesday, February 22, from 4:00 – 7:30 p.m., at Philomath High School Library, 2054 Applegate Street
Monroe
Wednesday, February 23, from 3:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m., at Monroe High School Commons, 365 N 5th Street
State Press Release: Oregon Housing & Community Services
Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) announced that as of Feb. 9, the emergency response program has paid out $278.3 million in federal emergency rental assistance (ERA) to 39,303 households, up from $268.1 million and 38,078 applicants last week, through the Oregon Emergency Rental Assistance Program (OERAP). OHCS has paid out 96% of all federal ERA dollars available for rental assistance.
OERAP continues to be one of the nation’s top-performing programs and is ranked fifth in the nation, in the percentage of federal ERA funds paid out and obligated, as tracked by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Apply for OERAP
OERAP is still accepting new applications for emergency rental assistance. Tenants who meet the minimum eligibility criteria should get their application completed or submitted as soon as possible. Please read more about the prioritization criteria here. Not all applicants will receive assistance. OERAP funds are available to renters who haven’t received assistance before. Need help? Call 211 or go to Tenant Resources at oregonrentalassistance.org.
Tenants who submit new applications can access protections from eviction for nonpayment of rent while their application is being reviewed and processed. Tenants must show proof to their landlord that they applied for the program to receive the protections. Tenants at immediate risk of eviction should apply for rental assistance right away to access the protections and also contact a legal organization.
- Oregon Law Center’s Eviction Defense Project: 888-585-9638 or evictiondefense@oregonlawcenter.org
- Oregon State Bar: 503-684-3763 or legalhelp@oregonstatebar.org
Progress and Updated Numbers
OHCS and its processing partner, Public Partnerships LLC (PPL), have made significant strides in the past several weeks to speed up application processing. Currently, 265 PPL staff are focusing on processing applications and answering thousands of inquiries from tenants and landlords. This is in addition to the applications processed by Local Public Administrators working across the state to finish paying out ERA 1 funds.
To date, OHCS and LPAs:
- Paid $278,316,034 to landlords and tenants to help 39,303 Oregon households, which is 96% of ERA 1 and 2 funds.
- Are currently reviewing 4,782 applications for payment that were submitted prior to Dec. 1, 2021.
- Need applicant or landlord response for 4,276 applications that were submitted prior to Dec. 1, 2021.
- Received 6,941 applications since the portal reopened on Jan. 26, 2022. OHCS is focusing on paying out eligible applications that were received before Dec. 1, 2021, and will pay out the new eligible applications after the three-to-five-week for accepting new applications is over.
Visit the OERAP dashboard for more data.
Feb. 12, 2022
Benton County: New Cases: 59, Cumulative Cases: 14,2189, Cumulative Deaths: 59
Oregon: New Cases: 2,577, Cumulative Cases: 674,500, Cumulative Deaths: 6,355
Omicron Hospitalization Peak Over
The surge of people hospitalized or infected with omicron is over, according to the latest forecast from Oregon Health & Science University. Read the full story here…
By Lynne Terry of Press Partner Oregon Capital Chronicle
OSU Keeps Mask Requirement
Despite a recent decision from the Oregon Health Authority regarding the lifting of the statewide mask mandate next month, Oregon State University announced via a press release that they would keep their current mask policy in place. Read the full story here…
By Rebekah Harcrow
Feb. 11, 2022
Benton County: New Cases: 103, Cumulative Cases: 14,159, Cumulative Deaths: 59
Oregon: New Cases: 3,140, Cumulative Cases: 671,923, Cumulative Deaths: 6,344
Linn County: Cumulative Cases: 24,997, Cumulative Deaths: 225
Lane County: Cumulative Cases: 53,870, Cumulative Deaths: 431
Lincoln County: Cumulative Cases: 6,584, Cumulative Deaths: 66
Marion County: Cumulative Cases: 66,419, Cumulative Deaths: 618
Polk County: Cumulative Cases: 14,529, Cumulative Deaths: 118
OSU Researchers in Covid
- The Oregon State University director of Translational Data Science, Melissa Haendel, has been working with the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) to determine better practices for sharing Covid clinical data. Most recently, N3C has found that the mortality risk of those with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is twice that of those without COPD
- Richard van Breeman of the OSU Global Hemp Innovation Center found a pair of cannabinoid acids which may bind to the Covid spike protein and block a critical step in the process of the virus infecting a person.
