Fewer than 100 infections from the strain have been identified in the United States yet federal officials worry it could be the dominant form of the virus by March.
The state does not recommend that anyone exposed to COVID-19 get tested even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its policy to recommend testing.
The number of Oregonians tested for coronavirus during historic wildfires is likely to plummet to levels not seen since this spring, a senior public health adviser said Monday, with the long-term impact of wildfires on the pandemic unclear.
Gov. Kate Brown pushed Umatilla County to stay-at-home status after learning of a study by Oregon State University.
A forecast says the state could see 910 new daily infections by mid-July, with only a fraction identified, and 82 hospital admissions a day.
The Oregon Health Authority on Wednesday refused to release key statistics used to help justify and monitor Oregon counties allowed to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic.
Coronavirus infections in the metro area have largely spared Portland’s close-in neighborhoods and its most exclusive suburban enclaves, flourishing instead among people who live in far-flung suburbs and exploding in the Woodburn area of Marion County.
Oregon will get only half the 20,000 coronavirus tests that Gov. Kate Brown promised from a private commercial lab, and state health officials have no plans to put those tests to immediate use identifying infected residents.
Nearly one out of every 20 visits to an Oregon emergency department during the past week has involved a patient with COVID-19-like symptoms, according to data from the Oregon Health Authority.
