PORTLAND, Ore. — Health officials on Wednesday announced 122 new COVID-19 cases in Oregon. While that number is the lowest count so far this week, it’s still one of the highest daily totals in the state during the pandemic.
The main reason for the decline from Tuesday’s 278 cases and Monday’s 184 cases is that the results from all the tests taken in Union County over the weekend had been processed. Union County reported just two new cases on Wednesday. The county had reported a total of 218 cases over the previous two days in connection to an outbreak linked to the Lighthouse United Pentecostal Church.
Here’s the county breakdown for the new cases reported on Wednesday:
- Benton: 3
- Clackamas: 17
- Deschutes: 2
- Jackson: 2
- Josephine: 2
- Klamath: 3
- Lake: 1
- Lincoln: 3
- Marion: 17
- Morrow: 1
- Multnomah: 34
- Polk: 1
- Umatilla: 12
- Union: 2
- Washington: 22
In addition to the new cases, the Oregon Health Authority reported one more death. The person who died was a 95-year-old woman in Clackamas County, who tested positive on June 4 and died on June 11. Her place of death is being confirmed. She had underlying medical conditions. Oregon’s coronavirus death toll is now 183 people.
Oregon has reported at least 100 new coronavirus cases in nine of the last 11 days. Prior to this stretch, the state had only reported 100 cases in a day once, on April 4.
Health officials have attributed the rise in cases to the partial reopening of the state, workplace outbreaks and increased testing and contact tracing. In a call on Tuesday, an OHA official said 65% of recent cases had been linked to a cluster, such as a workplace, gathering, or family. That means 35% of cases have not been traced to a transmission source, which the official said has the OHA concerned about community spread.
There has been an increasing trend in hospitalizations but they’re still within the state’s capacity, the OHA said.
The recent spike in cases led to Gov. Kate Brown last week putting a hold on all reopening applications, including Phase 1 for Multnomah County, through at least Friday.
There has been a total of 6,218 confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 in Oregon during the pandemic. It’s not known how many of those are active infections. People are presumed to have the virus if they’ve had close contact with a person who tested positive and are exhibiting COVID-19-like symptoms. A total of 184,139 tests have been completed, with 178,132 (96.7%) coming back negative.