- Well known throughout Oregon, the Team-based Rapid Assessment of Community-level coronavirus Epidemics (TRACE) program was a precursor to the current shift to wastewater surveillance being employed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- The OSU College of Public Health has Director Chunhuie Chi has been studying the history of how Covid emerged and evolved since 2019. His research has also covered the differences in national response to the pandemic between Taiwan, China, Singapore, South Korea, Italy, and the U.S.
- Gaurav Sahay – assistant professor in the College of Pharmacy – has been working in gene therapy with nanotechnology-based platforms which included the platform used to create the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines, and was the chief investigator in a funding award through National Institutes of Health and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
- Specializing in data-driven optimization for analyzing health care data to model health systems, Joseph K. Agor is an assistant professor of industrial engineering. His work supports health care decision making practices at the system and patient levels, as well as modeling appropriate approaches for logistical operations and routing problems.
- Heather Broughton, DVM, specializes in diseases that move between animals and humans and has worked with coronavirus in other species. Her research has looked into the behavior and transmission of coronavirus in model veterinary species, intra-host interactions between pathogens, and intra-host interactions between viruses, bacteria, and parasites with the immune system. She has also looked at disease outcome in terms of ecosystem, individual, and population level factors.
By Sally K Lehman
Feb. 10, 2022
Benton County: New Cases: 107, Cumulative Cases: 14,056, Cumulative Deaths: 59
Oregon: New Cases: 3,297, Cumulative Cases: 668,783, Cumulative Deaths: 6,322
The state of Oregon had another 57 deaths from Covid over the last 24 hours. Three of the people who died lived in Benton County, meaning in the last week Benton County has lost five lives to this virus.
Where Mask Mandates will be Ended
The number of states withdrawing mask mandates continues to grow. In order of when the mandates will be lifted, the states are:
New York – lifting indoor mandate as of Feb. 9
Rhode Island – lifting indoor mandate as off Feb. 11
California – lifting indoor mandate as of Feb. 15
Massachusetts – lifting school mandate as of Feb. 28
Connecticut – lifting school mandate as of Feb. 28
Illinois – lifting indoor mandate as of Feb. 28
New Jersey – lifting school mandate as of March 7
Delaware – lifting indoor mandate as of Feb. 1, lifting school mandate as of March 31
Oregon – lifting indoor and school mandates as of March 31
While wearing masks will no longer be mandatory, the option to wear a mask will continue. Important to note, businesses will retain the right to insist that patrons wear masks regardless of the state law.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have come out saying they still recommend indoor masking by students, staff, faculty, and visitors in K-12 schools regardless of vaccination status. In a study conducted in Arizona, CDC found that “the odds of a school-associated COVID-19 outbreak in schools with no mask requirement were 3.7 times higher than those in schools with an early mask requirement” – which is defined as a school which required masking at all times from the start of the school year.
By Sally K Lehman
Feb. 9, 2022
Benton County: New Cases: 120, Cumulative Cases: 13,949, Cumulative Deaths: 56
Oregon: New Cases: 3,236, Cumulative Cases: 665,486, Cumulative Deaths: 6,265
With 21 new deaths throughout Oregon – one in Benton County – the state is seeing a decrease in number of new cases. This time last week, there had been just over 5,000 new cases from Tuesday to Wednesday, and there are just over 3,000 new cases.
Oregon Vaccine Mandate
The Oregon Health Authority is moving swiftly to establish masking and vaccination mandates in both schools, and for healthcare workers. The OHA filed permanent rules requiring health care workers to wear masks, and for health care workers in most health care settings to be fully vaccinated.
Dean Sidelinger, M.D., M.S.Ed., state health officer and state epidemiologist, said that while the rules are permanent, OHA can loosen or rescind them as conditions with the pandemic change, particularly with hospitalizations.
