The number of Covid cases in Marion County declined slightly this past week but remained flat in Polk County. Meanwhile, local hospitalizations are down after a small increase last week.
HOSPITAL CAPACITY
The average number of Covid patients at Salem Hospital and throughout the mid-Willamette region declined compared to last week.
As of Friday, Sept. 16, the hospital had 15 inpatients with Covid, three in the ICU and two on a ventilator.
There were 375 of 415 adult acute and critical care beds in use, and 443 total hospital beds in use.
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 ranged between 12 and 21. Last week, Wood said the daily number was between 14 and 23 Covid inpatients.
Region 2, which is Marion, Polk, Yamhill, Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties, had 26 people hospitalized with Covid as of Sept. 16, compared with 29 the week prior and 26 two weeks ago.
CASES
The number of new Covid cases reported decreased slightly both locally and statewide. This data is for the week ending Sept. 13.
Marion County: 42.1 new Covid cases per day on average, a rate of 85 cases per 100,000 residents.
That’s down from 45.1 average daily cases for the week ending Sept. 7 and 46.9 average daily cases for the week ending Aug. 31.
9.4% of Covid tests this week were positive, up from 8.7% last week.
Polk County: 16 new Covid cases per day on average, a rate of 126 cases per 100,000 residents.
That’s compared with an average of 16.1 daily cases the week ending Sept. 7 and 13.4 daily cases the week ending Aug. 31.
11.1% of Covid tests this week were positive, up from 9% last week.
Oregon: 572.4 new cases per day on average, down from 582.4 average daily cases the week prior; 7.5% of tests positive, compared with 7.2% the week prior.
VACCINATION AND BREAKTHROUGH CASES
The Oregon Health Authority switched to a new data dashboard showing trends in cases, hospitalizations and deaths by vaccination status, updated on the second Wednesday of each month. The health authority will next update its data dashboard on Oct. 12.
MANDATES
Oregon’s mask mandate lifted on March 11 at 11:59 p.m.
Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.
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Ardeshir Tabrizian has covered criminal justice and housing for Salem Reporter since September 2021. As an Oregon native, his award-winning watchdog journalism has traversed the state. He has done reporting for The Oregonian, Eugene Weekly and Malheur Enterprise.
