A nurse cares for a Covid patient in the intensive care unit at Salem Hospital on Aug. 20, 2021. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
The number of people hospitalized with Covid in the Salem area rose over the past week, while reported new cases remained mostly flat both in Marion County and statewide.
HOSPITAL CAPACITY
The average number of Covid patients at Salem Hospital is up this week as the hospital remains mostly full.
As of Friday, July 22, the hospital had 45 inpatients with Covid, one in the ICU and none on a ventilator.
There were 492 of 494 licensed hospital beds in use. The hospital is able to care for more patients than it’s licensed for due to waivers related to the ongoing pandemic.
Lisa Wood, Salem Health spokeswoman, said the number of hospitalized Covid patients over the past week has remained between 45 and 54. Last week, Wood said the daily number was between 38 and 49 Covid inpatients.
Region 2, which is Marion, Polk, Yamhill, Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties, had 87 people hospitalized with Covid as of July 20, compared with 80 the week prior and 76 two weeks ago.
CASES
The number of new Covid cases reported remained flat both statewide and in Marion County while declining slightly in Polk County.
This data is for the week ending July 20.
Marion County: 114.6 new Covid cases per day on average, a rate of 231 cases per 100,000 residents.
That’s down from 115.4 average daily cases for the week ending July 13 and 121.9 average daily cases for the week ending July 6.
10.6% of Covid tests this week were positive, down from 12.5% last week.
Polk County: 29.1 new Covid cases per day on average, a rate of 229.4 cases per 100,000 residents.
That’s down from an average of 34.3 daily cases the week ending July 13 and 26.3 daily cases the week ending July 6.
18.7% of Covid tests this week were positive, down from 20.3% last week.
Oregon: 1,410.9 new cases per day on average, down from 1,417.3 average daily cases the week prior; 14.4% of tests positive, compared with 12.9% the week prior.
VACCINATION AND BREAKTHROUGH CASES
The Oregon Health Authority switched to a monthly report on breakthrough cases and will release its next report in early August.
MANDATES
Oregon’s mask mandate lifted on March 11 at 11:59 p.m.
-Ardeshir Tabrizian