“We need to look at the number of COVID-19-positive folks in the hospital who are receiving care and the impact on the ability of the hospitals to provide care,” Sidelinger said. “What we know right now is that those numbers are still increasing but are anticipated to peak soon – within the next week to week and a half – and then are anticipated to come down rather quickly.”
Sidelinger added that the drop in hospitalizations is likely to happen quicker than during the Delta surge in 2021, as the length of stay and the amount of critical care needed for patients is less.
“So I would anticipate, in the coming weeks to month and a half, that we will see a significant decrease in the number of people with COVID in the hospital,” he said.
Sidelinger also said that actions people in Oregon take over the next several weeks will be critical to ensuring the state’s hospitals have enough capacity to meet the needs of all patients needing care.
The Outlook For Corvallis
Mark Ylen, Public Information Officer for Good Samaritan Hospital in Corvallis said nearly all local hospital staff has been vaccinated.
“Samaritan has nearly 6,000 employees. The overall vaccination rate among Samaritan employees is 90% and 97% among health care providers, specifically,” Ylen said. “The remaining 10% is comprised of staff whose positions do not fall under the mandate — mostly remote workers — or have received an approved exception.”
By: Jennifer Williams
J&J Halts Making Covid Vaccine
Johnson & Johnson has stopped making its Covid-19 vaccine at its facility in Leiden, Holland. Their single-shot vaccine which doesn’t require extreme cold has become the choice for most poorer countries, leaving much of Africa worried about where they will get vaccines.
While J&J has other manufacturing facilities, the one in Leiden was the only one which has passed regulatory approval – meaning it is the only one that was making usable medicine. The pharmaceutical company claims to have a large stockpile of the vaccine on hand, and claims that since some African countries have asked to pause new shipments until they use what they have, they don’t need to worry about supplies at the moment.
To date, only 11% of Africans have been fully vaccinated and very few have received their booster. Much of that could be laid at the feet of poor infrastructure making it difficult to get vaccines into the right places and too few medical personnel to administer the shots.
Last summer, J&J projected that they would be able to deliver one billion doses of their Covid vaccine in 2021. They were able to deliver approximately 400 million.
The factory in Leiden will now be making a higher profit vaccine for an unrelated virus.
By Sally K Lehman
Feb. 8, 2022
Benton County: New Cases: 247, Cumulative Cases: 13,829, Cumulative Deaths: 55
Oregon: New Cases: 7,907, Cumulative Cases: 662,250, Cumulative Deaths: 6,244
Over the weekend, 30 people in Oregon died from Covid. One of those people was from Benton County.
Worldwide Covid News
Oregon is joined by Connecticut, Delaware, and New Jersey in announcing proposed dates for lifting statewide indoor mask mandates. California plans to make a decision regarding the topic next week.
Anyone planning to visit Australia will be able to again soon. The island nation to America’s south will be opening its borders to tourists and business travelers who are vaccinated on Feb. 21.
South Korea will be retiring a policy of enforcing quarantines by use of Global Positioning System monitoring and by daily checkup calls. The country is in the midst of an Omicron surge and unable to keep pace with the number of patients who need to be monitored. South Korea has a nine-fold increase in case numbers since mid-January.
Canada has said a firm ‘No Thanks’ to American Republicans offering support for what our neighboring country has been dealing with. The protests in the form of blockades stem from a populous tired of Covid-related restrictions and mandates. Members of the GOP – including Donald Trump – have made several comments in support of the demonstrations, and Trump has called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “far left lunatic” who has “destroyed Canada with insane COVID mandates.”
By Sally K Lehman
Feb. 7, 2022
United States: Cumulative Cases: 78,017,402 Cumulative Deaths: 926,029
World: Cumulative Cases: 395,980,545, Cumulative Deaths: 5,758,701
Benton County Vaccine Event
From January 31 through February 11, there will be vaccines available at the Benton County Fairgrounds from 11:00 a.m. through 6:00 p.m. Read more here…
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