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Salem weekly Covid report for July 29: Local hospitalizations, cases decline

The number of Salem-area Covid hospitalizations and cases both in Marion County and statewide declined over the past week.

HOSPITAL CAPACITY

The average number of Covid patients at Salem Hospital and in the mid-Willamette region are down compared to last week.

As of Friday, July 29, the hospital had 34 inpatients with Covid, three in the ICU and two on ventilators. 

There were 416 of 415 adult acute and critical care 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.

The hospital recently expanded its licensed bed capacity from 494 to 644 with the addition of a new tower, but that total includes every potential licensed bed at Salem Hospital including those dedicated to specific uses, like pediatrics, inpatient psychiatry, and labor and delivery.

Lisa Wood, Salem Health spokeswoman, said the number of hospitalized Covid patients over the past week has remained between 34 and 42. Last week, Wood said the daily number was between 45 and 54 Covid inpatients.

Region 2, which is Marion, Polk, Yamhill, Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties, had 65 people hospitalized with Covid as of July 27, compared with 87 the week prior and 80 two weeks ago.

CASES

The number of new Covid cases reported declined both statewide and locally. This data is for the week ending July 27. 

Marion County: 83.7 new Covid cases per day on average, a rate of 168.8 cases per 100,000 residents.

That’s down from 114.6 average daily cases for the week ending July 20 and 115.4 average daily cases for the week ending July 13. 

10.9% of Covid tests this week were positive, up from 10.6% last week.

Polk County: 25 new Covid cases per day on average, a rate of 196.8 cases per 100,000 residents. 

That’s down from an average of 29.1 daily cases the week ending July 20 and 34.3 daily cases the week ending July 13.

11.3% of Covid tests this week were positive, down from 18.7% last week.

Oregon: 1,132.4 new cases per day on average, down from 1,410.9 average daily cases the week prior; 14.2% of tests positive, compared with 14.4% 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