Mark Graves/The OregonianMark Graves
Patients infected with the coronavirus took up 363 Oregon hospital beds Wednesday, a 16% increase over the previous week that signals COVID-19′s continued presence, and impact, on the state and its already strained health care system.
New cases of the coronavirus have also grown, with new state data showing 3,914 new cases reported this week which, at 10% more than the previous week, is all the more notable given testing in Oregon fell by about 6,500 COVID-19 tests, or 15%.
Months ago, health officials effectively dismissed state-reported cases numbers as a metric by which to judge the state of the pandemic in Oregon and elsewhere. That’s because people who test positive using an at-home test don’t have to report those results to the state — assuming they test for the virus at all. But whether cases are climbing or declining does reflect if not the prevalence of the virus, its immediate trajectory.
But with climbing cases amid declining tests, the measure indicating how fast the virus is spreading, test positivity, has also climbed. One in 10 tests this week came back positive, up from 8% of tests reported the previous week.
The increase in hospitalizations this week follows an even steeper jump the previous week, when 81 more patients with COVID-19 were occupying hospital beds than the week prior to that. As of Wednesday, hospitalizations are at a level last seen early August, during the downswing of the summer coronavirus wave.
Oregon Health & Science University’s latest COVID-19 forecast, published Nov. 28, predicts hospitalizations will peak in the first half of December, at about 40 more hospitalizations than Oregon reported Wednesday.
OHSU estimates half of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 were hospitalized for a condition other than the virus and happened to test positive. While the distinction speaks to the severity of the variants prevalent at a given point in time, even a mild coronavirus case in a patient can further tax a health facility due to the extra safety precautions staff and visitors must take.
Besides for the coronavirus, health officials this season are also concerned about the other two respiratory viruses circulating in the country — respiratory syncytial virus and influenza. RSV has already sent dozens of children to pediatric intensive care units this fall, prompting each of the state’s three hospitals that specialize in that care to implement “crisis standards of care.” That means hospitals can assign more patients to each nurse and, if the situation reaches a true crisis point, start rationing care.
Influenza is quickly gaining steam, with 16% of tests for the virus administered during the week ending Nov. 19 coming back positive, compared to 9% just the previous week. In the Portland area 22 people were hospitalized with the flu that week, up from 15 the previous week and 13 the week before that.
Since it began: Oregon has reported 924,632 confirmed or presumed infections and 8,864 deaths.
Hospitalizations: 363 people with confirmed coronavirus infections are hospitalized, up 52 since Wednesday, Nov. 23. That includes 38 people in intensive care, down seven since Nov. 23.
New deaths: Since Nov. 23, the Oregon Health Authority has reported 40 additional deaths connected to COVID-19.
— Fedor Zarkhin
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